[HN Gopher] The Federal Helium reserve is for sale
___________________________________________________________________
The Federal Helium reserve is for sale
Author : pontifier
Score : 215 points
Date : 2023-09-05 13:47 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.gsa.gov)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.gsa.gov)
| roschdal wrote:
| I need this for my Zeppelin airship startup. How can I buy this?
| stjo wrote:
| Do you actually have an airship startup? What are the
| challenges you are facing? Do you need software engineers or
| funding?
| function_seven wrote:
| Doesn't need a runway, that's for sure.
| tonymillion wrote:
| The great thing about an Airship startup is that there's no
| worries about "up and to the right" growth.
|
| It's mostly just up, and any direction you want to go.
| throwawee wrote:
| Zeppelins are just a bubble.
| yinser wrote:
| I'm appalled they didn't loop in the HN community when
| considering the sale of Helium.
| dwighttk wrote:
| Maybe dollar tree can start selling helium balloons again
| anovikov wrote:
| Average concentration of helium in natural gas is 0.05%, anywhere
| from 0.01% to 7%. U.S. proven reserves of natural gas contain
| over 10 billion cubic meters of helium even when simple
| extraction methods (that capture about 1/3 of it), are used.
| Problem is exaggerated.
| joelthelion wrote:
| Most of that natural gas should stay under the ground if we
| want to somewhat mitigate climate change...
| blooalien wrote:
| Now we just gotta convince our rich overlords that _life_ is
| more important than more money for the rich. That shouldn 't
| be too hard to accomplish, yeah?
| bonestamp2 wrote:
| That's part of it. But electricity is still expensive, so I
| don't see a lot of people wanting to switch their natural
| gas heating and cooking to electricity anytime soon. We
| need a massive investment in nuclear and solar to bring
| down the cost of electricity.
| mikrotikker wrote:
| Given that fossil fuels have allowed artificial expansion of
| the human population that would be sentencing large swathes
| of people to death.
| BurningFrog wrote:
| You can always pump it back after extracting the helium.
| Retric wrote:
| That requires you to store a frankly insane volume of gas.
|
| It might happen, but only at vastly higher helium prices.
| istjohn wrote:
| I'd like to think we won't have any use for natural gas in the
| not-too-distant future.
| jhj wrote:
| It's an important feedstock for producing a wide variety of
| chemicals, and will likely continue being so.
| njarboe wrote:
| I'd guess that by the time we are not extracting natural gas
| it will be economical to source Helium from Jupiter's
| atmosphere.
| [deleted]
| happytiger wrote:
| Why would you think that's likely?
| jonlucc wrote:
| Hank Green just posted a video about this recently, and he
| addresses this. In the past, helium was extracted alongside
| natural gas, but there is no reason the two need to be
| linked. As natural gas prices go down and helium prices go
| up, it makes sense to drill helium pockets only for the
| helium, and there are a few operations to do exactly this
| underway.
| Caligatio wrote:
| Tom Scott did a video on the National Helium Reserve a few years
| back: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mOy8Xjaa_o8
| aylmao wrote:
| Huh, the video does mention they were in the process of
| privatizing it (at around 4:10 [1]) planning to be "stepping
| out of the helium activity and transferring it to private
| entities" by 2021 (guess it got delayed due to COVID?).
|
| The Wikipedia page for the Helium Act of 1925 [3], which
| created the National Helium Reserve, does mention USA was the
| only important source of helium at the time, and amongst other
| things the act banned Helium exports. Given the rarity of
| Helium, this sounds like a good idea.
|
| This privatization effort seems to be part of the Helium
| Privatization Act of 1996 [2], passed under Bill Clinton, and I
| couldn't quickly find any reasoning for its implementation
| (perhaps I'm not Googling the right question?). I wonder why
| they decided it'd be better to privatize it, considering the
| USA (at least as of 2018) still accounted for over half of
| worldwide helium exports [4]. It does still sound like a
| strategic and rare resource worth keeping under tight control,
| IMO.
|
| [1] https://youtu.be/mOy8Xjaa_o8?si=hMt24B9FMyy-TSBI&t=250
|
| [2]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helium_Privatization_Act_of_19...
|
| [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helium_Act_of_1925
|
| [4]
| https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S235248472...
| [deleted]
| nico wrote:
| Not saying this is what's happening here, but this is a typical
| way in which corrupt government/politicians make bank
|
| They sell hugely valuable public assets to some private entity,
| which then sells it back (or lease or rent) to the government
| over the years, at a huge premium
|
| There are usually some kickbacks, and/or indirect ownership
| through partners/shell companies involved
| [deleted]
| MagicMoonlight wrote:
| Yeah there's literally no reason to ever sell something like
| this. It's like selling all of the missiles. Oh now we need
| missiles, guess we'll need to buy them from the new private
| missile reserve.
|
| They've done this with a lot of things in the UK and now we
| have crumbling buildings and billionaire politicians.
| cvoss wrote:
| The current auction is part of a sale that has been in the
| works since 1996. If something untoward is happening, the
| public eye has had two and a half decades to spot it and
| correct it. And the eye has been on it; indeed, the mechanics
| of the sale were revisited and improved ten years ago.
|
| [1]
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helium_Privatization_Act_of_...
| nico wrote:
| That's great, glad to know there's been plenty of scrutiny
| over this
|
| At the same time, we've had regulatory capture in a bunch of
| industries for decades and it seems there isn't much the
| public can really do about it
|
| The public being able to see what's going on, for
| months/years/decades doesn't necessarily mean they are ok
| with it, it might just mean they are powerless
| gumby wrote:
| I guess they haven't yet realized that those room temperature
| superconductors were a flop.
| arrowsmith wrote:
| Um, doesn't the lack of room temperature superconductors mean
| we need more helium, not less?
| gumby wrote:
| Exactly, so we still need the strategic reserve. They
| shouldn't sell it off.
| [deleted]
| civilitty wrote:
| In case anyone was wondering, the (refundable) fee to submit a
| sealed bid is $5 million.
| daneel_w wrote:
| But why? Have they found new gigantic pockets of natural gas rich
| with helium? Or some scientific breakthrough allowing it to be
| produced radiologically?
| [deleted]
| Jiro wrote:
| This has nothing to do with selling off the reserve, but they
| have found new resources, see
| https://www.cnn.com/2016/06/28/africa/helium-discovery-tanza...
| . This one expects to start producing in 2025 (according to
| more recent articles).
