6 ms·

One part of this I've never understood: I'm often told that I shouldn't buy or enjoy helium balloons, as it's a waste of important helium. But such a balloon co

by maaaats 12y ago

One part of this I've never understood: I'm often told that I shouldn't buy or enjoy helium balloons, as it's a waste of important helium. But such a balloon costs almost nothing, if helium is so scarce and so important, shouldn't that be reflected in the price? At least that's how stocks work. If something will be in high demand/price in the future, it will shift and be in high demand now.

Tepix 12y ago
Same thing with Tuna - why is it still so cheap to buy a can of Tuna?
- draugadrotten 12y ago
  "Markets" only work when there is a seller, and neither helium nor tuna have a seller. The price of Tuna is set of "how expensive is it to produce a can of tuna" rather than "how many tuna are left in the ocean". In fact, the lower the production cost of tuna fishing, the higher the risk that we empty the ocean of all the tuna. It's really a problem of the Tragedy of the commons. There is no cost of tuna in the ocean, except the cost of fishing it. So it's a commons, and it will be overexploited. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons also: be sure to understand http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collapse_of_the_Atlantic_northwest_cod_fishery http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collapse_of_the_Atlantic_northw...
  - fennecfoxen 12y ago
    Tuna from the ocean at large may be a "commons", sure, but helium comes from natural gas deposits, which tend to be in areas where one nation or another claims exclusive rights to said deposits, treats them like property, and seeks to maximize the value they can extract from them (while still competing with other resource-holders in a market).
- codesuela 12y ago
  AFAIK just big tuna is expensive, like a large whole fish. What you get in the cans are small tuna.
- dagw 12y ago
  There are lots of different types of tuna, some much more expensive than others. The tuna people talk about that is running out and that is used for things like high end sushi is Bluefin tuna which is very expensive. The stuff you get in cheap cans is either Skipjack tuna or Bonito (which are not technically tuna fish) both of which are cheap and relatively plentiful.
- DennisP 12y ago
  Partly because 59% of the tuna Americans eat isn't actually tuna: http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/02/59-of-the-tuna-americans-eat-is-not-tuna/273410/ http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/02/59-of-th...
  - jobu 12y ago
    Wow! They're using escolar (the ex-lax fish) in place of albacore (white) tuna! http://www.thekitchn.com/use-caution-when-eating-escola-66602 http://www.thekitchn.com/use-caution-when-eating-escola-6660... It really seems like the FDA or FTC should be able to regulate that a little bit.
- pbhjpbhj 12y ago
  If those harvesting tuna had to meet the full cost, ie they had to replace the tuna, then tuna would be more expensive. The price doesn't reflect the cost because the planet/ecosystem is being robbed. If I sell fruit but I get it by stealing it from a neighbour then I'll be able to afford to sell the fruit at a far lower cost than the cost of manufacture and still get a profit.
  - r00fus 12y ago
    Fishing, at a low enough volume, it is sustainable, which humans have been doing for dozens of millennia. The problem comes when the threshold is reached and passed. That is specifically the tragedy of the commons. It's a fractal problem - i.e., even if one country fixes the issue through regulation/taxes/prohibition, another country may still overfish a shared body of water. The "full cost" wouldn't need to be replacing each fish caught. It would be a fee/tax to ensure a sustainable fish population - this could still result a reasonable market for fish.
    - pbhjpbhj 12y ago
      >The "full cost" wouldn't need to be replacing each fish caught. It would be a fee/tax to ensure a sustainable fish population - this could still result a reasonable market for fish. // In the past we fished at sustainable levels because we were incapable of fishing to extinction. WWF (http://wwf.panda.org/about_our_earth/blue_planet/problems/problems_fishing/ http://wwf.panda.org/about_our_earth/blue_planet/problems/pr...) say we're taking 2-3 times the volume of fish from the oceans as is sustainable.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
savanaly 12y ago
The U.S. government is selling large quantities of helium at below market prices, apparently (though I'm not sure what a below market price is...if they are willing to keep selling at that price doesn't it become the market price?).
- muraiki 12y ago
  According to the article, this was stopped.
stuartmemo 12y ago
The helium used in balloons is usually old recycled helium called "balloon air" - http://science.slashdot.org/story/12/09/23/0518247/scientists-speak-out-against-wasting-helium-in-balloons http://science.slashdot.org/story/12/09/23/0518247/scientist...
- DennisP 12y ago
  That statement by the chairman of the Balloon Association doesn't make a lot of sense to me. Helium is an inert gas. Recycled helium is just as good as new helium. We extracted it from natural gas, and we can just as well extract it from "balloon air."
  - dagw 12y ago
    It's more a question of purity. If the gas pumped into balloons is actually only 99% helium and 1% miscellaneous gasses then that is not a problem. In many other applications that would make the gas unusable.
    - DennisP 12y ago
      Yes but it wasn't pure when we first pumped it out of the ground, either. I'd bet natural gas has a lower percentage helium than "balloon air." We are able to purify helium.
      - anextio 12y ago
        It costs energy to do that, which is reflected in the lower price of the impure balloon air, no?
        DennisP 12y ago
        It also costs energy to extract helium from natural gas. If running out of helium is our concern, then the balloon air is a source of helium we can exploit just as well as natural gas. It's not like we have helium wells pulling pure helium out of the ground.
tomswartz07 12y ago
For what it's worth, the cost of a cylinder of Helium has risen exponentially in the past few years. One of my first jobs was working in a welding supply shop, and I was astonished to find out that a '100lb' cylinder (they're filled by weight/pressure) of helium was nearly $200. As a comparison, a '100lb'of propane was only about $40.
- bsder 12y ago
  100lb of helium is a LOT more helium, no?
  - spott 12y ago
    by what measure? 100lb of helium is exactly the same by weight as a 100lb of propane. By volume, in a cylinder, it is approximately the same (I believe). By number of atoms, it is much more (a factor of 10 or so).
    - bsder 12y ago
      Weight is the same, but because the number of atoms is so much higher isn't the pressure a lot higher? PV=nRT and all that? I presume the leakage loss in storage also raises the price of Helium. People buy propane just-in-case knowing they can store it forever while helium is a "buy it before you use it" kind of thing.
- MichaelGG 12y ago
  So is this a good investment? Just go buy a bunch of helium tanks and keep them in my basement as a gift to my kids 25 years later? Are speculators already doing this, driving up the price?
  - Terr_ 12y ago
    My hunch is that you'll lose a lot of your investment over 25 years, without spending more on the storage strategy.
  - 12y ago
pbhjpbhj 12y ago
>if helium is so scarce and so important, shouldn't that be reflected in the price? // It's like other "mined" raw materials. Coal takes millions of years to form, requires large quantities of vegetation/animal life and large areas of land. If you charged based on replacement cost then coal prices would be effectively infinite. As with helium. Helium doesn't bond with other atoms to make heavier molecules and so eventually leaks from the atmosphere after release. In order to recover a supply you're going to need to capture it from radioactive decay or do extraterrestrial mining or some similar high cost activity. So it's [comparatively] an infinite replacement cost. However, it's released as a by-product and we currently have enough. When we run out of natural gas sources we'll run out of our main He source too and using helium will become extremely expensive. Even at that point we'll still not be paying the "replacement" cost, just the cost of extracting from more expensive sources. We should be, as a race, preserving helium but there is currently no economic incentive, the incentive lies in the future when our current round of magnates and politicians will likely be dead.
Fomite 12y ago
One thing to keep in mind is that the helium used for balloons is a fairly small amount of helium compared to say, an MRI machine, in the same way a dripping faucet is way less water than a garden hose. But if you leave the dripping faucet on long enough, your water bill is going to go up.

