this post was submitted on 02 Mar 2024
370 points (97.4% liked)

Technology

59390 readers
2617 users here now

This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.


Our Rules


  1. Follow the lemmy.world rules.
  2. Only tech related content.
  3. Be excellent to each another!
  4. Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
  5. Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
  6. Politics threads may be removed.
  7. No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
  8. Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
  9. Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed

Approved Bots


founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 

"A dream. It's perfect": Helium discovery in northern Minnesota may be biggest ever in North America::For a century, the U.S. Government-owned the largest helium reserve in the country, but the biggest exporters now are in Russia, Qatar and Tanzania. With this new discovery, Minnesota could be joining that list.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 10 points 8 months ago (1 children)

You understand how much these companies could make if they were capable of purifying the helium further to sell to all the places that desperately need pure helium?

They have loads of resources and haven't figured it out, because it's nowhere near as easy as you're pretending. You don't know what you're talking about.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (2 children)

technology is there, the issue is to run it cheaply, reliably and on scale. this is the actual problem

edit: i mean it's a problem that responds well to throwing money at it. if there was extra need for helium that would be met by diverting balloon gas, then it would work at some price, but we're nowhere close to it

[–] [email protected] 6 points 8 months ago (1 children)

If it takes too much energy it's not exactly "better for the environment" or whatever nonsense argument he's trying to make.

Neither is just storing it.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

energy expenditure would be similar to purifying it from helium concentrate, so not much difference. considering small volume of balloon helium this wouldn't probably mean large increase. i also don't know what this guy is about