[HN Gopher] Helium: South Africa strikes new 'gold'
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Helium: South Africa strikes new 'gold'
Author : wjSgoWPm5bWAhXB
Score : 41 points
Date : 2021-10-28 10:06 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (phys.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (phys.org)
| yumraj wrote:
| I'm more interested in knowing how do I buy gas rights for 87,000
| hectares for $1. Any pointers?
| jimbob45 wrote:
| It's possible China already owns the rights via their Belt and
| Road loans.
| latchkey wrote:
| I spent two years on a motorbike all over Vietnam, Cambodia
| and Laos. I've seen the effect of this first hand.
|
| It isn't pretty.
| hypertele-Xii wrote:
| May I press you for a more detailed anecdote?
| latchkey wrote:
| China has built railways and roads all the way to
| Sihanoukville (google this, tons of articles). If you
| look on a map, this gives them great shipping access to
| South Africa that doesn't involve dealing with Myanmar or
| Thailand. It totally destroyed the small town and
| surrounding area. Turned Sihanoukville into fighting,
| gambling and whores like straight out of a Western.
|
| In order to do this, they bought up all the land from the
| locals. To power it all, they built dams along various
| rivers including the Mekong. Part of it was promises of
| providing electricity to communities, but it is really
| just a money grab.
|
| It is all an utter eco disaster. Nobody cares cause it is
| all "developing nations". Tunnels straight through
| mountains (or just level them entirely). Zero concern
| destroyed forests. Buying up all the land from the locals
| so they could move their own families in and then charge
| the locals rent.
|
| Property prices got pushed up such that locals can't even
| afford land in their own country. The dams have screwed
| up natural water flows so now there are drought and
| floods. Nam Ngum Reservoir in Laos shows up on Google
| maps full of blue water, but if you go there, it is
| empty.
|
| There is interesting economics around USD in Cambodia
| too... becomes a great place for China to launder USD.
| They have their own currency, which is conveniently
| 1:0.25. The rare time you spend local currency, you get
| change in quarters.
|
| None of this gets much news coverage, but google a bit
| and you'll find it all. Stuff like this...
|
| https://www.intrepidtravel.com/adventures/why-we-no-
| longer-t...
| yumraj wrote:
| why do you think China is involved here? didn't see anything
| in the post.
|
| I thought this was maybe due to massive royalties that must
| have been part of the deal.
| jimbob45 wrote:
| China has been heavily investing in African countries via a
| targeted strategic loan program called the Belt and Road
| initiative[0]. It's entirely possible that China owns the
| rights to the area via one of these loans.
|
| [0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belt_and_Road_Initiative
| rozab wrote:
| SA has highly developed industrial infrastructure,
| particularly around natural resource extraction. I don't
| think it's what Belt and Road is about.
| rsj_hn wrote:
| > It's entirely possible that China owns the rights to
| the area
|
| Just because it's in Africa? I mean, wow, that's a
| stretch.
| rsj_hn wrote:
| Probably the same way you'd get Steve Jobs to work for you for
| $1 per year. Have that be part of a much larger package and
| this is thrown in just to meet the legal requirements of
| compensation.
| nradov wrote:
| This is good news for scuba divers. Helium prices have increased
| by a factor of 10x.
| bpodgursky wrote:
| Tbh scuba diving is kind of a waste of helium, and I'd rather
| they not use a nonrenewable resource for recreation.
| zardo wrote:
| Are many rec divers using trimix?
| leo-leo wrote:
| I was under the impression helium mixtures are only used for
| deeper dives, and thus seen more often in occupational diving
| rather then recreational.
| nradov wrote:
| "Waste" is in the eye of the beholder. We also use a lot of
| nonrenewable fossil fuels and plastics for all types of
| recreation. Should that all be prohibited?
|
| Most refined helium is a byproduct of natural gas production.
| If we don't use the helium then natural gas drillers will
| just vent it into the atmosphere.
| bpodgursky wrote:
| Nonrenewable fossil fuels are a waste of energy and
| pollute, but there are both natural and artificial means to
| undo the damage, sequester the carbon, or produce gas out
| of biofuels etc.
|
| When you use helium, it literally floats to the top of the
| atmosphere and escapes into space. It's never, ever coming
| back. It's a totally different class of "nonrenewable".
| nradov wrote:
| If we don't use the helium then natural gas producers
| just vent it into the atmosphere anyway. Helium is
| somewhat renewable because more is constantly created by
| underground decay of radiative isotopes.
| elihu wrote:
| It's used in welding too sometimes, though argon and CO2 are
| used more. I think helium is recommended for TIG welding copper
| if you don't have a really high-powered rig since it allows for
| better heat transfer, but I've managed it with argon.
