Commercial caving

[Roger W]

Maybe the way on is to use robot cavers - small enough to get through those openings that would otherwise need "slightly enlarging" and fitted with enought sensors to avoid any vulnerable formations?  Then we could do all our caving in comfort from our armchairs, without any risk to the caves themselves...

 

[royfellows]

I think maybe we already have armchair cavers Roger.

 

[andrewmcleod]

Maybe the way on is to use robot cavers - small enough to get through those openings that would otherwise need "slightly enlarging" and fitted with enought sensors to avoid any vulnerable formations?  Then we could do all our caving in comfort from our armchairs, without any risk to the caves themselves...

Drones?

I would be quite happy if all pretty caves were fitted with 17cm high slots at the entrance
I would say all caves, but then the number of people caving might plummet too dramatically...

Actually I've just checked and it turns out that according to the web I am skinnier than a Daren drum (~19cm apparently), so there would have to be a Daren-drum gap so I can get my bag through!

 

[Kenilworth]

I've already used drones to rule out high leads that would otherwise require extensive bolt-climbs. This could be a marginal but occasionally useful conservation technique.

 

[Disgusted from Cornwall.]

We've got a 50m shaft to bolt climb and I was thinking about a go pro on a helium balloon. It's the sort of thing that if it goes, it will be utterly incredible.

 

[royfellows]

We've got a 50m shaft to bolt climb and I was thinking about a go pro on a helium balloon. It's the sort of thing that if it goes, it will be utterly incredible.

There is always the hard way like I did at Frongoch. Start working off an aluminium ladder, put in your stemples and build your platforms, and then a fixed ladder. (Treated 4 X 2 and 15mm rebar rungs), then aluminium ladder to the next stage, repeat.

 

[cavemanmike]

We've got a 50m shaft to bolt climb and I was thinking about a go pro on a helium balloon. It's the sort of thing that if it goes, it will be utterly incredible.

you could maypole 50m in an evening with a 10m ladders.
I use an aluminum scaf cut into 2m sections

 

[andrewmcleod]

We've got a 50m shaft to bolt climb and I was thinking about a go pro on a helium balloon. It's the sort of thing that if it goes, it will be utterly incredible.

I've just done some maths, assuming 15 degrees Celcius (density air 1.2250 g/l, helium 0.1693 g/l) and using the lightest GoPro Hero 4 Session (74g) - many GoPros are quite a bit heavier.

You need approximately 70l of helium, not accounting for the weight of the balloon itself or guide line. That is a sphere 50cm across.

I have tried to look up party balloon data; this study http://www.physics.usyd.edu.au/~cross/PUBLICATIONS/36.%20PartyBalloons.pdf of a 25cm x 20cm balloon (more like what we usually see in the UK, I think) had a balloon mass of 1.3g and a volume of 5.5l. This gives each balloon a lifting capacity of 4.5g (accounting for the balloon mass), and so we need 17 balloons.

I can't find line densities for skinny cords/fishing lines, so I am going with 1.15 g/cm^3 for nylon and assuming a 0.5mm diameter cord, giving ~0.23 g/m. With a 60m guideline, I get ~13.5 g. Total mass is then ~88g (GoPro and cord).

I've just discovered there is a Hero Session 5 which is 73g and I need to include the mass of the microSD card which is about 0.5g. Conveniently these errors cancel each other out, rounding up

With the same balloons as earlier, we now need 20 balloons. To account for incomplete fill, temperature changes, miscalculations or estimates and (potentially significantly) draughts, I would have at least 50% extra balloons if not double.

That's a lot of balloons! Try and do it with an original GoPro (~150g?) and you will need yet more balloons...

 

[Chocolate fireguard]

Bin bags and garden refuse sacks come in sizes up to a couple of hundred litres.
The helium would be at atmospheric pressure. In a balloon its density would be (marginally) increased.
A puncture would produce a relatively gentle descent.
Swaying and turbulance would produce some spillage so excess lift would be needed at first.

Might be worth a try before doing it the hard way.
At the very least you could have some fun with the silly voices.