| fnordpiglet wrote:
| > The team estimates that just one part of the reserve in
| Tanzania could be as large as 54 billion cubic feet (BCf),
| which is enough to fill more than 1.2 million medical MRI
| scanners.
|
| > "To put this discovery into perspective, global consumption
| of helium is about 8 billion cubic feet (BCf) per year and
| the United States Federal Helium Reserve, which is the
| world's largest supplier, has a current reserve of just 24.2
| BCf," said University of Oxford's Chris Ballentine, a
| professor with the Department of Earth Sciences.
|
| I'd note this is only enough for 7 years of consumption. I'm
| not sure what kind of game changer that is.
| lo_zamoyski wrote:
| Indeed: why? I suspect the answer is likely to be something
| worryingly banal, like "we're in debt" (or, "private interest
| knows a guy who wants to make some money"). Economies run on
| state-sponsored usury don't tend to last.
| notatoad wrote:
| >I suspect the answer is likely to be something worryingly
| banal, like "we're in debt" (or, "private interest knows a
| guy who wants to make some money")
|
| wikipedia has the answers. tl;dr it sounds like both of those
| things: the reserve was in debt and was depressing the market
| for helium.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Helium_Reserve
| jquery wrote:
| Ugh, it is criminal how short-sighted this is. Helium is
| not easy to replace nor easy to store long term, it's the
| perfect application for government ownership of a
| commodity, _just in case we need it_.
| Paul-Craft wrote:
| Absolutely. And "in case we need it" is for stuff like
| cryogenics ( _e.g._ MRI machines), and deep sea diving,
| not bullshit like party balloons.
| cvoss wrote:
| Actually, the existence of the reserve was not depressing
| the market. The _sell off_ of the reserve, which was
| mandated in 1996 and began in 2005, was depressing the
| market. The sale was modified in 2013 to try to relieve the
| market flooding issue. The present auction is the final
| piece of the sale.
| mrguyorama wrote:
| >the reserve was in debt
|
| A public service (which is what a federal stockpile _IS_ )
| cannot be in dept.
|
| Can't wait until "fiscal responsibility" types are trying
| to sell off the justice department to the highest bidder
| because it "is in debt"
| bostonsre wrote:
| Anyone know how much it costs to maintain the reserve
| infrastructure? Do they have facilities that need to be
| staffed to keep an eye on it or is do they just need to just
| have perimeter security?
| mnemotronic wrote:
| I thought I heard that once the helium is gone, it's gone. We
| can't make it; we can't pump any more out of the ground. That
| would seem to be a hard-stop. Is that really the kind of resource
| we want to turn over to capitalists; who are driven primarily by
| stock incentives and short-term profit?
| pmontra wrote:
| For what's is worth, it's about 22.6 M cubic meters, a cube with
| a side of 2.83 km.
|
| I didn't check if they are storing it as a compressed gas but
| they probably do. 1500 psi is about 100 bar. No more a cube but
| still a very big array of 28.3 m tall tanks.
| aaron695 wrote:
| [dead]
| wly_cdgr wrote:
| Quit making jokes, y'all. There's nothing funny about this.
| geysersam wrote:
| Are you also in favor of public monopoly on other natural
| resources such as rare earth metals and oil?
| anigbrowl wrote:
| Yes
| hooverd wrote:
| Yes.
| jquery wrote:
| I don't even agree with private oil being a thing, natural
| resources should belong to the public.
| omniglottal wrote:
| Yes.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| tibbon wrote:
| Agreed. Its a lot of hot air.
| koolba wrote:
| Not even the thought of it going to the highest pitched bidder?
| bandyaboot wrote:
| And so pitch inequality gets ever larger. *shakes head*
| pelagicAustral wrote:
| Clown balloons are filled with helium, so there is some form of
| connection between fuckery and the gas.
| posnet wrote:
| According to the GSA themselves, the value of the helium there is
| ~$100,000,000 [0] though that is 2019 prices, I believe it has
| gone up since then.
|
| Apparently for diving purposes it's as high as $2.0 per cubic
| foot. [1]
|
| [0]: https://pubs.usgs.gov/periodicals/mcs2020/mcs2020-helium.pdf
|
| [1]: https://gue.com/blog/the-price-of-helium/
| tristor wrote:
| Depending on who you ask, the value of the crude helium there
| is around $300M to $360M. The $2-$3/cf for refined helium isn't
| really that relevant, since what is included is unrefined, if
| it were refined it'd be worth many billions.
| westurner wrote:
| What is it worth as isotopes He3 and He4; e.g. for Nuclear
| Fusion, superfluidity and superconductivity experiments, and
| medical imaging that probably can be done without Helium?
| [deleted]
| jquery wrote:
| That's hilariously off, much like how the "market value" of
| rare earth asteroids is in the $trillions... due to a shortage
| that wouldn't exist if we could mine said asteroids... the
| value of the helium is much, much higher than $100M.
| Brian_K_White wrote:
| I don't understand the zeppelin jokes. Are we really this
| ignorant?
| flangola7 wrote:
| What are we ignorant of? Airships of the non-inflammable
| variety use helium.
| dr-detroit wrote:
| [dead]
| orra wrote:
| That's why Excelsior is filled with safe, natural helium.
|
| https://archer.fandom.com/wiki/Skytanic
| Brian_K_White wrote:
| So what? Apparently what you're ignorant of is that airships
| are not why it's important to preserve a store of helium.
| hooverd wrote:
| Would you rather rigid airships be flammable?
| Brian_K_White wrote:
| Are you saying zeppelins are an especially important facility
| for the military? (I'm sure there are uses, but only the way
| there are uses for anything).
|
| I am saying it's ignorant to imply that the helium isn't
| important because it was originally secured for zeppelins.
| [deleted]
| webnrrd2k wrote:
| There is also property for sale in Menlo Park, as well as San
| Dimas and Laguna Niguel.
|
| https://disposal.gsa.gov/s/searchproperty?state=CA&type=ALL
| cossatot wrote:
| The Menlo Park property is the former US Geological Survey
| campus, which has been moved to the NASA Ames campus in
| Mountain View because the USGS couldn't make rent to the GSA.
| It's a nice campus although some of the buildings could use
| some superficial renovation. It's got a lot of lab space.
| thomasjudge wrote:
| Seems like Stanford might want to buy this
| [deleted]
| explodingwaffle wrote:
| "To protect your organization from excessive usage and Denial of
| Service attacks, we limit the number of allowed content delivery
| views within a twenty-four hour period. Try viewing the content
| again later."
