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Ukraine is a major producer of neon gas, critical for lasers used in chipmaking

958 points by swores 5y ago

ergthzerh3g 5y ago
- Aeolun 5y ago
  I’m not sure I would say ‘again’, he was wrong more often than not. I’m inclined to believe that anything he said in regards to European countries sticking their heads in the sand is true though.
- eatsyourtacos 5y ago
perihelions 5y ago
How is neon extracted and why does one country have a 90% monopoly (in this specific grade)? edit: Found this C&EN story from 2016 that adds context: - "Chip makers, which account for more than 90% of global neon consumption, are already experiencing high prices and some shortages stemming from the Russian conflict with Ukraine, Shon-Roy says. The war, which started in 2014, interrupted global supplies of the gas, about 70% of which comes from Iceblick, a firm based in the Ukrainian city of Odessa." - "Iceblick gathers and purifies neon from large cryogenic air separation units that supply oxygen and nitrogen to steelmakers. Most of the air separation units equipped to capture neon, which makes up only 18.2 ppm of the atmosphere by volume, are in Eastern Europe." https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/cen-09410-notw7 https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/cen-09410-notw7 This is puzzling to me, because I don't get why air separation should naturally concentrate in exactly one place. It's not tied to a rare and localized geologic formation, like helium sort-of is. Also there's cryogenic air separation plants all over the planet, why don't they do neon too? (Asking in the spirit of curiosity) edit #2: I've just found something that offers a possible explanation and it's far more interesting than I expected: - "Neon was regarded as a strategic resource in the former Soviet Union, because it was believed to be required for the intended production of laser weapons for missile and satellite defence purposes in the 1980s. Accordingly, all major air separation units in the Soviet Union were equipped with neon, but also krypton and xenon, enrichment facilities or, in some cases, purification plants (cf. Sections 5.4 and 5.5). The domestic Soviet supply of neon was extremely large but demand low." https://www.deutsche-rohstoffagentur.de/DE/Gemeinsames/Produkte/Downloads/DERA_Rohstoffinformationen/rohstoffinformationen-39_en.pdf https://www.deutsche-rohstoffagentur.de/DE/Gemeinsames/Produ... (chapter 5.2)
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- staplers 5y ago
  As with chip making, it can be done anywhere but the tools and factories setup to mass produce are concentrated in certain areas. That's just how industry works sometimes. It takes time to setup new supply chains for mass production.
  - jagger27 5y ago
    We’re seeing this with lithium. Canada and the US have significant amounts in the ground but the mining and refining infra simply isn’t there. Neon distillation does seem much simpler and cleaner, from my layman perspective.
    - roughly 5y ago
      Mining (and refining) especially tends to come with some nasty environmental effects that we've been quite happy to outsource to other parts of the world with less empowered citizenry (and often cheaper labor). Rare-earth elements are the same way - they're relatively abundant, but China is enormously over-represented in the market because the west doesn't like mining and China doesn't care.
      - martyvis 5y ago
        Not just lithium. This program aired on the Aussie ABC last night on the terrible way Cobalt mining is being done in Congo and the total dystopia that has been allowed to occur. https://youtu.be/_V3bIzNX4co https://youtu.be/_V3bIzNX4co
      - daniel-cussen 5y ago
        Lithium mining is not that nasty. And Tesla for one wants to make it even less toxic. Besides there's just not that much life on the salt flat, yeah flamingos great, and the brine shrimp they eat, but come on. That's one of the meaningful defenses for mining in the Atacama, there's very little life to harm. Much better than mining in the middle of the Amazon, making four species endemic to the orefield extinct, don't you think?
atlantas 5y ago
90%! Did we really let ourselves become so reliant on Ukraine and Taiwan for computer chips? Taiwan being the next country most under threat. In fact, Reuters just reported that "Taiwan warns Chinese aircraft in its air defence zone" https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/taiwan-reports-nine-chinese-aircraft-its-air-defence-zone-2022-02-24/ https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/taiwan-reports-ni...
- Rebelgecko 5y ago
  Doesn't that happen on more or less a weekly basis?
  - agilob 5y ago
    Yes, why does it still happen on a weekly basis?
    - monkeywork 5y ago
      Because their airspace extends over mainland china...
    - Rebelgecko 5y ago
      Why would it stop? Not sure how the Chinese military works, but presumably their pilots need a certain # of flight hours to stay current. It's not like there's really a downside for China
    - actuator 5y ago
      Every time they do this Taiwan has to scramble their own jets in the air. So most likely it is to test Taiwan's response times and wear out their aircrafts. Each flight of those fighter jets adds to a maintenance cost on top of the fuel costs, which is disproportionately higher for Taiwan considering the size of the economy.
      - rootusrootus 5y ago
        Indeed it apparently costs close to 10% of their military budget just to respond to Chinese incursions. That's a heck of an incentive.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
Yuioup 5y ago
Not anymore they're not. Time to find another supplier.
umvi 5y ago
Russia's actions make me nervous that China will be emboldened to do the same for Taiwan
- amelius 5y ago
  Yes this is scary. Chinese defense budget is considerable at 1/3 of US budget.
  - jthrowsitaway 5y ago
    Interesting. I wonder if China has the same amount of waste and overspending in their military industrial complex.
    - atlantas 5y ago
      That's highly relevant! China may spend 1/3, but they are more efficient. We probably waste 1/2 or more of our spending. So it's possible we are closer to parity than it would appear if solely comparing budget.
      - dcchambers 5y ago
        > they are more efficient. Citation needed.
        bobberkarl 5y ago
        Your F35 price is set by the market. Their FC-31 price is set by the CCP.
      - stjohnswarts 5y ago
        They aren't more efficient. However, their costs (especially for labor) are much lower than in the USA except for stuff they can't source from government owned sources.
  - serf 5y ago
dcdc123 5y ago
https://archive.is/OBG4R https://archive.is/OBG4R
vondur 5y ago
Since it's extracted from the air, it shouldn't be too hard to start doing it here. I assume we do this for other gases already, so ramping it up for Neon may not be that difficult.
- MisterTea 5y ago
  This is exactly why this is a non-issue. It's not like the air over the Ukraine is magically richer in neon.
  - whatshisface 5y ago
    It's not a non-issue. You can't extract it from air with tweezers, you need to build a lot of equipment. It takes a long time to build a chemical plant, and if Intel is sitting idle until that plant is built... well, that's an enormous problem.
    - MisterTea 5y ago