 

[owd git]

We've got a 50m shaft to bolt climb and I was thinking about a go pro on a helium balloon. It's the sort of thing that if it goes, it will be utterly incredible.

I've just done some maths, assuming 15 degrees Celcius (density air 1.2250 g/l, helium 0.1693 g/l) and using the lightest GoPro Hero 4 Session (74g) - many GoPros are quite a bit heavier.

You need approximately 70l of helium, not accounting for the weight of the balloon itself or guide line. That is a sphere 50cm across.

I have tried to look up party balloon data; this study http://www.physics.usyd.edu.au/~cross/PUBLICATIONS/36.%20PartyBalloons.pdf of a 25cm x 20cm balloon (more like what we usually see in the UK, I think) had a balloon mass of 1.3g and a volume of 5.5l. This gives each balloon a lifting capacity of 4.5g (accounting for the balloon mass), and so we need 17 balloons.

I can't find line densities for skinny cords/fishing lines, so I am going with 1.15 g/cm^3 for nylon and assuming a 0.5mm diameter cord, giving ~0.23 g/m. With a 60m guideline, I get ~13.5 g. Total mass is then ~88g (GoPro and cord).

I've just discovered there is a Hero Session 5 which is 73g and I need to include the mass of the microSD card which is about 0.5g. Conveniently these errors cancel each other out, rounding up

With the same balloons as earlier, we now need 20 balloons. To account for incomplete fill, temperature changes, miscalculations or estimates and (potentially significantly) draughts, I would have at least 50% extra balloons if not double.

That's a lot of balloons! Try and do it with an original GoPro (~150g?) and you will need yet more balloons...

Ask a physicist, or father of one; the only element in the periodic table that can escape our planetary gravity is Helium, and is a finite resource on this wee rock in space. bethink your interplanetry footprint please.

 

[JasonC]

We've got a 50m shaft to bolt climb and I was thinking about a go pro on a helium balloon. It's the sort of thing that if it goes, it will be utterly incredible.

you could maypole 50m in an evening with a 10m ladders.
I use an aluminum scaf cut into 2m sections

Drain rods?  You'd only need, er.. 55 of them. And your Go Pro might wobble a bit when up aloft, but still mebbe lighter than 25 sections of scaff ?

Anyway, we seem to have drifted somewhat off topic, but still relevant to conservation.  A bit.

 

[Chocolate fireguard]

Yes it's still relevant to conservation, perhaps not cave Conservation. Owd git is right about helium being a finite (and diminishing) resource on our planet. It seems it's the Yanks to blame - they have most of the World's stock  and are flogging it at giveaway prices just to get rid of it, so it's far cheaper than it should be and so not worth recycling.
Now if Disgusted from Cornwall were Disgusted from Derbyshire he would be ideally placed to harvest his own helium from a renewable source.
A trip down Giants and a few good lungfuls should do it!

 

[owd git]

Do you mean Radon?
or methane from the decomposing sheep and their poo? 
O.G.

 

[andrewmcleod]

Physics lesson time

The Earth's stock of helium is formed from radioactive decay of heavier elements (details in a minute). (incredibly simplified/probably not-quite-right explanation follows) Oil reserves are formed when oil, having been formed at low concentrations over a large area, rises through the overlying rock until it is trapped by an impermeable bed, typically an anticline so the oil doesn't escape out the 'sides'. Helium will also rise and be trapped in the same way, which is why helium is collected from (some) oil wells (but not most).

Radon is, like many other radioactive isotopes, an 'alpha' emitter. It decays radioactively by expelling an alpha particle (2 protons and 2 neutrons) from its nucleus, which lowers the mass of the atomic nucleus and makes it more stable (it also converts the atom into a radioactive isotope of polonium). The plucky little alpha particle will shoot off until it is able to steal two electrons from somewhere (the new polonium atom will have 2 too many electrons so it will, I presume, lose them somewhere) and become a helium atom (until then it is a helium ion; alpha particle is just shorthand for 'helium-nucleus-going-somewhere-quickly-because-it-was-just-produced-by-radioactive-decay'.

So when Chocolate Fireguard suggests going down Giants that is to collect the helium produced from radon decay. Whether there is actually enough to measure is a different thing!