|
| C'mon guys, I was reading that 240 page government contract!
| [deleted]
| Mountain_Skies wrote:
| That's a reasonable false positive given that bots are far more
| likely to "read" a 240 page government contract than a human.
| gustavus wrote:
| The wikipedia on this provides some context
|
| > The National Helium Reserve, also known as the Federal Helium
| Reserve, is a strategic reserve of the United States, which once
| held over 1 billion cubic meters (about 170,000,000 kg)[a] of
| helium gas. The helium is stored at the Cliffside Storage
| Facility about 12 miles (19 km) northwest of Amarillo, Texas, in
| a natural geologic gas storage formation, the Bush Dome[2]
| reservoir. The reserve was established with the enactment of the
| Helium Act of 1925. The strategic supply provisioned the noble
| gas for airships, and in the 1950s became an important source of
| coolant during the Cold War and Space Race.
|
| I for one am in favor of keeping it as a national resource in
| order to prevent the development of a zeppelin capability gap
| between us and the enemy.
|
| EDIT:
|
| I appreciate the rebuttals below, apparently Helium is important
| in the usage and production of MRI, IC fabrication, and cooling
| nuclear reactors. Pushes a reconsideration of the sell off, plus
| the possible resurgance of steampunk.
| [deleted]
| mlyle wrote:
| > I appreciate the rebuttals below, apparently Helium is
| important in the usage and production of MRI, IC fabrication,
| and cooling nuclear reactors. Pushes a reconsideration of the
| sell off, plus the possible resurgance of steampunk.]
|
| Also: liquid fueled rockets and space systems. Being able to
| nuke the other guy or space supremacy depends upon having
| helium. Maybe not that much.
| perihelions wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autogenous_pressurization
| SoftTalker wrote:
| Helium is useful as a coolant in nuclear reactors. If we get
| back into nuclear power in a big way, we might want a good
| supply of it.
| WorldMaker wrote:
| Helium is critical to tools like MRI machines. If we wish to
| keep our healthcare industry from technically backsliding, we
| probably want a good supply of it.
| rsynnott wrote:
| > MRI
|
| Is this actually the case anymore? I had the vague idea that
| fancy modern superconductors now allowed these to run on liquid
| nitrogen.
| cyberax wrote:
| High-temp superconductors are made of ceramic, so they are
| very inconvenient to work with. They are also mechanically
| brittle.
|
| So the largest high-temp MRI for now is only big enough to
| image the head. That being said, there has been a lot of
| progress in the high-TC superconductors in the recent years.
| ska wrote:
| No, it's pretty much all helium for clinical work.
|
| Short of a quench (catastrophic heating, effectively) the
| most modern units hardly lose any, and often need less in the
| first place. An old machine might cost you near 6fig/year in
| helium refill, especially if out of spec. Some new magnets
| don't typically need any in a give year.
| arcticbull wrote:
| Helium is critical for all sorts of things, not least IC
| fabrication and cooling MRI magnets.
|
| This was one of the big issues at the start of the Ukraine
| invasion because they're one of the world's preeminent
| suppliers.
|
| The big problem is that there's a finite supply - it comes
| mostly from natural gas wells - and it's running out. Being
| lighter than air it just goes up and into space. Once we're
| out, we're out.
| trebligdivad wrote:
| What's it's use in IC fab?
| dylan604 wrote:
| Until we start fusing hydrogen for energy.
| extraduder_ire wrote:
| I haven't done the napkin math for this, but I don't think
| we'll need enough power from fusion to generate useful
| quantities of helium. I think we might get closer with
| certain kinds of fission. (alpha radiation is helium, after
| it captures a few electrons. IIRC, where Earth's helium
| comes from)
| arrowsmith wrote:
| Interesting. So should we really be wasting large quantities
| of this precious non-renewable resource to fill balloons at
| children's birthday parties?
| brianwawok wrote:
| Yes exactly
|
| And why the price to filly party baloons has gone up 10x
| over the last 10-20 years..
| koube wrote:
| My understanding of this is that there's different
| qualities and mixtures of helium. When you buy helium from
| a party store it's a kind of "dirty" helium which is not
| pure enough for scientific/industrial applications.
| nradov wrote:
| The regular helium grade purchased from industrial gas
| suppliers and typically used for filling party balloons
| is >99% pure. There are higher grades available for
| specialized purposes, but using lower grades doesn't save
| any helium.
|
| https://zephyrsolutions.com/what-are-the-different-
| grades-of...
| dghughes wrote:
| Or consumer-grade old style spinning hard drives.
| flangola7 wrote:
| Old style? What other gases are used?
| dghughes wrote:
| Regular air I'd say 78%N 21%O + 1% other.
| gammarator wrote:
| Nope! The problem is that Congress chose to liquidate the
| reserve's holdings below market cost a few decades ago.
| gammarator wrote:
| Nope! The problem is that Congress chose to liquidate the
| reserve's holdings below market cost a decade ago.
| natch wrote:
| Since we elect idiots, we get idiotic laws and actions.
| And then our children get the problems we deserve.
| mrguyorama wrote:
| "The government is inefficient and can't do anything
| right and if you elect me I can prove it!"
| pirate787 wrote:
| It's auction, what do you mean "below market cost"?
| [deleted]
| perihelions wrote:
| - _" This was one of the big issues at the start of the
| Ukraine invasion because they're one of the world's
| preeminent suppliers."_
|
| That one was actually neon. It has nothing to do with natural
| gas; it's a byproduct of the cryogenic distillation of air,
| which steelmakers do on an industrial scale to get pure
| oxygen. As you point out, here's not much helium in the
| Earth's atmosphere; rather, since it (helium-4) is the
| product of alpha decay of geologic thorium and uranium, it
| accumulates in the same kind of places as natural gas. Hence:
| Texas.
|
| There was a large HN thread on the neon thing here,
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30457490 (422 comments)
| thehappypm wrote:
| Also, helium tends to escape the atmosphere into space! Air
| is just a ton of colliding molecules, and something like
| helium has an atomic mass of ~4, compared to say nitrogen,
| which has an atomic mass of ~14, and it is in the N2 form,
| so it has a mass of ~18. So, an N2 molecule is way more
| massive than a helium atom. As a result, helium at the same
| temperature as nitrogen has a much higher average velocity
| and can escape the earth's gravity at a high rate.