      > you need to build a lot of equipment. Cryogenic distillation of air is a solved problem. There are plenty of plants already in operation all over the globe meaning there only needs to be modification to existing plants to further collect and crack the remaining 0.1% of air. I'm sure this is not hard to do with existing cryoplants. If we already have the capacity then why are we without Neon production is a good question. Neon isn't in high demand like the easily extracted major components of air: nitrogen (78%), oxygen (21%), and argon (0.9%). Neon is something like 18ppm in air so a lot of energy has to go in to get very little out. So my guess is economics where the existing Ukrainian cryogenic plants have kept their prices low enough to discourage adding this capacity to new/existing plants elsewhere (maybe they get cheap energy, subsidies, etc). Now it might be profitable.
      - whatshisface 5y ago
        >Cryogenic distillation of air is a solved problem. There are plenty of plants already in operation all over the globe meaning there only needs to be modification to existing plants to further collect and crack the remaining 0.1% of air. I'm sure this is not hard to do with existing cryoplants. It can take months or years to make additions to existing plants, there is an enormous amount of difference between a solved textbook problem and a real problem being solved.
dogma1138 5y ago
And Russia produces 50% of the worlds palladium which is critical for manufacturing ceramic capacitors. Looks like we’re stuck between the hammer and the sickle…
- Panoramix 5y ago
  The article quotes 35%.
- dboreham 5y ago
  Palladium is also mined in Montana.
- r00fus 5y ago
  Russia is not a communist country. That was the USSR. Your reference, while clever, is quite outdated.
  - antifa 5y ago
    It's kind of funny how many people either don't know or pretend to not know about some obscure thing that happened in 1989.
tgflynn 5y ago
Can someone explain why neon is critical for "lasers used in chip manufacturing" ? I don't think they'd be using He-Ne lasers, and if they are I would think those could be replaced fairly easily with solid-state lasers.
- perihelions 5y ago
  Deep-ultraviolet excimer lasers, I think (?). Not a domain expert! - "Excimer laser gas mixtures are a combination of rare gases (argon, krypton, xenon, or neon) and halogen gases (fluorine or chlorine). The mixture of gases determines the wavelength of DUV light produced. Argon+fluorine+neon (193nm) and Krypton+fluorine+neon (248nm) are the two most common mixtures used. In terms of volume; neon makes up approximately 96–97.5% of the mixture." https://www.linde-gas.com/en/images/Gasworld%20Excimer%20Laser%20Gases%20May%202017_tcm17-419058.pdf https://www.linde-gas.com/en/images/Gasworld%20Excimer%20Las...
- jbay808 5y ago
  There could very well be HeNe lasers used as an interferometric length standard in lithography equipment. There are some solid-state lasers that could substitute for that role, such as NPRO lasers, but they're much more expensive and not widely produced.
- krazerlasers 5y ago
  Somewhat counterintuitively, the primary gas species used in excimer lasers are noble gasses. A typical gas mix for a 193nm excimer laser would be ~97% neon and just a few percent of the actual argon/fluorine excimer mix. [1] Since you mentioned them -- as hard as it may be to believe -- HeNe lasers are only just beginning to be phased out in the semi industry in the somewhat esoteric use case of precision position measurement using interferometry. The output wavelength of a HeNe lase is extremely stable--with a simple feedback loop on the cavity length (ie, temperature) a HeNe laser is essentially an atomic clock locked to the 473.612248 THz 5s2 → 3p HeNe line. Interferometers built around such systems can accurately measure sub-nanometer displacements and are able to achieve a lifetime absolute stability of better than 10ppb--comparable to a rubidium atomic clock! [2] [1] https://www.linde-gas.com/en/images/Gasworld%20Excimer%20Laser%20Gases%20May%202017_tcm17-419058.pdf https://www.linde-gas.com/en/images/Gasworld%20Excimer%20Las... [2] https://www.repairfaq.org/sam/laserhst.htm#hstish3 https://www.repairfaq.org/sam/laserhst.htm#hstish3
Borrible 5y ago
I'm more concerned about the probable loss of wheat supplies to the near east, especially Turkey and Egypt. But of course,they could just eat Revani or Basbousa instead.
- londons_explore 5y ago
  Wheat is pretty easy to ship, and globally is usually 'overproduced' due to farm subsidies. People won't be going hungry just because one countries production stopped.
  - outworlder 5y ago
    Two.
  - Borrible 5y ago
    Yes, but who will have the money to buy your 'overproduction', for what will he buy it and how will it be 'pretty easily' shipped? https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/05/20/food-price-spikes-and-social-unrest-the-dark-side-of-the-feds-crisis-fighting/ https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/05/20/food-price-spikes-and-s... https://www.al-monitor.com/originals/2021/12/bread-prices-ring-alarm-bells-turkey https://www.al-monitor.com/originals/2021/12/bread-prices-ri... https://www.skuld.com/topics/cargo/solid-bulk/agricultural-cargoes/transportation-of-wheat/ https://www.skuld.com/topics/cargo/solid-bulk/agricultural-c... Filter the chart to 'All' to have a wider scope. On it and things as a whole: https://www.marketwatch.com/investing/future/w00 https://www.marketwatch.com/investing/future/w00 In the olden times some considered it a good measure to secure food production by subsidies. You know, hungry people get restless. If that is your intent or you don't have to face the consequences, it's fine. But for the most part to keep the masses fed is a basic measure. Of course with time, things get complicated for governments: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-08-03/egypt-s-president-says-bread-prices-should-be-reviewed-krvw702x https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-08-03/egypt-s-p... But you always have to consider the angry rabble will string you up at the next streetlight.In the aforementioned parts of the world gladly with an 'Allāhu akbar' on the lips. Admitted, in many parts of the world they, the masses that is, are quite overfed by now and appropriate measures should be taken. But that can change quite fast.
jcadam 5y ago
I'm more concerned about Ukraine's wheat exports, personally. Likely to become a critical issue much more quickly than neon gas.
- hnthrowaway0315 5y ago
  Agreed. It exports a large amount of wheat.
- baq 5y ago
  and corn. ZC=F today was crazy.
  - cwkoss 5y ago
    What does ZC=F mean?
    - yellow_postit 5y ago
      Corn Futures ticker https://cropwatch.unl.edu/2021/grain-marketing-lingo-—-trading-codes https://cropwatch.unl.edu/2021/grain-marketing-lingo-—-tradi...
  - nacs 5y ago
    Corn is less of an issue -- US has a massive surplus of corn.
- contingencies 5y ago
  Well given the UN FAO already reported massive world food price growth driven by agricultural commodities, and the US, UK, Europe and China have all reported massive food price growth, this isn't going to help. The winners will be the large-scale agricultural commodities trading houses such as Cargill. They see this stuff coming and hedge appropriately before it happens.
  - eru 5y ago
    If they hedge before it happens, they don't benefit from the rise: the hedging locks in the prices.
angryGhost 5y ago