| blakesterz wrote:
| "Renergen estimates its helium reserve could be as much as 9.74
| billion cubic meters--larger than the known reserves in the
| entire United States. That's enough to fill about 1.4 trillion
| party balloons."
|
| I love it when articles have random units of measurements like
| that!
| giarc wrote:
| Not really random given most people interact with helium in the
| form of a balloon, however I would say that no one on Earth
| could comprehend 1.4 trillion balloons.
| twic wrote:
| The song '99 Luftballoons' / '99 Red Balloons' was released
| 38 years ago, and sold 2,866,500 certified copies. If
| everyone who bought a copy listened to it twice a week since
| it came out, and released 99 balloons every time they did,
| they would have released 1.1 trillion ballons.
| 11thEarlOfMar wrote:
| Sorry to burst your balloon, but there isn't enough rubber.
| dorkwood wrote:
| How much rubber is there?
| 11thEarlOfMar wrote:
| It's hard to quantify, because the market is so elastic.
| latchkey wrote:
| Are they big or small party balloons?
| HappyDreamer wrote:
| Assuming medium size, then, @giarc:
|
| > I would say that no one on Earth could comprehend 1.4
| trillion balloons
|
| Consider this: If everyone on the planet got 1 party
| balloon every month, we'd deplete that helium source in
| about 10 years.
| BoxOfRain wrote:
| >I love it when articles have random units of measurements like
| that!
|
| There's a uniquely British phenomenon where large areas are
| given in terms of Wales. I think it's probably down to our
| national inability to decide if we're metric or imperial.
| schroeding wrote:
| Doesn't every country have it's own "weird unit of area"? :-)
|
| In completely metric Germany, we often use "Saarlands", which
| is also, like Wales, the smallest country / state.
|
| 1 Wales = 8 Saarlands
| mrec wrote:
| For your convenience:
| https://www.theregister.com/Design/page/reg-standards-
| conver...
|
| More info: https://www.theregister.com/2007/08/24/vulture_cen
| tral_stand...
| twic wrote:
| Or enough to do about 1.6 trillion chipmunk impressions!
| queuebert wrote:
| I'd like to point out that helium is used in science for many
| applications. For example, the superconducting magnets in MRI
| machines are cooled by helium. Since it is not renewable and
| escapes from the atmosphere easily, we should conserve it, and
| probably not use it for party balloons.
| actually_a_dog wrote:
| Most definitely.
|
| Interestingly enough, Google told me there are only 14 gasses
| that are lighter than air. They are:
|
| * acetylene
|
| * ammonia
|
| * carbon monoxide
|
| * diborane
|
| * ethylene
|
| * helium
|
| * hydrogen
|
| * hydrogen cyanide
|
| * hydrogen fluoride
|
| * methane
|
| * methyl lithium
|
| * neon
|
| * nitrogen
|
| * water vapor
|
| Wiki lists most of them at
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lifting_gas , although it
| leaves out ethylene, methyl lithium, and diborane for some
| reason. It also doesn't explicitly list carbon monoxide, but
| talks about it under "coal gas."
|
| Of those, only hydrogen and helium are even vaguely suitable
| for party balloons, due primarily to their nasty chemical
| properties and/or expense.
| Y_Y wrote:
| I used hydrogen cyanide for the balloons at my birthday
| party, and I didn't hear anyone complaining afterwards.
|
| Bear in mind that it boils/condenses at about 26C, so it's
| only suitable for parties with lots of dancing or warm
| summer nights.
| [deleted]
| derekdahmer wrote:
| I was curious about this so given some numbers I found on the
| internet, an average MRI machine has about 1700 liters of
| liquid helium capacity and loses 48% of its helium over the
| course of a year.
|
| 1 liter of liquid helium expands to .74m^3 of gaseous helium
| at room temperature. A 16" party balloon has .042 m^3 of
| space, so requires .05 liters of liquid helium.
|
| So one MRI machine can hold ~30,000 balloons worth of helium
| and leaks about 39 balloons per day.
|
| Note: This is not to suggest helium that is used for balloons
| is being redirected from MRI machines. As the article states,
| helium is captured almost exclusively as a byproduct of
| natural gas mining and any excess helium not worth capturing
| is just vented off. Reducing demand for helium by eliminating
| party balloons would have no affect on the amount of helium
| that is released from the ground.
| Scoundreller wrote:
| Well, sorta. If the helium is worth a lot, you'll try to
| drill/pump the wells that have a lot of it.
|
| If/when it's not, you might slow down on the helium-rich
| gas fields and bulk up on the 100% hydrocarbon fields,
| especially if natural gas is selling for a lot.