by maaaats 12y ago

Tepix 12y ago

Same thing with Tuna - why is it still so cheap to buy a can of Tuna?

draugadrotten 12y ago
"Markets" only work when there is a seller, and neither helium nor tuna have a seller. The price of Tuna is set of "how expensive is it to produce a can of tuna" rather than "how many tuna are left in the ocean". In fact, the lower the production cost of tuna fishing, the higher the risk that we empty the ocean of all the tuna. It's really a problem of the Tragedy of the commons. There is no cost of tuna in the ocean, except the cost of fishing it. So it's a commons, and it will be overexploited. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons also: be sure to understand http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collapse_of_the_Atlantic_northwest_cod_fishery http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collapse_of_the_Atlantic_northw...
- fennecfoxen 12y ago
  Tuna from the ocean at large may be a "commons", sure, but helium comes from natural gas deposits, which tend to be in areas where one nation or another claims exclusive rights to said deposits, treats them like property, and seeks to maximize the value they can extract from them (while still competing with other resource-holders in a market).
codesuela 12y ago
AFAIK just big tuna is expensive, like a large whole fish. What you get in the cans are small tuna.
dagw 12y ago
There are lots of different types of tuna, some much more expensive than others. The tuna people talk about that is running out and that is used for things like high end sushi is Bluefin tuna which is very expensive. The stuff you get in cheap cans is either Skipjack tuna or Bonito (which are not technically tuna fish) both of which are cheap and relatively plentiful.
DennisP 12y ago
Partly because 59% of the tuna Americans eat isn't actually tuna: http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/02/59-of-the-tuna-americans-eat-is-not-tuna/273410/ http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/02/59-of-th...
- jobu 12y ago
  Wow! They're using escolar (the ex-lax fish) in place of albacore (white) tuna! http://www.thekitchn.com/use-caution-when-eating-escola-66602 http://www.thekitchn.com/use-caution-when-eating-escola-6660... It really seems like the FDA or FTC should be able to regulate that a little bit.
pbhjpbhj 12y ago
If those harvesting tuna had to meet the full cost, ie they had to replace the tuna, then tuna would be more expensive. The price doesn't reflect the cost because the planet/ecosystem is being robbed. If I sell fruit but I get it by stealing it from a neighbour then I'll be able to afford to sell the fruit at a far lower cost than the cost of manufacture and still get a profit.
- r00fus 12y ago
  Fishing, at a low enough volume, it is sustainable, which humans have been doing for dozens of millennia. The problem comes when the threshold is reached and passed. That is specifically the tragedy of the commons. It's a fractal problem - i.e., even if one country fixes the issue through regulation/taxes/prohibition, another country may still overfish a shared body of water. The "full cost" wouldn't need to be replacing each fish caught. It would be a fee/tax to ensure a sustainable fish population - this could still result a reasonable market for fish.
  - pbhjpbhj 12y ago
    >The "full cost" wouldn't need to be replacing each fish caught. It would be a fee/tax to ensure a sustainable fish population - this could still result a reasonable market for fish. // In the past we fished at sustainable levels because we were incapable of fishing to extinction. WWF (http://wwf.panda.org/about_our_earth/blue_planet/problems/problems_fishing/ http://wwf.panda.org/about_our_earth/blue_planet/problems/pr...) say we're taking 2-3 times the volume of fish from the oceans as is sustainable.