who else said yesterday they would quit the news? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30430041 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30430041
- speg 5y ago
  I’ve got my head in the sand. Good thing I stopped checking my investments too. I’ll let you guys on HN let me know when things are good again :)
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
34ylkjj45y 5y ago
gjsman-1000 5y ago
First Crimea. Then Hong Kong. Then Afghanistan. Now Ukraine. Next Taiwan.
- tintor 5y ago
  You left out Kosovo.
perihelions 5y ago
I've found the reason (I think) 90% of the world's semiconductor-grade neon production is concentrated in one country. Per this German government whitepaper about the noble gas industry: the USSR massively overinvested in neon capacity in the 1980's, in order to build space-based excimer laser weapons. Ukraine's extant plants date (probably) to the 1980's; they're responsible for a global oversupply that's persisted since the Cold War. - "Neon was regarded as a strategic resource in the former Soviet Union, because it was believed to be required for the intended production of laser weapons for missile and satellite defence purposes in the 1980s. Accordingly, all major air separation units in the Soviet Union were equipped with neon, but also krypton and xenon, enrichment facilities or, in some cases, purification plants (cf. Sections 5.4 and 5.5). The domestic Soviet supply of neon was extremely large but demand low." - "Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, global crude neon production was approximately 500–600 million l/a (= 500,000–600,000 m3/a). It was dominated by far by large-scale air separation units associated with metallurgical combines in Russia and Ukraine. Simultaneously, demand was estimated at around 300 million l/a (cf. Section 4.2). In the years between 1990 and 2012, therefore, most crude neon was not purified, but released into the atmosphere, because there was no customer base." https://www.deutsche-rohstoffagentur.de/DE/Gemeinsames/Produkte/Downloads/DERA_Rohstoffinformationen/rohstoffinformationen-39_en.pdf https://www.deutsche-rohstoffagentur.de/DE/Gemeinsames/Produ... (chapter 5.2) For context, this would have overlapped with Energia/Buran's launch of the Polyus weapon (which was a megawatt CO2 laser). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyus_(spacecraft) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyus_(spacecraft)
- jessriedel 5y ago
  Did the US have a similar project? I'm aware of Project Excalibur, but I think that was significantly more ambitious (nuclear powered x-ray laser) and wasn't developed nearly as far. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Excalibur https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Excalibur
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- credit_guy 5y ago
  Given this piece of information, it's hard to see how 500-600,000 m3/a could be used for the lasers used in chip manufacture. Even if the whole world production drops by 99.9%, there's probably going to be more than enough for those lasers to continue working. Edit: it also appears that the current state of the art chip manufacturing does not use excimer lasers anymore [1], and the prior generations used them, but not with Neon, but rather with Kripton and Argon. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Excimer_laser#Photolithography https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Excimer_laser#Photolithography
amelius 5y ago
EU and US response to Russia is totally ineffective. They should have moved troops in from the beginning.
- jamesy0ung 5y ago
  US and EU are superpowers. Superpowers fighting would have caused WW3.
- scyzoryk_xyz 5y ago
  And risked an enormous escalation with a nuclear power? That would be reckless. Don't get me wrong - I would also like to see decisive action to this attack. But escalating a relatively local dispute into a conflict between world powers would risk a WW. Moving in troops into a non-NATO ally would also be extremely difficult to explain on the world stage. There probably is decisive action being implemented behind the scenes right now, it's just not visible to the public.
  - amelius 5y ago
    Putin is very rational and predictive. The nuclear option is not relevant. He moved troops to the borders, waited for a response. And this response was what he expected to be: just sanctions. This gave him the "ok" to invade. Sending troops would be a clear signal. Costly, but you can also see it as a good exercise.
    - k0k0r0 5y ago
      > Putin is very rational and predictive. To be honest this war does make me doubt my assption that Putin is very rational and predictive. What is the rationale behind such a full-scale invasion? I don't see benefits that outweight the costs. I am happy to hear them, if they are any.
      - cjbgkagh 5y ago
        CIA Director Bill Burns predicted exactly this back in 2008 when George Bush declared Ukraine would eventually join NATO.
londons_explore 5y ago
Neon is a byproduct of producing liquid nitrogen, oxygen and other gas products. Many other plants could start producing neon pretty easily. They just haven't so far because neon isn't profitable to produce and sell. But with a relatively-large but globally-insignificant price increase it would be.
YaBomm 5y ago
Guthur 5y ago
This is not the reason. Pure and simply Russia needs people, its dying. Low birth rate, high death rate, little immigration to make up the short fall (who wants to move to Russia :)), and to top off a weak economy that will struggle to support a small less active workforce. Interestingly Ukraine has pretty much the same population problem. This will be increasingly common problem for countries as population growth slows.
- javajosh 5y ago
  Aging population implies a decades spike in demand for elder care. How does it imply an invasion?
  - Guthur 5y ago
    You need a strong services based economy to support an aged population, this is not what russia has by a long shot. Russia has few choices to fix this in timeline they'd have to work with. Population demographics take a long time to solve peacefully.
- replygirl 5y ago
  ukraine's population growth and birth rates have been negative and below russia's for some time now, so annexation only makes that worse per-capita. it's not clear that a flattening of the growth rate is a bad thing for quality of life or economic security, in spite of how it affects an economy on paper
- partiallypro 5y ago
  The entire Western world is declining birth rates. It's very worrying. People complained about over population, but a nose dive in birth rates can become near irreversable.
  - rodgerd 5y ago
    There is no lack of people in the world. This is only an issue if you have some sort of deep-set racist need to only be around people of a particular skin colour.
darkhorn 5y ago
Some Russian products that you would like to avoid: * Yandex * Lukoil * WinRAR * Kaspersky * Lada * Russian Standard Original Vodka * Stoli Vodka * Baltika * Lukoil * Gazprom * Kamaz * Masha and the Bear * Kalashnikov * Stolichnaya * Ural motorcycles * VK
- stjohnswarts 5y ago
  Yandex was the only one for me. I blocked it on all the hosts files under my control and my pihole network dns
- mrweasel 5y ago
  WinRAR/rarlabs is a German company.
  - darkhorn 5y ago
    The developer and his brother are from Russia. Also WinRAR is free in Russia.
    - arzeth 5y ago