| pdonis wrote:
| _> it is in the N2 form, so it has a mass of ~18_
|
| I think you mean ~28 (2 times ~14).
| arcticbull wrote:
| Helium too [1] although definitely also neon.
|
| [1] https://cen.acs.org/business/specialty-chemicals/War-
| Ukraine...
| perihelions wrote:
| Your article's talking about helium from Algeria, though?
|
| - _" The helium shutdown in Arzew [Algeria] is a result
| of high natural gas demand in Europe, due in large part
| to Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Helium is found
| alongside natural gas in conventional wells. Algeria
| normally compresses natural gas into liquid form at Arzew
| for global transport by ship. During that process, it's
| economical to extract helium because it liquefies at much
| higher pressures and lower temperatures than natural gas,
| explains industrial gas consultant Jon Raquet."_
|
| - _" But now, much of Algeria's natural gas is being sent
| to Spain via pipeline, making separation impractical."_
| arcticbull wrote:
| My understanding is that Ukraine and Russia both produce
| a lot of natural gas and hence helium, and that the
| supply to the west from Russia was cut off due to
| sanctions and further threatened in Ukraine due to
| conflict itself.
|
| The shifting mentioned in the article is further knock-on
| effects of the war and its impact on energy markets - and
| how those further constrain the global supply chain for
| He.
|
| This isn't my area of expertise though so please do let
| me know if I've misunderstood.
| perihelions wrote:
| - _" produce a lot of natural gas and hence helium"_
|
| Right about gas, but it doesn't follow that they've
| invested in infrastructure to cryogenically separate
| helium from gas fields, the way they did with neon (at
| steel plants). (That was the colorful thing about the
| neon crisis: every country in the world has enormous neon
| resources; the list of countries that can produce
| industrial amounts on <6 months notice is short).
|
| I looked it up: Ukraine doesn't export any helium (as of
| 2019 public data), and it has helium production capacity
| but it's marginal. Algeria is world #3, behind the USA
| and Qatar.
|
| https://www.deutsche-
| rohstoffagentur.de/DE/Gemeinsames/Produ... (pages 69 and
| 71)
| arcticbull wrote:
| Ah, noted. Thanks.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| > Once we're out, we're out.
|
| Not exactly. Helium is a part of radioactive decay and as
| such continuously produced, so in a pinch we might use
| filters in the air from nuclear plants or large deposits of
| radioactive minerals as an alternative source. The question
| is just how much can be produced that way.
| dralley wrote:
| > The question is just how much can be produced that way.
|
| Not nearly enough
| myself248 wrote:
| Many, many, many orders of magnitude less than we need.
| This is the worst kind of "technically correct" which is so
| misleading as to be disingenuous.
|
| To keep up with demand, you'd need so much nuclear energy
| that the thermal byproduct would boil the oceans within a
| year or two.
|
| I think it's safe to say that's not a desirable outcome.
| Once we're out, we're out.
| RC_ITR wrote:
| Fusion is very unlikely to become a viable energy source in
| the near-term, but it _is_ something we can use to make
| helium if we are desperate enough.
| hypercube33 wrote:
| Currently we need helium to cool the superconducting
| magnets used to generate fusion reactions so the cart there
| is before the horse kind of problem, until someone comes up
| with a better solution.
| CamperBob2 wrote:
| I asked about this once and someone pointed out the obvious
| E=mc^2 issue: a fusion reactor will generate only a trivial
| amount of helium in the process of releasing a large amount
| of energy.
| smegsicle wrote:
| im in my post-energy-scarcity future, blasting plasma
| into space as fast as i can to squeeze out a party
| balloon
| UncleMeat wrote:
| > and it's running out
|
| In a "it is literally possible to extract all of it and it
| will escape to space" sense, yes. But in a practical "humans
| are anywhere remotely close to exhausting helium deposits on
| Earth" sense, no. The "we are running out helium" thing was
| never real.
| bparsons wrote:
| Natural gas is running out?
| natch wrote:
| I think "it" meant helium? But regardless we may reduce our
| natural gas extraction significantly in the future.
|
| Even if there's plenty left in the ground.
|
| So I'd imagine that reduction of extraction would also
| reduce access to helium.
| happytiger wrote:
| The United States produces more natural gas than any
| other fuel and its consumption of gas is second only to
| petroleum.
|
| It's the main fuel used to power electrical plants in the
| US (all those Teslas generally run on LNG).
|
| It's also a fuel that doesn't have a single source
| supplier. It's Quatar, Russia, etc.
|
| All these folks talking about reducing gas use and ending
| global warning by reducing consumption are not looking at
| this objectively and geopolitically. They see it through
| the lens of contemporary American environmental politics.
|
| Up until 5-10 years ago natural gas was seen as the major
| reduction factor in the drop in coal usage and generally
| a win for the environment compared to continuing to use
| coal. It was the "better" fuel for the transition.
|
| Obviously we are going to move towards more renewable
| fuels in future because coming into balance with nature
| is necessary. But it's unlikely it's going anywhere
| anytime soon and behind closed doors, I think energy
| policy clearly points to gas as the "lesser of evils"
| energy source for the foreseeable near future.
| marcus0x62 wrote:
| In addition to the other replies you've gotten, UHP (ultra high
| purity) helium is also important in certain welding processes,
| although there are, generally at least, substitutes in that
| field.
| KennyBlanken wrote:
| This isn't a joke. This is a privatization of a critical,
| finite resource - a huge step in the wrong direction. There's
| no way to manufacture helium. You can't condense it from the
| atmosphere like other gasses because when it's released, it
| rises and escapes the planet, permanently.
|
| The supply is going to become very strategic when we run out of
| helium for MRI machines and other important superconducting
| equipment, scientific or otherwise.
|
| We may develop suitable lower temperature superconductors, but
| there are thousands of MRIs that still need it, and plenty of
| medical centers that won't be able to afford to upgrade to new
| systems.
| adastra22 wrote:
| You mean higher temperature.
| skywal_l wrote:
| Helium is not even the best lighter than air gas. See:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZjBgEkbnX2I
| ftxbro wrote:
| > in the 1950s became an important source of coolant during the
| Cold War and Space Race
|
| they are saying that like there isn't a cold war or space race
| in the year 2023
| parineum wrote:
| Or that helium isn't important to them.
| westcort wrote:
| If this isn't a sign of the collapse, I don't know what is.
