helium

[JLa2014]

HEY y'all, I am getting some Helium from Praxiar, but need to pick it up in Reno. I am going via the Green Tortoise bus. if someone can help pick it up, i can probably order an extra tank for yourself. let me know.

JLa

[FossaFerox]

You do realize you're asking someone to transport an SA hazmat through one of the most cop infested stretches of asphalt in the country, right? Best of luck to you...

[maladroit]

If you get pulled over, just crack the valve, wait for everyone to start laughing at the squeaky voices, and drive away!

[FossaFerox]

Then die from filling your vehicle with a simple asphyxiant?

[maladroit]

At least there won't be a fire.

[tatonka]

At least there won't be a fire.

[media]

[JLa2014]

I'm sure no one is bringing anything hazardous to Burning Man, in any makeshift transport devices.

[Captain Goddammit]

It's not that we're personally concerned. We're just telling you the cops are probably concerned about it and you might not want that.

[some seeing eye]

Helium is not very hazardous. If you are camping with GT, just research the camps placed near you, ideally find one Reno-based and see if you can work it. it also might be nice to specify the tank size. Someone has to haul that tank out. You might see who is delivering gases to medical. There might be someone delivering LN2. Or some of the welding camps may be picking up and dropping off gases.

[FossaFerox]

Helium isn't overly hazardous, but it still isn't something you'd want to transport in a passenger vehicle. The thing about simple asphyxiants is you don't FEEL like you're unable to breathe. There's no gasping/panic sensation. That comes from the build up of CO2 which doesn't happen if you're breathing air that's saturated with an SA. When the oxygen is simply displaced by an SA gas you feel fine, until you pass out and die of hypoxia.

This isn't something any old person with a car/van/bus/truck can step up and volunteer to help with, so the OP might want to do something more than post on the shelter/camping forum a few days before the burn.

[Sham]

Helium is inert and can be transported safely by someone with a small amount of common sense. The metal cap MUST be in place on the tank and the valve removed for transport.

[Captain Goddammit]

I could be wrong but I thought all high pressure bottles of gasses had to be transported upright and chained in place.
The only cops that would care are the D.O.T. cops... which I guess are about the only ones I haven't seen out there.

[GreyCoyote]

For the love of Pete, we fill ballons with this stuff and give them to children to play with. Its an inert gas. I use it for TIG all the time.

I can tell you there are no "sneaky" leaks from a helium cylinder. Mine run 2600 psi, and ANY leak causes an earsplitting noise that you cant miss. If its small enough to go unnoticed, the amount being leaked is far below hazardous, and you dont have a problem.

That said, DOT rules are to transport any compressed gas cylinder upright, capped, in a "separate space" (or open air) and chained with placards and decals intact.

Life is dangerous. How many of us commute each day in a car holding 15 gals of gasoline? Now THAT stuff is dangerous....

[Captain Goddammit]

Oh wait my bad. I checked, under 1000 cubic feet of helium is legal in a car.

We don't carry gasoline in the passenger compartment... unless we are driving an old pickup truck that had the tank in the cab behind the seat!! But the last one of those I had, I moved it.

[GreyCoyote]

Oh wait my bad. I checked, under 1000 cubic feet of helium is legal in a car..

Did your voice just change a bunch higher? LOL.

My point (I had a point? Oh wait, yep... Here it is) was there are a bunch of fuckos that go to the desert every year to burn shit and blow shit up ("safety third") and here someone is wringing their soot-stained hands over a tank of *helium.*

Maybe I just lack the requisite perspective...

[Captain Goddammit]

All I'm about is getting there and back without any trouble from the hall monitors with the guns and badges.
Had more than enough of that in my life to need any more!!

[Jackass]

Just like chicken little, the sky is ALWAYS falling.

[FossaFerox]

It's not that I think it's particularly dangerous, it's that what danger it has is easy to overlook and the OP is asking someone uninvolved and potentially unaware to take the risk (both real and legal).

Yes, normally only DOT would pay close attention to this kind of thing, but ordinarily you don't get stopped and ticketed for having a bicycle partially blocking your plate either.

Based on the original post I'd been assuming the tank is over 1k cf and I'm still convinced it is.

Oh, and lots of gas supply companies supply cylinders with tapped, uncapped nozzles. We pick up CO2 and nitrogen for work regularly and they're ready to be used on pickup.

[VultureChow]

The largest tank on the praxair site is 291 cf.

I transport full diving tanks pretty often, and an 80 (your standard tank) only holds 80 cf at 3000 psi. You'd be transporting 12 of those to get to 1000 cf.

[FossaFerox]

Huh, imagine that. I retract precisely half of my gloomy naysaying.

[VultureChow]

[media]

[FossaFerox]

Made my morning.