      > is free in Russia. I just visited the Russian version https://www.win-rar.com/start.html?&L=4 https://www.win-rar.com/start.html?&L=4 from Russia. There is still "Buy WinRAR" button. Although anyone can get an infinite trial version (like Sublime Text), some Russian companies buy it just in case, according to some random comments in threads that joke about mythical buyers of WinRAR. Also I found rumors that the developer (Eugene Roshal) moved to Germany or the USA. No info found about his brother who is the WinRAR's copyright holder, which is what matters.
- Aeolun 5y ago
  I don’t think anyone needs any prodding to stop using Kaspersky.
  - redisman 5y ago
    What about my brand new Lada!
pier25 5y ago
We should be talking about grain, not gas. Russia is the biggest exporter of wheat in the world with 18%. Ukraine accounts for 7% of the world's wheat. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/2/17/infographic-russia-ukraine-and-the-global-wheat-supply-interactive https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/2/17/infographic-russia-... This conflict will affect 1/4 of the world's wheat which will affect food prices. In 2010 Russia stopped exporting wheat due to wildfires burning their fields (most likely caused by climate change). This caused a hike in food prices which helped trigger the Arab revolutions in 2011. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_Russian_wildfires https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_Russian_wildfires
- immmmmm 5y ago
  We should be talking about human lives. My Ukrainian colleague was terrified for his family today.
  - pier25 5y ago
    You think a global increase of food prices will not have an effect on human lives?
    - tablespoon 5y ago
      >> We should be talking about human lives. >> My Ukrainian colleague was terrified for his family today. > You think a global increase of food prices will not have an effect on human lives? Not nearly the same kind as the one the GP is referring to.
      - judge2020 5y ago
        Regular food, no bombings = very few dies for unrelated causes Regular food, non-WMD bombings = many die, directly Irregular food, regardless of bombings = many millions might die or be severely impacted in the long-term
        5y ago
krazerlasers 5y ago
I was personally hit by this back in 2015 as a grad student. We called up our process gas supplier and asked for a k-cylinder of Neon and were laughed off the phone, so we ended up running our experiment on krypton for setup and used a lecture bottle of Neon that a partner lab had left over for the few minutes of data collection we needed to get our result[1]. At the time, we were cursing the semi industry for using up all of the remaining Neon with their billion dollar operating budgets... [1]https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/0953-4075/49/15/155601 https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/0953-4075/49/15/1...
eanc 5y ago
I'm glad to see we have the right reasons at heart for caring about human events.
- Aeolun 5y ago
  Dunno, feels like a tech related excuse to talk about current events on here.
- nomel 5y ago
  There are many externalities of war. They're all bad, all important, and all worth talking about, to help prevent wars.
tammer 5y ago
well that explains a lot
twarge 5y ago
Here in NJ they separate neon from the air. This is not a problem.
g45ylkjlk45y 5y ago
RspecMAuthortah 5y ago
What would be some good stocks to invest to capitalize this? Perhaps some trading in Russian/Ukrainian Stock Exchange? Is there any significant US company listed in Nasdaq or NYSE in this space?
- snemvalts 5y ago
  Don't put any money into both stock exchanges right now, especially the russian one.
  - s1artibartfast 5y ago
    Why not? Seems like a great time. Buy low
    - verve_rat 5y ago
      Because sanctions might mean you can't get your money back from Russia. And Ukraine might not exist as a country soon.
      - s1artibartfast 5y ago
        What money would go into Russia? Just buy on a US stock exchange
        jannyfer 5y ago
        You replied to a comment suggesting not putting money into Russian or Ukrainian stock exchanges, asking why not. > Don't put any money into both stock exchanges right now, especially the russian one. Then you are asking what money would go into Russia...
        s1artibartfast 5y ago
        Fair, but you can still buy Russian company stock on other exchanges, pink sheets, ect.
blobbers 5y ago
While the trade implications of this war are being consider, let's think of the lives of our fellow hackers. These are people who along side us develop the software of the world. They're not necessarily soldiers, they're just regular people and right now there are missiles flying at their homes, tanks in their streets. Surely there is a way we can help the people.
- k0k0r0 5y ago
  Yeah, anyone an idea? There is outages of the internet and mobile communications in some areas? For example is there anything one can do forom here about that?
  - eru 5y ago
    In general, if you want to help, have a look at https://www.givewell.org/ https://www.givewell.org/ and just pick any one of their top charities. (Yes, their top charities don't necessarily have anything to do with whatever cause is currently in the news. They go by 'greatest improvement in human lives per buck' regardless of where those people are.)
phkahler 5y ago
Time to move on to free electron lasers powered by compact accelerators.
steve76 5y ago
verisimi 5y ago
Let's get that neon gas back!
neves 5y ago
No problem, the first thing invaders do is to extract and sell natural resources. See USA and Iraq oil.
- redisman 5y ago
  Extract wheat in Ukraine in… February. Sure
  - krisoft 5y ago
    You are assuming that they won’t stay.
mblock 5y ago
Didn’t Russia also say something like, laser weapons will be the future of warfare a while back?
aj7 5y ago
With some loss of performance, I think the excimer laser gas mix could use only He as an admix gas.
ComradePhil 5y ago
This headline is disinformation. No, Ukraine doesn't produce neon. Russia produces it and sends it to Ukraine for processing and distribution. But, wait, there's more. Ukranian company Iceblick is the major producer of neon. It has production facilities in Odessa, Ukraine and Moscow, Russia. But wait, there's more. Iceblick is not a major producer of neon, Chinese companies produce a lot more... which is what is used in global chipmaking. The claim in the article is that "[Ukraine] supplies more than 90% of U.S. semiconductor-grade neon"... which may not be true in the first place, but the modified title here suggests completely something else... which is blatantly false.
sycren 5y ago
So what happens to the chipmaking industry in the event of a Russian occupation of Ukraine and a Chinese occupation of Taiwan?
MrYellowP 5y ago
After all those lies I've been told over and over and over again, over decades, about all those countries which got invaded by the US, bombed by the US, had their governments overthrown by the US ... ... why would I believe them about Russia? Based on an image in a news-livestream yesterday, targets are solely military structures. The reporter did not fail in trying to make russia look bad, showing actually no regard to the information itself. Personally, I can absolutely understand the desire to remove military equipment next to my doorstep, especially when it's ran by a country which, FOR DECADES, used lies to take over countries and kill millions of people.