| delecti wrote:
| The federal government has been trying to sell it off for
| almost 30 years.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Helium_Reserve
| anigbrowl wrote:
| Factions within the government have been trying to sell it
| off for that time. Other factions don't feel like wasting
| political capital defending this hill because they can't
| easily explain the issue to the public.
| westcort wrote:
| Meanwhile, patients need 6 weeks of physical therapy before
| they can get an MRI as a direct result of a lack of helium.
| Even diagnostic MRIs in which PT is not indicated. The
| government trying to sell a crucial asset necessary for
| healthcare technologies is a sign that the government is not
| able to take care of domestic affairs.
|
| They may have been trying to sell it before, but the lack of
| leadership on a critical resource like this is a bad sign.
| ska wrote:
| > they can get an MRI as a direct result of a lack of
| helium.
|
| It's a ~1mm machine with ~10k of helium in it, and modern
| ones don't need much refill. Even with old ones it's
| expensive, but not out of whack with other costs.
|
| The helium market isn't really the proximal cause of not
| having enough MRI hours to go around, but there are
| concerns about it getting worse.
| sidewndr46 wrote:
| I don't know what world you're living in but I can get an
| MRI next-day if I need to.
| delecti wrote:
| > They may have been trying to sell it before, but the lack
| of leadership on a critical resource like this is a bad
| sign.
|
| The helium reserve has been for sale for almost 30 years,
| hospitals have had plenty of opportunity to buy helium for
| their MRI machines. Your wait for an MRI isn't because of
| helium, it's because insurance providers want to avoid
| paying for things.
| 93po wrote:
| > Your wait for an MRI isn't because of helium, it's
| because insurance providers want to avoid paying for
| things.
|
| More accurately, it's because of corrupt or wildly
| misguided politicians that are against single payer
| healthcare due to bribery from established healthcare and
| insurance companies
| delecti wrote:
| I was talking about the more direct cause, but yes,
| that's the ultimate reason.
| tssva wrote:
| > Meanwhile, patients need 6 weeks of physical therapy
| before they can get an MRI as a direct result of a lack of
| helium. Even diagnostic MRIs in which PT is not indicated.
|
| In February my daughter started experiencing knee pain. Her
| doctor ordered an MRI and 1 week later the MRI was
| performed.
| adolph wrote:
| Is there a "lack of helium" or is there a competition for
| valuable uses of helium? MRI seems to use about 13% of
| annual helium production.
|
| 12,000 * 10,000 / 12.8 = 9,375,000/year [0]
|
| 1 cubic meter = 1,000 liters
|
| 9,375 (MRI) / 73,000,000 (Total production [1]) = 0.1284
|
| _At any point, an MRI machine contains about 2,000 liters
| of liquid helium, though suppliers need to replenish any
| helium that boils off. Mahesh estimates that an MRI machine
| uses 10,000 liters of liquid helium over its life span.
| (According to GE Healthcare, a manufacturer of the
| machines, that life span is 12.8 years.) In 2015, there
| were roughly 12,000 machines in the U.S., making MRIs one
| of the biggest helium consumers in the world, far above
| balloon stores._
|
| 0. https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/helium-
| shortage-d...
|
| _Helium production in the United States totaled 73 million
| cubic meters in 2014._
|
| 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helium_production_in_the_U
| nite...
| EA-3167 wrote:
| > Meanwhile, patients need 6 weeks of physical therapy
| before they can get an MRI as a direct result of a lack of
| helium. Even diagnostic MRIs in which PT is not indicated.
|
| I've never heard of this, can you link to something
| discussing this?
| SoftTalker wrote:
| Due to the cost of an MRI procedure, most insurers will
| require 6 weeks of PT/rehab efforts on an injury before
| covering the cost of an MRI.
|
| I guess GP is attributing the cost of the MRI to the
| helium required to cool the magnet, but I'm not sure
| that's a big fraction of the amortized cost for a single
| procedure -- a reference would be good.
| vidarh wrote:
| Some searches indicates most newer MRI's are "zero boil-
| off" machines that recondense most of the helium, and
| that even older, leaky MRI's might be using (losing) at
| most ~$20k helium per year.
|
| I'm in London, a MRI here starts at around ~250 pounds or
| ca. $315.
|
| Meanwhile $20k worth of helium replacement would be
| ~$55/day spread across all uses of the machine.
|
| So I'm inclined to think you're right.
|
| The more likely reason for the 6 week PT:
|
| Most things for which you as a patient might want an MRI
| for that aren't _obviously_ not something physio will
| help with are things you _will_ end up needing physio
| for.
|
| I'm assuming they've done a simple cost benefit analysis
| where the proportion of cases where they actually need
| MRI's are low enough that it's cheaper to just send
| people straight to physio first.
| ska wrote:
| > nd that even older, leaky MRI's might be using (losing)
| at most ~$20k helium per year.
|
| It can be a lot more than 20k but you are correct it
| isn't the driving cost.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| The cost of an MRI in the USA is at least 10x that
| number. That is why they generally require PT first.
|
| Of course if you're an athlete at the major college or
| professional level, you can get one immediately.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _cost of an MRI in the USA is at least 10x that number_
|
| I got a whole-body MRI in New York. It was under $1,000.
| seanp2k2 wrote:
| _after insurance_
|
| Post the prices that your insurance provider paid to the
| hospital for a real comparison.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| It was a voluntary whole-body MRI. This was my out of
| pocket expense and the provider's revenue. No insurance.
| vidarh wrote:
| Is that for full body scans?
|
| Prices here do vary a lot, and you certainly _can_ end up
| paying 10x that price for a full body scan from an
| expensive provider with a bunch of extras (though judging
| by a couple, some of those extras are cheap /"free" (on
| the NHS) blood tests tacked on for no good reason other
| than to jack up the price).
|
| [You can get full scans for significantly less too, at
| least down to $1300 - I haven't looked very thoroughly -,
| but most people opting for full body scans are not doing
| so to address a specific known issue, so the prices
| reflect that it's a luxury service that's rarely needed,
| and the price lists are full of pointless upsells]
|
| If the 10x is for specific body parts, it might pay to
| take a short trip to do your MRI's rather than pay out of
| pocket where you are then.
