Enjoy breathing helium to obtain that high… pitched voice that comes out when you then talk whilst exhaling the rare gas? Well think again because scientists are saying that we are about to be struck by a helium shortage.
Professor Tom Welton of London’s Imperial College warns that because of a global helium shortage, the gas, should be saved for important things like cooling large magnetic coils inside MRI machines and processing silicone wafers used in the manufacturing of electronics.
Prof Welton told BBC Radio 4’s Today show: “We’re not going to run out of helium tomorrow – but on the 30 to 50 year timescale we will have serious problems of having to shut things down if we don’t do something in the mean time.”
However, in defense of his products, John Lee, the chairman of the UK’s Balloon Association says that balloon makers would never take pure medical grade helium such as used in MRI machines and other procedures, instead Lee says they use recycled helium which is taken from the medical industry and mixed with normal air. Still want to go around sniffing balloon grade helium?
So here we are, as the Mayans predicted, now under 90 days before doomsday, on the brink of a global helium shortage and even more incredibly, just finding out now that the UK actually has a Balloon Association. It’s the end of the world as we know it but our geniuses here at We Interrupt have come up with a solution for this helium shortage. And by our geniuses I really mean me.
You see, the sun is made up of about 28% helium and I propose we go mine it directly there. 28% of the sun is still huge compared to the whole earth and if you’re worried that mining workers will burn up as they approach the sun’s surface don’t. Because safety should always come first, we have a solution for that too:
We’ll send them at night.
[Source]