958 points by swores 5y ago

Aeolun 5y ago
I’m not sure I would say ‘again’, he was wrong more often than not. I’m inclined to believe that anything he said in regards to European countries sticking their heads in the sand is true though.
eatsyourtacos 5y ago

How is neon extracted and why does one country have a 90% monopoly (in this specific grade)? edit: Found this C&EN story from 2016 that adds context: - "Chip makers, which account for more than 90% of global neon consumption, are already experiencing high prices and some shortages stemming from the Russian conflict with Ukraine, Shon-Roy says. The war, which started in 2014, interrupted global supplies of the gas, about 70% of which comes from Iceblick, a firm based in the Ukrainian city of Odessa." - "Iceblick gathers and purifies neon from large cryogenic air separation units that supply oxygen and nitrogen to steelmakers. Most of the air separation units equipped to capture neon, which makes up only 18.2 ppm of the atmosphere by volume, are in Eastern Europe." https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/cen-09410-notw7 https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/cen-09410-notw7 This is puzzling to me, because I don't get why air separation should naturally concentrate in exactly one place. It's not tied to a rare and localized geologic formation, like helium sort-of is. Also there's cryogenic air separation plants all over the planet, why don't they do neon too? (Asking in the spirit of curiosity) edit #2: I've just found something that offers a possible explanation and it's far more interesting than I expected: - "Neon was regarded as a strategic resource in the former Soviet Union, because it was believed to be required for the intended production of laser weapons for missile and satellite defence purposes in the 1980s. Accordingly, all major air separation units in the Soviet Union were equipped with neon, but also krypton and xenon, enrichment facilities or, in some cases, purification plants (cf. Sections 5.4 and 5.5). The domestic Soviet supply of neon was extremely large but demand low." https://www.deutsche-rohstoffagentur.de/DE/Gemeinsames/Produkte/Downloads/DERA_Rohstoffinformationen/rohstoffinformationen-39_en.pdf https://www.deutsche-rohstoffagentur.de/DE/Gemeinsames/Produ... (chapter 5.2)

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staplers 5y ago
As with chip making, it can be done anywhere but the tools and factories setup to mass produce are concentrated in certain areas. That's just how industry works sometimes. It takes time to setup new supply chains for mass production.
- jagger27 5y ago
  We’re seeing this with lithium. Canada and the US have significant amounts in the ground but the mining and refining infra simply isn’t there. Neon distillation does seem much simpler and cleaner, from my layman perspective.
  - roughly 5y ago
    Mining (and refining) especially tends to come with some nasty environmental effects that we've been quite happy to outsource to other parts of the world with less empowered citizenry (and often cheaper labor). Rare-earth elements are the same way - they're relatively abundant, but China is enormously over-represented in the market because the west doesn't like mining and China doesn't care.
    - martyvis 5y ago
      Not just lithium. This program aired on the Aussie ABC last night on the terrible way Cobalt mining is being done in Congo and the total dystopia that has been allowed to occur. https://youtu.be/_V3bIzNX4co https://youtu.be/_V3bIzNX4co
    - daniel-cussen 5y ago
      Lithium mining is not that nasty. And Tesla for one wants to make it even less toxic. Besides there's just not that much life on the salt flat, yeah flamingos great, and the brine shrimp they eat, but come on. That's one of the meaningful defenses for mining in the Atacama, there's very little life to harm. Much better than mining in the middle of the Amazon, making four species endemic to the orefield extinct, don't you think?

atlantas 5y ago

90%! Did we really let ourselves become so reliant on Ukraine and Taiwan for computer chips? Taiwan being the next country most under threat. In fact, Reuters just reported that "Taiwan warns Chinese aircraft in its air defence zone" https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/taiwan-reports-nine-chinese-aircraft-its-air-defence-zone-2022-02-24/ https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/taiwan-reports-ni...

