Hi Spinlanders,
Just for interest sake, and the fact that it's all over the news, I'd like to comment on the Felix Baumgartner/Red Bull Stratos event that occurred this past Sunday.
As we're all aware there is a shortage of supply of liquid helium in North America and the world and we've all felt the pinch of rationing and sometimes even denial of helium.
Here's what was used for the Stratos mission;
The RedBullStratos Balloon held 30,000,000 cu ft of helium gas. That's 849,600,000 litres of gas, which will condense into 1,132,800 litres of liquid! (750:1 expansion ratio). Depending on where your at that's over $10M worth of helium. http://www.redbullstratos.com/technology/high-altitude-balloon/
We all know helium is non renewable and very difficult to extract from natural gas, and once released to the atmosphere helium is non recoverable.
That volume of helium would supply the University of Alberta, all departments, all helium applications, for over 50 years!
Please let me know the number and frequency of instruments you have in your lab and how long that supply would have sustained your facility. I'll post the results when I get a decent number of responses.
Thanks everyone,
Deryck
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Deryck Webb B.Sc, MBA - Business and Technical Manager
NANUC - Canada's National High Field NMR Centre
Room 103 Email: deryck_at_nanuc.ca
NANUC Bldg. Phone: (780) 492-8530
University of Alberta Fax: (780) 492-9174
Edmonton, Alberta Cell: (780) 707-0857
Canada T6G 2E1 AIM: derycknmr
http://www.nanuc.ca
Received on Tue Oct 16 2012 - 07:57:58 MST