Look, there's one right there!
Anyolduser
joined 1 year ago
"A dream. It's perfect": Helium discovery in northern Minnesota may be biggest ever in North America
Buddy, the second I find a better content aggregator that isn't Reddit I'm out.
"A dream. It's perfect": Helium discovery in northern Minnesota may be biggest ever in North America
Jesus Christ not this guy again....
"A dream. It's perfect": Helium discovery in northern Minnesota may be biggest ever in North America
Amen. Some of the shit I see here...
"A dream. It's perfect": Helium discovery in northern Minnesota may be biggest ever in North America
No problem, glad you enjoyed it!
"A dream. It's perfect": Helium discovery in northern Minnesota may be biggest ever in North America
What does any of that have to do with you correcting me without doing even a modicum of research or having any familiarity with the topic?
The fuck is wrong with people here...
"A dream. It's perfect": Helium discovery in northern Minnesota may be biggest ever in North America
No, no it could not.
The stuff used in balloons isn't pure enough to be used for cryogenic purposes, which is what people really want it for.
And before you ask purifying it is really difficult.
"A dream. It's perfect": Helium discovery in northern Minnesota may be biggest ever in North America
... No, but I'd sure trust them to describe oil drilling to me.
Christ, Lemmy sucks ass
"A dream. It's perfect": Helium discovery in northern Minnesota may be biggest ever in North America
You're incorrect, but at least you're incorrect confidently, I guess.
Here's a link where a helium extractor explains the process:
https://rockymountainair.com/blog/how-is-helium-extracted/
It's a lot more complicated than "let it sit in a tank, bro. Trust me, bro".
"A dream. It's perfect": Helium discovery in northern Minnesota may be biggest ever in North America
The highest grade helium is grade 6, grade 4.7 gets used for cryogenic purposes. Balloon helium is grade 4.
Tommy's dad didn't steal grade 6 helium from a research lab for kid's birthday party.
Here's a link to a gas supplier's website with a chart: https://www.westairgases.com/blog/exploring-the-most-essential-and-underappreciated-uses-for-helium
"A dream. It's perfect": Helium discovery in northern Minnesota may be biggest ever in North America
The helium used for balloons is of low purity.
The shortages you hear about are of pure or near pure helium. The stuff going into the balloons at Tommy's birthday party isn't the same thing used to cool superconductors.
EDIT: And I used to think Reddit was full of ignorant jackasses ...
So the cost aspect is absolutely massive. You can theoretically filter elemental gold out of sea water, but it's not reasonable to do that to supply gold for use in electronics. Similarly you can purify helium as much as you want but at a certain point the cost makes whatever you were doing with it prohibitively expensive.
Right now we're still pulling helium out of the ground alongside natural gas deposits. We're also not doing everything we can to recover, recycle, or substitute the industrial and scientific grade stuff either.
As less helium gets extracted the cost will go up. This will put market pressure on all users to use it more efficiently or find substitutes wherever possible. If the price goes high enough it might also drive producers to purify helium that might have been sold at a lower grade in the past.
This find in Minnesota pushes that future scenario down the road a bit, which can either extend the status quo or buy time for technological improvements to be made that will make use and extraction more efficient.