| mrexroad wrote:
| 10x is for specific body parts, largely due to the
| (predatory) disfunction of our health care insurance and
| for-profit care system. Even the x-ray I was required to
| have before an MRI, due to plate in my arm, was billed
| higher than your MRI. With that said, there are also
| private parties (e.g. not through health care provider)
| that offer full-body MRIs for only a grand or two; well,
| at least there were a decade or so, when we got one for
| my FIL.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| Yes, if you go to an "imaging center" they typically cost
| less than at a hospital. Strangely, my doctor's referral
| was to the hospital not the imaging center so per my
| insurance that is where I had to go. My insurance and the
| doctor's practice and the hospital they sent me to were
| all owned by the same huge health organization... Hmmm.
| sjsdaiuasgdia wrote:
| A counter-reference from a Jan 2023 newsletter from the
| Radiological Society of North America -
| https://www.rsna.org/news/2023/january/helium-shortage-
| for-m...
|
| "Despite news reports in October that the world is
| running out of helium, clinical MRI units throughout the
| U.S. were and remain unaffected."
|
| I wouldn't be surprised if some patients are given bad
| info by either clinic or insurer. Blaming a global
| shortage, real or perceived, points the patient's
| emotional response away from the provider.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| At a gut level I would be inclined to agree.
|
| I've had an MRI (and had to do the prerequisite 6 weeks
| of PT).
|
| The MRI is a huge machine. It's in its own room, and they
| have to be careful about allowing any metal too close to
| it. The scan itself took about an hour for a couple of
| different views, a tech had to get my body in the right
| position and support it with various pads and pillows.
| You cannot move at all, and if you do, they have to start
| over. Given the time for the scan itself, plus any setup
| and cleaning they might have to do, I'd guess one machine
| could do a dozen or so scans per day. At the hospital I
| went to, they only did scans two days per week, I don't
| know if that was because they had limited staff or they
| need to allow for maintenance/calibration of the machine.
| Also I had a scan with contrast, and the doc who did the
| contrast injection also had limited availability.
|
| So there are real limits on the supply of MRI time, my
| guess is that this drives the price more than anything.
| It's not like an X-ray that just takes a few minutes.
| Wistar wrote:
| Although not specifically about the PT requirement, some
| stuff on the helium shortage across healthcare, research,
| and business.
|
| NBC: "The world is running out of helium. Here's why
| doctors are worried."
| https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/helium-
| shortage-d...
|
| Radiological Society of North America: "Keeping An Eye on
| the Potential Shortage of Helium for MRIs"
| https://www.rsna.org/news/2023/january/helium-shortage-
| for-m...
|
| The Harvard Crimson: "Helium Shortage Forces Harvard
| Physics Labs to Shut Down Equipment, Suspend Projects"
| https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2022/6/24/helium-
| shortage...
|
| Marketplace: "Party City's Bankruptcy partly due to high
| cost of helium"
| https://www.marketplace.org/2023/01/19/heliums-been-
| rising-i...
| stronglikedan wrote:
| I can't link to anything, but I can offer my own personal
| experience of having to pay for 6 weeks of physical
| therapy before they would give me an MRI for my knee. I
| just opted to look up the routine online and rehab
| myself. I'd have gladly paid my MRI copay, but I'm not
| paying for PT without even knowing if I need it yet.
| NoboruWataya wrote:
| > patients need 6 weeks of physical therapy before they can
| get an MRI as a direct result of a lack of helium
|
| Then why hasn't the government, with its huge helium
| reserve, stepped in to solve this problem?
|
| Maybe there is some hope the helium could end up being sold
| to people who actually want to apply it to socially
| beneficial uses like this, since the government apparently
| has no interest in doing so?
| kraig911 wrote:
| The 6 week wait isn't because of a lack of helium. It's for
| lack of money to fund the MRI to begin with. It's easy to
| point to lack of helium when really the cost of an MRI
| machine is expensive. The rare earth magnets alone of which
| are a greater scarcity than helium. My point is that it's
| more than just helium scarcity for not getting easy access
| to MRIs.
| abeppu wrote:
| Doesn't this give companies that supply helium to hospitals
| an opportunity to purchase helium? It seems like if there's
| a shortage for important uses in the economy, then moving
| helium out of a government reserve is exactly what you'd
| want, right?
|
| Your complaint is that you think for-profit hospitals
| should be gifted the helium rather than having to purchase
| it?
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| Two issues come to mind immediately. The first is that
| the market might not be the most efficient mechanism for
| allocation for something like helium. Are party balloons
| more valuable than cryo coolant for particle
| accelerators, MRI machines, and science? Just because you
| can't cough up the market price doesn't mean your
| application isn't valuable [1]. The second is we've seen
| what happens with OPEC when a cartel controls the supply
| of energy. A for profit cornering the market for a non
| renewable resource could lead us to suboptimal
| stewardship of said resource (because humans are short
| sighted, near term driven, and fundamentally greedy).
|
| In 1979, in the midst of one of the many energy crisis in
| the 70s, the Shah of Iran said "oil is too valuable to
| burn." We've lucked out that we haven't run out of helium
| yet, but there is no guarantee we will continue to be
| lucky. The subcomments of this comment [2] explain the
| very real peril and concern.
|
| To your point "Your complaint is that you think for-
| profit hospitals should be gifted the helium rather than
| having to purchase it?", I would respond: Helium should
| be priced based on the end use as well as any systems in
| place to recover and recycle [3] [4], vs temporary use
| where it will quickly be vented to space, lost to us
| forever.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Market_failure
|
| [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37393338
|
| [3] https://www.chemistry.ucla.edu/news/new-liquid-
| helium-recycl...
|
| [4] https://pharmacy.ucsf.edu/news/2021/06/helium-
| recycling-proj...
| abeppu wrote:
| I think your comparison to OPEC is interesting, b/c it
| sounds like you think the price of oil was artificially
| high, but in retrospect, I think many would say that it
| has been far too cheap to burn oil, and this has driven
| our multi-generational climate crisis. I.e. I think the
| market failure in stewarding precious resources was _not_
| that OPEC tried to keep prices high, but that failing to
| price in the cost of damage to the climate and
| environment kept prices artificially low.
|
| In the helium case in the US, my understanding is that
| from 1996 to 2013, though the US was the dominant global
| supplier and _could_ have chosen to act as a cartel, the
| 1996 legislation fixed prices to be artificially low
| (with the aim of merely paying off costs, rather than
| maximizing revenue), which is claimed to have
| disincentivized private parties from developing new
| production capacity.
