Who knew there was a worldwide shortage of Helium? I gotta pay more attention to the welding department at work.
http://www.huskers.com/ViewArticle.dbml?DB_OEM_ID=100&ATCLID=205584545
Hell, I must be getting too old. I have lived to see another Nebraska tradition bite the dust.
From here out, it's BYOB at Memorial Stadium! (Bring Your Own Balloons)
GO BIG BALLOON-LESS RED!
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Country, I was PO'd when they did away with the Knot whole section or tightened up the security so it was darn near impossible to continue the tradition of 20 or 30 kids gathering discreetly, whistling, trying to look innocent near where the Band entered the stadium and when they opened the gates we'd all rush through the rows in the band and head all the way home to see our beloved Huskers. Of course some of the slow guys we duped into the scheme would be caught by the Fuzz, but in those days nobody cared, no crime.
I have a confession to make, I never got into the whole balloon deal. If it was being done when I was a youtz in the 50's and early 60's I'm sure I would think it was sacred. When it was started, I was older, probably thinking about girls instead of balloons at the games. One of my sacred memories as a Youtz was rolling into Lincoln from the sand hills, mouth agape, mesmerized by the sight of an escalator at Golds, but the important part: the cigar smoke filled lobby of the old Lincoln Hotel. I would sit in the Lobby, my heart rate twice normal and observe things like the OU band stumble out of the bar and head to the field, OU band members being left behind because they were doing other things when their buses left. Important looking gentleman, dressed in red blazers, red cowboy hats, smoking cigars getting quite excited as it became time to "head to the stadium." That was quite a trip, I don't think my feet touched the ground as my parents escorted me to Memorial Stadium, some, (this can't be possible) FIFTY YEARS AGO1 GO BIG RED1
OK. I looked it up.
"In 1996, Congress moved to privatize the federal helium program, requiring all of the government’s helium supplies to be sold off by 2015. "The legislation in 1996 says we were supposed to get out of the helium business," says Joe Peterson, the Bureau of Land Management’s assistant field manager for helium in Amarillo. "The hope was by 2015, by the time the reserve was sold down, that new sources of helium would be online and take up the demand. However, it has not happened yet."
Though new private helium production plants are set to come online in the coming years—including a Wyoming plant expected to open later this year—private industry hasn’t been as interested in producing helium as Congress hoped. Until more companies begin producing helium on their own, consumers are left with spiking prices and tightening supplies."
"Getting the government out of the helium business completely isn’t possible yet, Nelson said, because private industry’s response to the required government sell-off has been too slow and the geology of the helium reservoir near Amarillo is too complex to simply sell off the helium stored inside and then close its doors. "If the valve was simply left wide open to deplete the entire supply at once, valuable helium would be stranded in the ground and never recovered," he said.
The U.S. Senate is considering a bill called the Helium Stewardship Act of 2012. It would extend the 2015 deadline for the sell-off of the Federal Helium Program and allow the federal government to continue supplying world markets with helium, selling it at market prices instead of government-set prices. Nelson testified on behalf of the bill, saying that if it’s not passed, the funding mechanism for the BLM’s helium operations will expire, leaving researchers and MRI manufacturers in the cold by the end of next year. But Congress has taken no action on the bill since its introduction in April."
Looks to me like it's that free market that everyone is clamoring for that let us down on helium, not the government there Blue Sky.
I do realize it is very trendy to blame the government for everything these days, but I don't think anyone is itching to get into the helium business apparently, as the US Government is trying to get out, but can't.
Nice editing but no cigar.
No editing. Copied verbatum from Popular Mechanics.
You know, that lamestream liberal publication, Popular Mechanics.
Sheesh.
Why let the facts get in the way of politics, eh?
I was not aware that the government was in charge of helium production. Does it compete with big oil somehow? Do we need all the helium for fracking?
Look it up, the federal government controls helium storage.
Come on there has to be plenty of Hot Air in Lincoln between Bo and Barney.. Just Saying
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