London, Aug 24 (IANS) Colourful balloons that float in the air during our birthdays are the only link we have with helium. But the non-renewable gas is being squandered at a rate that it will be gone within 25 years, warn experts.
It would spell disaster for hospitals which use it to cool MRI scanners, reports the Daily Mail.
The world’s biggest store of helium, the most commonly used inert gas, lies in a disused airfield in Amarillo, Texas in the US and is being sold off dirt cheap.
But in 1996, the US government passed a law which states that the facility – the US National Helium Reserve – must be completely sold off by 2015 to recoup the price of installing it.
This implies that helium, a non-renewable gas, is being quickly sold off at increasingly cheap prices, making it uneconomical to recycle.
The American National Aeronautics and Space Administration uses the gas to clean its rockets of fuel while liquid helium is used to cool nuclear reactors and space telescopes.
Nobel laureate Robert Richardson, a physics professor at Cornell University in the US, told New Scientist magazine that once our helium reserves are gone there will be no way of replacing it.
He also warned that although some substitutes can be found for some applications where helium is used, it will be impossible to use a different material for MRI scanners.
Helium gas is seen as a safer alternative to hydrogen for lifting airships and blimps because it is non-flammable.