|
| I'm not some free-market zealot who thinks the invisible
| hand can do no evil. But in this case, if the problem is
| that (a) there's currently a bottleneck upstream of
| important healthcare cases and (b) we want to discourage
| waste then we should want helium to leave the national
| reserve (i.e. there's more supply available to hospitals
| and other parties), and we should want that to be at a
| reasonable price so it isn't used frivolously (e.g. we
| wouldn't want party planners to be induced to use more
| balloons just b/c they're cheap). So auctioning off some
| of what is held in reserve seems like a reasonable
| action.
|
| Wrt pricing that is presumably _lower_ for installations
| with recycling capabilities -- I would think that
| recycling might if anything make institutions willing to
| pay a higher volumetric price, since they get more total
| benefit from it. If the recycling technology is efficient
| and practically applicable in many contexts, more and
| more facilities ought to be pressured by high costs to
| introduce recycling ... or leave the market.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| My OPEC comparison was more centered on a small group
| controlling a critical resource who can control the price
| regardless of the needs of the consumers of said resource
| (not the historic price action). I agree with most of
| your points, but want to stress that the desired outcome
| should be responsible use and stewardship of what is both
| a highly useful and nonrenewable resource. Pricing is a
| component, but maximizing profit should not be the goal.
| I'd even go so far to say that you either wouldn't sell
| to consumers of helium who could capture and recycle it
| but currently choose not to, or you would subsidize the
| installation of that equipment for them out of the
| proceeds of more frivolous uses.
|
| My personal opinion is the goal should be to maximize the
| utility of the resource, with any profits being second
| order effects. Instead, we too often end up like
| ancestors who raze the forest only to freeze to death in
| the winter [1].
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holznot
| abeppu wrote:
| I think if you _don't_ sell helium to non-recycling
| facilities in the near term, MRIs would stop altogether.
| The two articles about recycling that you shared are both
| research universities who considered it a PR-worthy
| accomplishment to put recycling in place to cover _some_
| of their machines, which for the moment sound like
| they're almost entirely about NMR; the UCSF article even
| says that after paying $500k, they're still hoping to
| "inspire" other uses than NMR within the same university
| to begin recycling, i.e. the top-flight research
| university bragging about recycling still isn't able to
| do it for clinical MRI machines.
|
| Do you know (or perhaps someone else can chime in) -- is
| it even feasible currently for a medical facility with
| 1-2 MRI machines to put a recycling system into place? Or
| is the recycling system of a size and complexity that
| only if you have a helium footprint above a given size is
| it realistic? Certainly, most places would not have the
| expertise on staff to design and implement such a system
| today.
|
| Worse, if recycling were a requirement to purchase
| helium, how do we estimate which medical facilities would
| _not_ buy an MRI machine because of the higher initial
| cost of the recycling system, or maintenance of its
| collection, compression, or purification components? How
| would that change patient outcomes (especially given that
| the initial complain about MRIs in this thread was long
| waits due to limited capacity)?
| pkaye wrote:
| In reply to your other post (I could not comment on it
| directly)
|
| > ... then is there really still any meaningful
| relationship between helium supply and the patient wait
| time for MRIs as westcort complained? Or is it just that
| there are too few MRI machines in the healthcare system?
|
| The US is second highest in number of MRI machines per
| capita after Japan. Its probably staffing issues or maybe
| MRI scans are used much more widely in the US.
|
| https://www.statista.com/statistics/282401/density-of-
| magnet...
| abeppu wrote:
| > Its probably staffing issues
|
| I would have expected that since (in my experience) these
| machines are generally run by a technician, and the MRI
| itself is relatively quick (a few minutes), and hospitals
| can bill insurance thousands for an MRI, that once a
| medical facility has acquired and set up the machine the
| machine, that running patients through should more than
| pay for the time of staff immediately involved.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| Any MRI machine made since the late 1990s has helium
| reclamation capabilities ("zero boil off refrigeration
| systems").
|
| https://mriquestions.com/uploads/3/4/5/7/34572113/advance
| s_i... (page 5)
| abeppu wrote:
| Thanks for pointing at that! But if the description is
| correct,
|
| > ZBO magnets allow practically unlimited system
| operation without helium refill.
|
| ... then is there really still any meaningful
| relationship between helium supply and the patient wait
| time for MRIs as westcort complained? Or is it just that
| there are too few MRI machines in the healthcare system?
|
| And, I suppose if anyone here knows -- why is it that NMR
| magnets at UCLA and UCSF required recycling systems which
| sound meaningfully less efficient (the UCLA article
| linked above reclaimed only 90%) rather than using the
| ZBO tech which is apparently standard in modern MRIs?
| westcort wrote:
| Exactly. Some crucial resources need to be managed with a
| long-term outlook or risk market failures. Helium is one
| such resource.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| zadler wrote:
| [flagged]
| gnatman wrote:
| Collapse of what exactly?
| riffic wrote:
| in their context, everything.
| pontifier wrote:
| This is the entire system including the facility, hundreds of
| miles of pipeline, helium rights for many helium producing wells,
| existing storage and delivery contracts, and 800 million cubic
| feet of helium.
|
| A stockpile of 1 billion cubic feet of helium only is for sale as
| a separate lot:
| https://disposal.gsa.gov/s/property/a0Xt0000005z684EAA/feder...
| mpreda wrote:
| > and 800 million cubic feet of helium
|
| I don't understand why you'd measure the amount of a gas in
| volume units (e.g. cubic feet) given that any gas is "elastic"
| in volume, i.e. can take pretty much any volume depending on
| the pressure.
| feoren wrote:
| I hate it when people don't add the word "standard" to gas
| quantity units like this, but that is almost always what they
| mean. A "standard cubic foot" has the same dimension as
| moles; that is, it's actually a count of the number of atoms
| or molecules.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/43/3195.11
|
| > Standard cubic foot (SCF) means the volume of gaseous
| helium occupying one cubic foot at a pressure of 14.7 psia
| and a temperature of 70 degrees Fahrenheit. One liter of
| liquid helium is equivalent to 26.63 scf of gaseous helium.
| One U.S. gallon of liquid helium is equivalent to 100.8 scf
| of gaseous helium. One pound of liquid helium is equivalent
| to 96.72 scf of gaseous helium. If BLM approves, you may use
| appropriate gaseous equivalents of volumes of helium mixtures
| different from these figures.