Rebelgecko 5y ago
Doesn't that happen on more or less a weekly basis?
- agilob 5y ago
  Yes, why does it still happen on a weekly basis?
  - monkeywork 5y ago
    Because their airspace extends over mainland china...
  - Rebelgecko 5y ago
    Why would it stop? Not sure how the Chinese military works, but presumably their pilots need a certain # of flight hours to stay current. It's not like there's really a downside for China
  - actuator 5y ago
    Every time they do this Taiwan has to scramble their own jets in the air. So most likely it is to test Taiwan's response times and wear out their aircrafts. Each flight of those fighter jets adds to a maintenance cost on top of the fuel costs, which is disproportionately higher for Taiwan considering the size of the economy.
    - rootusrootus 5y ago
      Indeed it apparently costs close to 10% of their military budget just to respond to Chinese incursions. That's a heck of an incentive.

deleted 5y ago

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Yuioup 5y ago

Not anymore they're not. Time to find another supplier.

umvi 5y ago

Russia's actions make me nervous that China will be emboldened to do the same for Taiwan

amelius 5y ago
Yes this is scary. Chinese defense budget is considerable at 1/3 of US budget.
- jthrowsitaway 5y ago
  Interesting. I wonder if China has the same amount of waste and overspending in their military industrial complex.
  - atlantas 5y ago
    That's highly relevant! China may spend 1/3, but they are more efficient. We probably waste 1/2 or more of our spending. So it's possible we are closer to parity than it would appear if solely comparing budget.
    - dcchambers 5y ago
      > they are more efficient. Citation needed.
      - bobberkarl 5y ago
        Your F35 price is set by the market. Their FC-31 price is set by the CCP.
    - stjohnswarts 5y ago
      They aren't more efficient. However, their costs (especially for labor) are much lower than in the USA except for stuff they can't source from government owned sources.
- serf 5y ago

dcdc123 5y ago

https://archive.is/OBG4R https://archive.is/OBG4R

vondur 5y ago

Since it's extracted from the air, it shouldn't be too hard to start doing it here. I assume we do this for other gases already, so ramping it up for Neon may not be that difficult.

MisterTea 5y ago
This is exactly why this is a non-issue. It's not like the air over the Ukraine is magically richer in neon.
- whatshisface 5y ago
  It's not a non-issue. You can't extract it from air with tweezers, you need to build a lot of equipment. It takes a long time to build a chemical plant, and if Intel is sitting idle until that plant is built... well, that's an enormous problem.
  - MisterTea 5y ago
    > you need to build a lot of equipment. Cryogenic distillation of air is a solved problem. There are plenty of plants already in operation all over the globe meaning there only needs to be modification to existing plants to further collect and crack the remaining 0.1% of air. I'm sure this is not hard to do with existing cryoplants. If we already have the capacity then why are we without Neon production is a good question. Neon isn't in high demand like the easily extracted major components of air: nitrogen (78%), oxygen (21%), and argon (0.9%). Neon is something like 18ppm in air so a lot of energy has to go in to get very little out. So my guess is economics where the existing Ukrainian cryogenic plants have kept their prices low enough to discourage adding this capacity to new/existing plants elsewhere (maybe they get cheap energy, subsidies, etc). Now it might be profitable.
    - whatshisface 5y ago
      >Cryogenic distillation of air is a solved problem. There are plenty of plants already in operation all over the globe meaning there only needs to be modification to existing plants to further collect and crack the remaining 0.1% of air. I'm sure this is not hard to do with existing cryoplants. It can take months or years to make additions to existing plants, there is an enormous amount of difference between a solved textbook problem and a real problem being solved.

dogma1138 5y ago

And Russia produces 50% of the worlds palladium which is critical for manufacturing ceramic capacitors. Looks like we’re stuck between the hammer and the sickle…

Panoramix 5y ago
The article quotes 35%.
dboreham 5y ago
Palladium is also mined in Montana.
r00fus 5y ago
Russia is not a communist country. That was the USSR. Your reference, while clever, is quite outdated.
- antifa 5y ago
  It's kind of funny how many people either don't know or pretend to not know about some obscure thing that happened in 1989.

tgflynn 5y ago

Can someone explain why neon is critical for "lasers used in chip manufacturing" ? I don't think they'd be using He-Ne lasers, and if they are I would think those could be replaced fairly easily with solid-state lasers.

perihelions 5y ago
Deep-ultraviolet excimer lasers, I think (?). Not a domain expert! - "Excimer laser gas mixtures are a combination of rare gases (argon, krypton, xenon, or neon) and halogen gases (fluorine or chlorine). The mixture of gases determines the wavelength of DUV light produced. Argon+fluorine+neon (193nm) and Krypton+fluorine+neon (248nm) are the two most common mixtures used. In terms of volume; neon makes up approximately 96–97.5% of the mixture." https://www.linde-gas.com/en/images/Gasworld%20Excimer%20Laser%20Gases%20May%202017_tcm17-419058.pdf https://www.linde-gas.com/en/images/Gasworld%20Excimer%20Las...
jbay808 5y ago
There could very well be HeNe lasers used as an interferometric length standard in lithography equipment. There are some solid-state lasers that could substitute for that role, such as NPRO lasers, but they're much more expensive and not widely produced.
krazerlasers 5y ago
Somewhat counterintuitively, the primary gas species used in excimer lasers are noble gasses. A typical gas mix for a 193nm excimer laser would be ~97% neon and just a few percent of the actual argon/fluorine excimer mix. [1] Since you mentioned them -- as hard as it may be to believe -- HeNe lasers are only just beginning to be phased out in the semi industry in the somewhat esoteric use case of precision position measurement using interferometry. The output wavelength of a HeNe lase is extremely stable--with a simple feedback loop on the cavity length (ie, temperature) a HeNe laser is essentially an atomic clock locked to the 473.612248 THz 5s2 → 3p HeNe line. Interferometers built around such systems can accurately measure sub-nanometer displacements and are able to achieve a lifetime absolute stability of better than 10ppb--comparable to a rubidium atomic clock! [2] [1] https://www.linde-gas.com/en/images/Gasworld%20Excimer%20Laser%20Gases%20May%202017_tcm17-419058.pdf https://www.linde-gas.com/en/images/Gasworld%20Excimer%20Las... [2] https://www.repairfaq.org/sam/laserhst.htm#hstish3 https://www.repairfaq.org/sam/laserhst.htm#hstish3

