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The presenter of the Royal Institution's 2012 Christmas Lectures, Peter Wothers, will use the series to argue against wasting valuable helium gas in party balloons.
In a number of lectures entitled The Modern Alchemist, Wothers, a chemist at the University of Cambridge and a fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry, warns that frivolous uses of our diminishing supplies of helium are a great concern. "The scarcity of helium is a really serious issue," Wothers will say. "I can imagine that in 50 years time our children will be saying 'I can't believe they used such a precious material to fill balloons'."
Despite being the second most abundant material in the universe, helium is scarce on Earth as its lightness mean it is not gravitationally bound to the atmosphere and is constantly being lost to space. The majority of the world's helium supply is created through natural radioactive decay and cannot be artificially synthesised meaning the gas is a non-renewable resource.
Aside from party balloons, helium has a wide range of important applications, from cooling superconducting magnets in MRI machines and particle accelerators to making breathing easier for newborn babies in hospital and deep sea divers.
As Wothers will note, "If we keep using it for non-essential things like party balloons, where we're just letting it float off into space, we could be in for some serious problems in around 30 to 50 years time. The gas is hugely valuable."
The comments echo fellow scientists' concerns over the world's helium shortage. Another Cambridge lecturer, William Nuttall, called for the establishment of an International Helium Agency to prevent squandering the resource.
According to a spokesperson for the Royal Institution: "Peter isn't being a party pooper, rather he is using this year's lecture series to draw attention to a serious scientific and societal issue: the worldwide scarcity of helium."
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