| [deleted]
| p_j_w wrote:
| If it's anything like SCUBA tanks, then the 800M cu ft is
| specified at 1 atm at room temperature. It's a actually an
| intuitive way to express how much gas you're getting.
| Specifying it by N would be borderline incomprehensible to
| most people.
| danzk wrote:
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_temperature_and_pre.
| ..
| [deleted]
| runeofdoom wrote:
| Why is it for sale?
| 93po wrote:
| Cynical take: People in congress have wealthy contacts that
| want to buy and profit from this, and likely include the
| congress member as part of the profit sharing in some concealed
| manner
|
| Generous take: congress recognizes government entities are
| inefficient and do a poor job at things like properly pricing
| and providing goods and services, which is explicitly outlined
| as a reason congress gave: selling it at market-driven prices
|
| They give other reasons but there's basically zero reason to
| trust them. The truth is likely somewhere between the two takes
| above.
| jmount wrote:
| It isn't a cynical opinion if that turns out to be what is
| cynically being done.
| TheDudeMan wrote:
| It's cynical if it is presented without evidence.
| [deleted]
| parineum wrote:
| Actually, both need to be true, to an extent.
|
| Government being inefficient is required for private
| companies to have any interest in ownership because profit is
| the incentive to solve market inefficiency.
|
| If the government was doing an awesome job, the private
| sector wouldn't have any interest.
| bhickey wrote:
| Or someone wants to exploit a natural monopoly.
| aylmao wrote:
| Unfortunately, this is not a far-fetched possibility in
| this case, given the rarity of helium.
| Brian_K_White wrote:
| The market will efficiently squander it on party balloons.
| velcrovan wrote:
| This is quite a rosy take. The private sector is always
| interested in capturing new customers, and lobbying to shut
| down public services is a great way to do that. It's pretty
| simple, first you strip the service or institution of
| funding, do other things to degrade operations, then you
| complain that it's a huge problem that only the private
| sector can fix. Exhibit A, USPS. Exhibit B, US public
| schools. Exhibit C, the US VHA. Exhibit D, the UK's NHS and
| Ontario Canada's provincial healthcare system.
| kiicia wrote:
| also any privatized railroad network
| RodgerTheGreat wrote:
| If the government was doing a sustainably awesome job, the
| private sector could easily have interest in destroying it
| for short-term gain.
| fragmede wrote:
| lol, the 90's called, they want their "government can't do
| anything erficiently" hot take back.
|
| I thought we'd collectively realized that "run the
| government like a business" was this ridiculous notion that
| the owning class sold us to raid public coffers to enrich
| their own, to our detriment.
| echelon wrote:
| > If the government was doing an awesome job, the private
| sector wouldn't have any interest.
|
| Or, if the government was doing an awesome job, the private
| sector might want to get rid of public sector price
| ceilings.
|
| The private tax prep lobby wants to keep the government out
| of tax filing.
|
| Logistics companies want to kill the USPS.
| aylmao wrote:
| I'm from a country where the government has several
| institutions to provide healthcare. It's not the absolute
| best, and depending on the institution one qualifies for
| it might not be quickest or cover all conditions.
|
| As administrations have come and gone, there's been a
| back and forth between officials who want to privatize
| health, claiming inefficiency, dilapidated facilities and
| that the system is a drag on public finances, and
| officials who want to save the system from what they
| claim is purposeful gross mismanagement by
| administrations who want excuses to privatize it.
|
| Overall, even if not as pristine or efficient as the
| private sector, this system of healthcare does means the
| private industry has to compete with "free".
|
| When I have a cold, I don't think I've spent more than
| $10-20 on a private doctor's appointment, out of pocket
| with no insurance. I had a rare eye condition called
| Keratoconus. In the USA, the specialized procedure to
| treat it seems to generally cost between $2,500 and
| $4,000 per eye [1]. I paid about $650 per eye on a
| private ophthalmology clinic, again, with no insurance.
|
| EDIT: To add an addendum, and in the topic of
| "efficiency", whenever I'm back home I tend to have more
| face-to-face time with my doctor. There isn't a team of
| nurses on every clinic to talk to and do the menial work.
| I even book appointments directly via WhatsApp with my
| gastroenterologist, and transfer money directly to their
| bank account, instead of going through a front-desk
| secretary, forms, and apps/paperwork. Without insurance
| "networks" I hear of a good doctor and just go, no
| problem.
|
| This also means I tend to go to the doctor when I'm home,
| rather than when I'm in the USA. I find very interesting
| how for me personally, the experience seems to be much
| better in a country with an overall lower purchasing
| power than the USA.
|
| [1]: https://www.nvisioncenters.com/corneal-cross-
| linking/costs-a...
| VygmraMGVl wrote:
| 10 years ago, Congress decided we needed to transition off of
| it. Large amounts of the stockpile were sold off from 2013-2018
| and this is the final part of the plan.
|
| https://www.blm.gov/programs/energy-and-minerals/helium/fede...
| nathanfig wrote:
| Thanks!
| hypercube33 wrote:
| Transition off of it? Dont we need it for superconducting
| coolant and some other things?
| bonestamp2 wrote:
| Yes. MRI machines need it, although I guess that kind of
| falls into the superconductor category. But I call that use
| case out because it's probably a good idea to have the
| government, or some trusted caretaker, look after at least
| two strategic stockpiles.
| westurner wrote:
| FWIU Nuclear Fusion can use (and produce) 4He ('He4') as
| fuel.
|
| I think it makes sense to retain our nation's helium
| reserves.
| nathanfig wrote:
| Had to scroll past a ton of doomsayers and jokes to find this
| obvious question. I'd like to understand the decision before
| speculating the meaning.
| dang wrote:
| We changed the URL from
| https://disposal.gsa.gov/s/property/a0Xt000000DPeSLEA1/feder...
| to one with more background.
|
| I'm told that https://www.blm.gov/programs/energy-and-
| minerals/helium/fede... is also good.
|
| Thanks to the users who suggested these!
| scrlk wrote:
| https://www.innovationnewsnetwork.com/helium-shortage-4-0-wh...
|
| Seems a bit short sighted to close the helium reserve and sell it
| off. The last 3 years have taught the value of having some slack
| in the supply chain.
| [deleted]
| Symmetry wrote:
| Hopefully however gets these facilities will buy helium when
| its cheap and sell it when its expensive to provide just that
| sort of slack in the supply chain. My understanding is that
| strategic helium stockpile was just to make sure we have enough
| helium for our the US's use in the event of a war.
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