It all started as a joke that someone pulled on their MIL.
About why semi-trucks must keep a distance of 500ft or more whilst on a bridge.
The answer was simple, if there was a logjam of traffic, semi’s bunched up on the bridge could conceivable cause the structure to collapse.
So, my friend, yanking his MIL’s leg, told her the trucks had to be staggered to spread out the weight, " Unless, of course, they are hauling helium, then it doesn’t matter." (Ping Pong Ball Truck Haulers are also exempt from this 500 ft rule )
Great hilarity ensued at the scene of the joke, and at the retelling of it, but then we in a post-joke let down someone did wonder, " * How was helium shipped."*
This way you don’t need quite as high a pressure, but you need very good insulation.
And in case anyone is wondering, these tanks are heavier when they are filled with helium. Liquid helium and pressurized helium gas are both heavier than ambient air.
In bulk quantities I don’t know, but I would imagine really large cylinders. We get ours in smaller cylinders, like you’d see at a fair for balloons. It would be cost-prohibitive to compress/chill it into a liquid (it is always a gas at 1 atm of pressure). As far as I could tell it is not particularly compressable.
Most of the suppliers indicated that it was obtained from the decay of tritium (beta radiation). I seem to recall hearing that it is also found wherever natural gas is sourced from, but I couldn’t support this with any websites and my memory might be mistaken here.
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