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You're absolutely right, Scott.
O2 is O2.
He is He
Go ahead and pay for the expensive "grade" gasses if you all like, but
according to my guy at BOC Gasses the only difference between the grades is
whether or not they pull 1 or 2 vacuums on the bottles before they fill 'em.
Another thing - you can almost count the places on earth where Helium is
collected on one hand - so there really isn't such a thing as different
"grades" of Helium. It's all purified together, then shipped out (Helium
is most commonly found mixed with Natural Gas). The United States is the
single largest producer of Helium in the world, having the biggest Helium
wells located in Texas, and the largest Helium Liquefier at Liberal, Kansas.
Other sites where Helium is collected are: Keyes Oklahoma, Moab Utah, La
Barge Wyoming, and Arzew Algeria.
In fact, in the 1950's, due to warnings from American scientists that the
supply of Helium on Earth would be gone by 1980, congress allocated one
billion dollars to build a huge separation plant in Amarillo, Texas, and to
begin stockpiling the gas in abandoned underground wells.
It is estimated that unless new sources of Helium are found, that the
planetary supply will be exhausted in about 20 to 50 years. (No s**t).
Since there are so few places where Helium is found and purified, it's a
pretty easy bet that the gas suppliers like Air Products don't have one
part of the factory making "Baloon" grade Helium for the Macy's parade...
So breathe that Heliox while you still can! You'll be able to sit on the
porch and brag to your grandkids how you used to burn twin 120's just for
fun...
By the way: Any kid who took 8th grade science knows you can make O2 by
putting Zinc into Hydrocloric acid (HCl) - so we won't run out of O2 until
the Sun expands and destroys us all in about 5 billion years...
Kevin.
P.S. Interesting Facts about Helium:
1) It is the second most common element in the universe. 1 out of every
10 molecules in the universe is Helium.
2) It was discovered on the Sun before the Earth by Robert Lockyer.
3) All Helium released into the atmosphere eventually drifts out into
space. This means that the Helium you exhale during your dive will float
up high in the atmosphere, and eventually be blown away from the Earth by
the solar wind, to drift through the universe for all eternity.
Whoa. Deep concept there...
3) It is the ultimate refrigerant. It liquifies at -269 degrees C It
cannot turn into a Solid (i.e. It can't freeze).
4) In it's liquid state, it becomes a "superfluid" - it flows without any
friction, and can even flow easily uphill.
5) One of the mission tasks of Apollo 17 (which for you youngsters was the
last mission where we had men on the moon), was to retrieve volcanic ash
samples to determine how much Helium may be present on the moon (no doubt,
NASA thinking ahead). They found it, but it would be a bitch to mine it up
("mine" is the proper word, it's found in vitrified TiO2).
The Moon is also a source of Helium-3 which has been explored as a
relatively stable Fusion energy source (which, when fused with a Deuterium
atom, produces a Helium-4 atom, one Proton, and a ton of energy). Tritium,
which is generally considered the choice for fusion energy due to the fact
we can make lots of it, and already use it to make our atom bombs go
Thermonuclear, is really a poor choice due to the fact that when fused, it
produces a shit-load (a technical term) of Neutrons, which in turn wipe out
most material they come into contact with.
Hell, I could go on - but then no one probably read this far anyway...
; -)
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