Borrible 5y ago

I'm more concerned about the probable loss of wheat supplies to the near east, especially Turkey and Egypt. But of course,they could just eat Revani or Basbousa instead.

londons_explore 5y ago
Wheat is pretty easy to ship, and globally is usually 'overproduced' due to farm subsidies. People won't be going hungry just because one countries production stopped.
- outworlder 5y ago
  Two.
- Borrible 5y ago
  Yes, but who will have the money to buy your 'overproduction', for what will he buy it and how will it be 'pretty easily' shipped? https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/05/20/food-price-spikes-and-social-unrest-the-dark-side-of-the-feds-crisis-fighting/ https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/05/20/food-price-spikes-and-s... https://www.al-monitor.com/originals/2021/12/bread-prices-ring-alarm-bells-turkey https://www.al-monitor.com/originals/2021/12/bread-prices-ri... https://www.skuld.com/topics/cargo/solid-bulk/agricultural-cargoes/transportation-of-wheat/ https://www.skuld.com/topics/cargo/solid-bulk/agricultural-c... Filter the chart to 'All' to have a wider scope. On it and things as a whole: https://www.marketwatch.com/investing/future/w00 https://www.marketwatch.com/investing/future/w00 In the olden times some considered it a good measure to secure food production by subsidies. You know, hungry people get restless. If that is your intent or you don't have to face the consequences, it's fine. But for the most part to keep the masses fed is a basic measure. Of course with time, things get complicated for governments: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-08-03/egypt-s-president-says-bread-prices-should-be-reviewed-krvw702x https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-08-03/egypt-s-p... But you always have to consider the angry rabble will string you up at the next streetlight.In the aforementioned parts of the world gladly with an 'Allāhu akbar' on the lips. Admitted, in many parts of the world they, the masses that is, are quite overfed by now and appropriate measures should be taken. But that can change quite fast.

jcadam 5y ago

I'm more concerned about Ukraine's wheat exports, personally. Likely to become a critical issue much more quickly than neon gas.

hnthrowaway0315 5y ago
Agreed. It exports a large amount of wheat.
baq 5y ago
and corn. ZC=F today was crazy.
- cwkoss 5y ago
  What does ZC=F mean?
  - yellow_postit 5y ago
    Corn Futures ticker https://cropwatch.unl.edu/2021/grain-marketing-lingo-—-trading-codes https://cropwatch.unl.edu/2021/grain-marketing-lingo-—-tradi...
- nacs 5y ago
  Corn is less of an issue -- US has a massive surplus of corn.
contingencies 5y ago
Well given the UN FAO already reported massive world food price growth driven by agricultural commodities, and the US, UK, Europe and China have all reported massive food price growth, this isn't going to help. The winners will be the large-scale agricultural commodities trading houses such as Cargill. They see this stuff coming and hedge appropriately before it happens.
- eru 5y ago
  If they hedge before it happens, they don't benefit from the rise: the hedging locks in the prices.

angryGhost 5y ago

who else said yesterday they would quit the news? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30430041 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30430041

speg 5y ago
I’ve got my head in the sand. Good thing I stopped checking my investments too. I’ll let you guys on HN let me know when things are good again :)

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

34ylkjj45y 5y ago

gjsman-1000 5y ago

First Crimea. Then Hong Kong. Then Afghanistan. Now Ukraine. Next Taiwan.

tintor 5y ago
You left out Kosovo.

perihelions 5y ago

I've found the reason (I think) 90% of the world's semiconductor-grade neon production is concentrated in one country. Per this German government whitepaper about the noble gas industry: the USSR massively overinvested in neon capacity in the 1980's, in order to build space-based excimer laser weapons. Ukraine's extant plants date (probably) to the 1980's; they're responsible for a global oversupply that's persisted since the Cold War. - "Neon was regarded as a strategic resource in the former Soviet Union, because it was believed to be required for the intended production of laser weapons for missile and satellite defence purposes in the 1980s. Accordingly, all major air separation units in the Soviet Union were equipped with neon, but also krypton and xenon, enrichment facilities or, in some cases, purification plants (cf. Sections 5.4 and 5.5). The domestic Soviet supply of neon was extremely large but demand low." - "Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, global crude neon production was approximately 500–600 million l/a (= 500,000–600,000 m3/a). It was dominated by far by large-scale air separation units associated with metallurgical combines in Russia and Ukraine. Simultaneously, demand was estimated at around 300 million l/a (cf. Section 4.2). In the years between 1990 and 2012, therefore, most crude neon was not purified, but released into the atmosphere, because there was no customer base." https://www.deutsche-rohstoffagentur.de/DE/Gemeinsames/Produkte/Downloads/DERA_Rohstoffinformationen/rohstoffinformationen-39_en.pdf https://www.deutsche-rohstoffagentur.de/DE/Gemeinsames/Produ... (chapter 5.2) For context, this would have overlapped with Energia/Buran's launch of the Polyus weapon (which was a megawatt CO2 laser). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyus_(spacecraft) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyus_(spacecraft)

jessriedel 5y ago
Did the US have a similar project? I'm aware of Project Excalibur, but I think that was significantly more ambitious (nuclear powered x-ray laser) and wasn't developed nearly as far. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Excalibur https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Excalibur
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
credit_guy 5y ago
Given this piece of information, it's hard to see how 500-600,000 m3/a could be used for the lasers used in chip manufacture. Even if the whole world production drops by 99.9%, there's probably going to be more than enough for those lasers to continue working. Edit: it also appears that the current state of the art chip manufacturing does not use excimer lasers anymore [1], and the prior generations used them, but not with Neon, but rather with Kripton and Argon. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Excimer_laser#Photolithography https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Excimer_laser#Photolithography

amelius 5y ago

EU and US response to Russia is totally ineffective. They should have moved troops in from the beginning.