| BayAreaEscapee wrote:
| It seems to me that the market would eventually correct this.
| If it cost $100 to fill a party balloon with helium, people
| would stop filling party balloons with helium and people
| working in scientific applications would have plenty of
| helium at that price point.
| elihu wrote:
| I wonder if that's going to continue to be the case with MRI
| machines? Some newer high-temperature superconductors (for
| instance ReBCO tape) don't need to be kept quite that cold.
| Eventually I'd expect machines based on newer materials to
| replace the old machines, unless there's some compelling
| reason why the helium-cooled machines are fundamentally
| better.
|
| (I do agree we should conserve it rather than use it for
| frivolous purposes.)
| nradov wrote:
| Helium is semi renewable. More is constantly created by
| underground decay of radioactive isotopes. But we're probably
| using it up faster.
|
| Regardless of helium supplies, party balloons are problematic
| because they tend to escape and contaminate the environment
| with rubber and plastic. I frequently see empty mylar
| balloons floating in the ocean.
| queuebert wrote:
| Thanks for the correction. I ignored decay products because
| it is a very small rate. Anyway, if we're invoking physics,
| the Sun harbors a very large reservoir of He. ;-)
| perilunar wrote:
| As do the gas and ice giants.
| queuebert wrote:
| Yeah, but it's all under control of the OPA.
| p1mrx wrote:
| Parties are more fun with hydrogen, in any case.
|
| ... or a stoichiometric mixture of hydrogen+oxygen:
| https://youtu.be/l9CI6KSV560?t=1625
| prox wrote:
| Honestly we should ban helium for frivolous use.
| mbil wrote:
| _incredibly high voice_ And what exactly counts as
| "frivolous"?
| nightowl_games wrote:
| I've been keenly observing this company as an investment
| oppurtunity:
|
| https://royalheliumltd.com/projects/saskatchewan-helium-play...
| demauroy wrote:
| I am not sure how precious helium is. The fact we put it in party
| balloons would hint at helium being relatively cheap (though
| those party balloons are typically 10$ each in France).
|
| On the other hand, I understand that it is a significant cost
| driver for industry.
| nabilhat wrote:
| It's much cheaper than it should be if we're considering hard
| limits on available supply and lack of interchangability of
| other resources. Honestly it shouldn't be cheap or expensive,
| in a perfect world it would be regulated, but here we are.
|
| It's so cheap that it's commonly used as a welding cover gas as
| a way to reduce electricity cost and to squeeze more work out
| of cheaper, lower power equipment. Recycling in the form of
| capture of storage boil-off, or even collection/retention of
| helium that can be safely vented from legacy equipment costs
| substantially more than just throwing it away forever.
|
| But it's useful in ways that nothing else is. MRI is the
| biggest example, and the largest consumer of helium. There's a
| whole niche of magnetics that needs helium until science comes
| up with better magnetics, if that's possible.
|
| Something that doesn't get a lot of detailed attention is leak
| detection, because there's nothing else that leaks nearly as
| well (hydrogen molecules are larger than helium atoms!), not to
| mention safely, as helium. A leaking vacuum jacket means
| substantial loss of insulation and increased boil-off. Leaking
| storage of gases is always dangerous - either it's flammable,
| or poisonous, or an asphyxiant because it's not oxygen, or it
| is oxygen and everything else is on fire. The process of using
| helium used for leak detection involves introducing helium into
| a vessel and looking for helium on the other side. The leak
| detector itself is a _portable mass spectrometer_. Leak
| detection and repair is an extremely rare skill set at any
| meaningful level of quality, depends on extremely specialized
| equipment, and it 's as expensive as it sounds. If there was a
| better option, this leak detection niche for helium would be an
| academic novelty.
|
| Anyway, if this helium source is what it claims to be, it's
| significant - about 60 years of current production.
|
| https://www.usgs.gov/centers/nmic/helium-statistics-and-info...
| kymaz wrote:
| It is currently cheap, but if it's all bled off into space
| through party balloons and we run low, it's not gonna be cheap
| any more.
|
| With this news I guess it's not as precious as it was last
| month...
| VintageCool wrote:
| The US maintained a strategic helium reserve for decades
| (originally for airships). Then people started producing helium
| as a by-product of natural gas drilling, and the government
| bought helium from private natural gas producers. The helium
| reserve became less important, and larger, and deeper in debt.
|
| In the 90s, Congress ordered that the strategic helium reserve
| sell off most of its helium. That tanked the price, which meant
| it was affordable for party balloons. It also hurt the business
| of natural gas producers also producing helium.
|
| But helium can also leak irrecoverably out the atmosphere. We
| should try to hold on to some of it.
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