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

savanaly 12y ago

The U.S. government is selling large quantities of helium at below market prices, apparently (though I'm not sure what a below market price is...if they are willing to keep selling at that price doesn't it become the market price?).

muraiki 12y ago
According to the article, this was stopped.

stuartmemo 12y ago

The helium used in balloons is usually old recycled helium called "balloon air" - http://science.slashdot.org/story/12/09/23/0518247/scientists-speak-out-against-wasting-helium-in-balloons http://science.slashdot.org/story/12/09/23/0518247/scientist...

DennisP 12y ago
That statement by the chairman of the Balloon Association doesn't make a lot of sense to me. Helium is an inert gas. Recycled helium is just as good as new helium. We extracted it from natural gas, and we can just as well extract it from "balloon air."
- dagw 12y ago
  It's more a question of purity. If the gas pumped into balloons is actually only 99% helium and 1% miscellaneous gasses then that is not a problem. In many other applications that would make the gas unusable.
  - DennisP 12y ago
    Yes but it wasn't pure when we first pumped it out of the ground, either. I'd bet natural gas has a lower percentage helium than "balloon air." We are able to purify helium.
    - anextio 12y ago
      It costs energy to do that, which is reflected in the lower price of the impure balloon air, no?
      - DennisP 12y ago
        It also costs energy to extract helium from natural gas. If running out of helium is our concern, then the balloon air is a source of helium we can exploit just as well as natural gas. It's not like we have helium wells pulling pure helium out of the ground.

tomswartz07 12y ago

For what it's worth, the cost of a cylinder of Helium has risen exponentially in the past few years. One of my first jobs was working in a welding supply shop, and I was astonished to find out that a '100lb' cylinder (they're filled by weight/pressure) of helium was nearly $200. As a comparison, a '100lb'of propane was only about $40.

bsder 12y ago
100lb of helium is a LOT more helium, no?
- spott 12y ago
  by what measure? 100lb of helium is exactly the same by weight as a 100lb of propane. By volume, in a cylinder, it is approximately the same (I believe). By number of atoms, it is much more (a factor of 10 or so).
  - bsder 12y ago
    Weight is the same, but because the number of atoms is so much higher isn't the pressure a lot higher? PV=nRT and all that? I presume the leakage loss in storage also raises the price of Helium. People buy propane just-in-case knowing they can store it forever while helium is a "buy it before you use it" kind of thing.
MichaelGG 12y ago
So is this a good investment? Just go buy a bunch of helium tanks and keep them in my basement as a gift to my kids 25 years later? Are speculators already doing this, driving up the price?
- Terr_ 12y ago
  My hunch is that you'll lose a lot of your investment over 25 years, without spending more on the storage strategy.
- 12y ago

pbhjpbhj 12y ago

>if helium is so scarce and so important, shouldn't that be reflected in the price? // It's like other "mined" raw materials. Coal takes millions of years to form, requires large quantities of vegetation/animal life and large areas of land. If you charged based on replacement cost then coal prices would be effectively infinite. As with helium. Helium doesn't bond with other atoms to make heavier molecules and so eventually leaks from the atmosphere after release. In order to recover a supply you're going to need to capture it from radioactive decay or do extraterrestrial mining or some similar high cost activity. So it's [comparatively] an infinite replacement cost. However, it's released as a by-product and we currently have enough. When we run out of natural gas sources we'll run out of our main He source too and using helium will become extremely expensive. Even at that point we'll still not be paying the "replacement" cost, just the cost of extracting from more expensive sources. We should be, as a race, preserving helium but there is currently no economic incentive, the incentive lies in the future when our current round of magnates and politicians will likely be dead.

Fomite 12y ago

One thing to keep in mind is that the helium used for balloons is a fairly small amount of helium compared to say, an MRI machine, in the same way a dripping faucet is way less water than a garden hose. But if you leave the dripping faucet on long enough, your water bill is going to go up.