OT: Floating across a river using helium balloons?

[Commander Kinsey]

does he plan to control altitude?

[Snit]

As the goes too high pop a balloon? Or two or three or four?

[micky]

The guy out west who flew in a lawn chair brought a rifle or BB-gun with him to shoot out the balloons as needed, but then he dropped the gun.

IIUC, he's still floating somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean.

[Commander Kinsey]

Don't all Merkins have 50 guns on their person all the time anyway?

[Commander Kinsey]

And then when you want to go higher? I guess you could carry a helium tank and fill some more.

Hang on, isn't Helium getting extremely rare and is needed to cool MRI machines?

really ought to ban using Helium for party balloons, or the medical scientists should stockpile it for the future.

[Snit]

Maybe he can just become light headed?

Have heard this before... and, yeah, we should prioritize if needed.

[Snit]

By law we have to. 49 of mine are glue guns.

[micky]

I don't do that but I have a knife in my shoe.

[micky]

That's what I was t hinking, but not because of MRIs -- they don't have to refill MRIs very often, do they? --, but because they sell heliium balloons at the dollar store. A dollar is nothing and people buy several at a time, for every crummy little occasion. It seems like a luxury to me and there should be a $9 tax on the amount needed to fill one balloon and an 1800% tax on any helium when used for a frivolity. I had one helium balloon in my whole childhood, and my father made a lot of money. No one needs more than one (No one *needs* one.)

I haven't read the article above yet, but I decided if no one's worried, it must be because it's a byproduct of a company like Air Products**, that extracts ?? oxygen?? from air and maybe other things

Well, I had reached peace, but now that I read the article, I'm unhappy again, and it will be worse if I go to the store. Fortunately because of the virus, I don't go to stores.

Why is no one taxing these balloons? I'll bet we could balance the budget if we did.

** Products is the world's leading supplier of helium. We have built a reputation for innovation in gas and cylinders for inflating helium balloons.

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Our dedicated team of balloon helium experts can advise on the type of cylinder you need, place your order and ensure you get your balloon gas on time.

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Well, I was right that they're a major producer of helium, but I sse no numbers comparing their production to the total amount used and lost.

[Brian Gaff (Sofa]

Well if its David there is an illusion here. His illusion designers are very good.

Brian

[Brian Gaff (Sofa]

Dropping the gun made hin go up. It was the only way to compensate for shooting out too many with the gun, sadly not thought through to the end.

I did wonder if you could cheat a weigh bridge by carrying lots of helium balloons in your truck so you could take more heavy stuff in your truck. Brian

[Xeno]

We don't use helium, we use hot air.

Now there's an employment opportunity for you!

[Ed Pawlowski]

If the helium is released, does it not just go back to the atmosphere to be recovered again?

[dpb]

On 8/21/2020 10:18 AM, Ed Pawlowski wrote: ...

No...is so light the solar wind actually removes it from atmosphere...and He is recovered from natural gas or wells from locations where He domes have formed.

I don't believe there's any commercial production by extraction from air...it's just too dilute a source.

[Snit]

That explains the bumper sticker I saw the other day: He has risen.

Thanks.

[invalid unparseable]

Nope.

[micky]

You had me stuck for a couple minutes, but...

I'm not convinced of this, at all.

But I do know this is true. So it's these wells etc. where there are big bunches of it, compared to the air where they only get a tiny bit from the air they process and the amount released from broken balloons etc. increases that by .00001% or so. So it doesnt' come close to making up for what is used.

When they break down air into its parts, they're not primarily looking for helium. That wouldn't be worth it financially. It's just a byproduct. I wonder if those portable oxygen concentrators are making a dent in their market for 02. I wonder if the concentrators work so well that hospitals will some day use them instead of buying 02.

Did you read my prior post?

** Products is the world's leading supplier of helium. We have built a reputation for innovation in gas and cylinders for inflating helium balloons.

Now they don't say here that they are extracting the helium from the air, but I think it' s understood. I dont' think they are buying it from people with wells. There are probably other pages or urls where it is explicit, or if need be, one could call them on the phone and ask.

Customer service: 1 [phone] Technical support: 1 [phone] Well, I called this one. Hours are

9 to 5, and the machine said they'd call me back within 5 days. Of course the machine thought I was a customer.

I see they are hq'd in Allentown Pa. My mother lived there for 15 years, no wonder I know the name of the company. I suppose there are other companies that do the same thing.

[dpb]

See

or don't you believe university sources, either?

I knew all about that already...they have facilities here as this is heart of Hugoton gas field.

...

There's a good reason they don't say that -- they're not.

"Because helium is rare in our atmosphere, it is too costly to recover by atmospheric separation like other industrial gases. The primary source is from certain natural gas fields; even then, it occurs at concentrations well below 2 percent. Also, there are only a few places in the world that have the composition of natural gas required to economically extract helium. And even fewer companies have the resources and expertise to keep a reliable supply of helium flowing to their customers.

Air Products designed and built the first cryogenic system for extracting helium from natural gas in the 1950s and first developed coiled wound heat exchangers for the industry in the 1960s. Today, we?ve built the majority of the helium plants in use around the world. We continue to supply innovative technology to keep the largest U.S. supply system in peak operation."

[Ed Pawlowski]

No, they are not practical on large scale for a hospital. For one they require electricity so are vulnerable in case pf power failures. Purity is not as high. The sieve beds to supply a hospital would be huge if you wanted a central source.

[Commander Kinsey]

Makes more sense than the biblical version.