PS hydrogen will also not stick around in the Earth's atmosphere but there is a lot more water around to easily make hydrogen from.

PPS having checked good old Wikipedia, the current rate of loss of hydrogen and helium from the atmosphere is 3kg and 50g per second, respectively, or ~90,000 and ~1,500 tons a year, respectively... Global demand of helium is apparently 30,000 tons a year (I doubt much of this is recycled). The major practical problem is not that we lose released helium from the Earth and more that once you have let it out of a balloon into the atmosphere it is very hard to get it back out again, even if it does stick around!

PPPS https://www.chemistryworld.com/news/scientists-unearth-one-of-worlds-largest-helium-gas-deposits/1010122.article

 

[Chocolate fireguard]

Do you mean Radon?
or methane from the decomposing sheep and their poo? 
O.G.

I meant radon.
It was just a joke

Physics lesson time

The Earth's stock of helium is formed from radioactive decay of heavier elements (details in a minute). (incredibly simplified/probably not-quite-right explanation follows) Oil reserves are formed when oil, having been formed at low concentrations over a large area, rises through the overlying rock until it is trapped by an impermeable bed, typically an anticline so the oil doesn't escape out the 'sides'. Helium will also rise and be trapped in the same way, which is why helium is collected from (some) oil wells (but not most).

Radon is, like many other radioactive isotopes, an 'alpha' emitter. It decays radioactively by expelling an alpha particle (2 protons and 2 neutrons) from its nucleus, which lowers the mass of the atomic nucleus and makes it more stable (it also converts the atom into a radioactive isotope of polonium). The plucky little alpha particle will shoot off until it is able to steal two electrons from somewhere (the new polonium atom will have 2 too many electrons so it will, I presume, lose them somewhere) and become a helium atom (until then it is a helium ion; alpha particle is just shorthand for 'helium-nucleus-going-somewhere-quickly-because-it-was-just-produced-by-radioactive-decay'.

So when Chocolate Fireguard suggests going down Giants that is to collect the helium produced from radon decay. Whether there is actually enough to measure is a different thing!

PS hydrogen will also not stick around in the Earth's atmosphere but there is a lot more water around to easily make hydrogen from.

PPS having checked good old Wikipedia, the current rate of loss of hydrogen and helium from the atmosphere is 3kg and 50g per second, respectively, or ~90,000 and ~1,500 tons a year, respectively... Global demand of helium is apparently 30,000 tons a year (I doubt much of this is recycled). The major practical problem is not that we lose released helium from the Earth and more that once you have let it out of a balloon into the atmosphere it is very hard to get it back out again, even if it does stick around!

PPPS https://www.chemistryworld.com/news/scientists-unearth-one-of-worlds-largest-helium-gas-deposits/1010122.article

I must remember never to tell Andrew a joke.

 

[Oceanrower]

I'm still puzzled by how a finite resource can have a renewable source. 

 

[aricooperdavis]

I guess finite and renewable aren't as black and white as they seem. Most resources that are considered finite renew over time - oil, gas, and coal, whilst considered finite resources, are forming as we speak (just so slowly that it's no use to us). Helium treads a similar line, it's slowly reproduced by radioactive decay, but not as useful rates, so it is, in practice, a finite resource.

 

[Bob Smith]

It's the differnce between resource and reserve

Reserve
"those quantities of (insert mineral of choice here) claimed to be commercially recoverable by application of development projects to known accumulations under defined conditions."

Resource
"quantities of (insert mineral of choice here) estimated, as of a given date, to be potentially recoverable from known accumulations, but the projects are not yet considered mature enough for commercial development due to one or more contingencies.

this is an over simplification, but give you an idea.

 

[Kenilworth]

Haha, sorry Kenilworth I'm getting ahead of myself, I'll excercise a bit of patience!

I have posted my response to your points as a separate topic. Though I tried to cut it down to something readable, I'm afraid I've rambled again. And though I've disagreed with your conclusions, I am respectful of your position.

 

[owd git]

Yadda Yadda!
Try a posative input.
O.G.