[HN Gopher] Helium discovery in northern Minnesota may be bigges...
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       Helium discovery in northern Minnesota may be biggest ever in North
       America
        
       Author : throwaway81523
       Score  : 22 points
       Date   : 2024-03-01 19:11 UTC (3 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.cbsnews.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.cbsnews.com)
        
       | nradov wrote:
       | Hooray! That means we can continue using some for diving.
        
       | causal wrote:
       | It's fascinating to me that this stuff stays underground at all.
       | Seems like such light gases would have found their way out long
       | ago.
        
         | lazide wrote:
         | My understanding is that it is also produced from natural
         | uranium decay. So yes, to some extent, but also it's not
         | necessarily _that_ old.
        
         | toss1 wrote:
         | Perhaps most deposits are generated from radioactive decay, so
         | are much younger than the earth?
        
         | jandrese wrote:
         | Turns out solid rock can be rather impermeable, even to light
         | gasses. There is a reason most He production was a side effect
         | of the oil and gas industry, they're the people who need to
         | drill through solid rock to get the hydrocarbons.
        
       | polishdude20 wrote:
       | Bring out the party balloons!
        
       | KyleBerezin wrote:
       | This is great news for the party clown industry.
        
       | bentt wrote:
       | Interesting that the US Govt just sold off its strategic helium
       | reserve a few months ago.
        
       | bequanna wrote:
       | Minnesota has turned very anti-mining in the past several years
       | and the Federal Gov't approving depends heavily on which admin is
       | in power.
       | 
       | I'd be curious to see estimates on when they think they can gain
       | approval to begin extraction at scale.
        
         | quickthrowman wrote:
         | FWIW, helium is extracted by drilling. I guess if you squint
         | hard enough, a borehole is just a mine with a very small
         | diameter :)
         | 
         | > Minnesota has turned very anti-mining in the past several
         | years
         | 
         | With good reason. The Superior National Forest and Boundary
         | Waters Canoe Area are more valuable to us than any copper or
         | nickel deposits.
         | 
         | Once a tailings pond fails and poisons a watershed, there's no
         | going back.
        
       | mateo1 wrote:
       | It would be nice to mention at least an estimate of the reserve
       | size and it's viability.
        
       | ChrisArchitect wrote:
       | Related:
       | 
       |  _The era of cheap helium is over-and that 's already causing
       | problems_
       | 
       | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39545134
        
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       (page generated 2024-03-01 23:02 UTC)