jamesy0ung 5y ago
US and EU are superpowers. Superpowers fighting would have caused WW3.
scyzoryk_xyz 5y ago
And risked an enormous escalation with a nuclear power? That would be reckless. Don't get me wrong - I would also like to see decisive action to this attack. But escalating a relatively local dispute into a conflict between world powers would risk a WW. Moving in troops into a non-NATO ally would also be extremely difficult to explain on the world stage. There probably is decisive action being implemented behind the scenes right now, it's just not visible to the public.
- amelius 5y ago
  Putin is very rational and predictive. The nuclear option is not relevant. He moved troops to the borders, waited for a response. And this response was what he expected to be: just sanctions. This gave him the "ok" to invade. Sending troops would be a clear signal. Costly, but you can also see it as a good exercise.
  - k0k0r0 5y ago
    > Putin is very rational and predictive. To be honest this war does make me doubt my assption that Putin is very rational and predictive. What is the rationale behind such a full-scale invasion? I don't see benefits that outweight the costs. I am happy to hear them, if they are any.
    - cjbgkagh 5y ago
      CIA Director Bill Burns predicted exactly this back in 2008 when George Bush declared Ukraine would eventually join NATO.

londons_explore 5y ago

Neon is a byproduct of producing liquid nitrogen, oxygen and other gas products. Many other plants could start producing neon pretty easily. They just haven't so far because neon isn't profitable to produce and sell. But with a relatively-large but globally-insignificant price increase it would be.

YaBomm 5y ago

Guthur 5y ago

This is not the reason. Pure and simply Russia needs people, its dying. Low birth rate, high death rate, little immigration to make up the short fall (who wants to move to Russia :)), and to top off a weak economy that will struggle to support a small less active workforce. Interestingly Ukraine has pretty much the same population problem. This will be increasingly common problem for countries as population growth slows.

javajosh 5y ago
Aging population implies a decades spike in demand for elder care. How does it imply an invasion?
- Guthur 5y ago
  You need a strong services based economy to support an aged population, this is not what russia has by a long shot. Russia has few choices to fix this in timeline they'd have to work with. Population demographics take a long time to solve peacefully.
replygirl 5y ago
ukraine's population growth and birth rates have been negative and below russia's for some time now, so annexation only makes that worse per-capita. it's not clear that a flattening of the growth rate is a bad thing for quality of life or economic security, in spite of how it affects an economy on paper
partiallypro 5y ago
The entire Western world is declining birth rates. It's very worrying. People complained about over population, but a nose dive in birth rates can become near irreversable.
- rodgerd 5y ago
  There is no lack of people in the world. This is only an issue if you have some sort of deep-set racist need to only be around people of a particular skin colour.

darkhorn 5y ago

Some Russian products that you would like to avoid: * Yandex * Lukoil * WinRAR * Kaspersky * Lada * Russian Standard Original Vodka * Stoli Vodka * Baltika * Lukoil * Gazprom * Kamaz * Masha and the Bear * Kalashnikov * Stolichnaya * Ural motorcycles * VK

stjohnswarts 5y ago
Yandex was the only one for me. I blocked it on all the hosts files under my control and my pihole network dns
mrweasel 5y ago
WinRAR/rarlabs is a German company.
- darkhorn 5y ago
  The developer and his brother are from Russia. Also WinRAR is free in Russia.
  - arzeth 5y ago
    > is free in Russia. I just visited the Russian version https://www.win-rar.com/start.html?&L=4 https://www.win-rar.com/start.html?&L=4 from Russia. There is still "Buy WinRAR" button. Although anyone can get an infinite trial version (like Sublime Text), some Russian companies buy it just in case, according to some random comments in threads that joke about mythical buyers of WinRAR. Also I found rumors that the developer (Eugene Roshal) moved to Germany or the USA. No info found about his brother who is the WinRAR's copyright holder, which is what matters.
Aeolun 5y ago
I don’t think anyone needs any prodding to stop using Kaspersky.
- redisman 5y ago
  What about my brand new Lada!

pier25 5y ago

We should be talking about grain, not gas. Russia is the biggest exporter of wheat in the world with 18%. Ukraine accounts for 7% of the world's wheat. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/2/17/infographic-russia-ukraine-and-the-global-wheat-supply-interactive https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/2/17/infographic-russia-... This conflict will affect 1/4 of the world's wheat which will affect food prices. In 2010 Russia stopped exporting wheat due to wildfires burning their fields (most likely caused by climate change). This caused a hike in food prices which helped trigger the Arab revolutions in 2011. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_Russian_wildfires https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_Russian_wildfires

immmmmm 5y ago
We should be talking about human lives. My Ukrainian colleague was terrified for his family today.
- pier25 5y ago
  You think a global increase of food prices will not have an effect on human lives?
  - tablespoon 5y ago
    >> We should be talking about human lives. >> My Ukrainian colleague was terrified for his family today. > You think a global increase of food prices will not have an effect on human lives? Not nearly the same kind as the one the GP is referring to.
    - judge2020 5y ago
      Regular food, no bombings = very few dies for unrelated causes Regular food, non-WMD bombings = many die, directly Irregular food, regardless of bombings = many millions might die or be severely impacted in the long-term
      - 5y ago

krazerlasers 5y ago

I was personally hit by this back in 2015 as a grad student. We called up our process gas supplier and asked for a k-cylinder of Neon and were laughed off the phone, so we ended up running our experiment on krypton for setup and used a lecture bottle of Neon that a partner lab had left over for the few minutes of data collection we needed to get our result[1]. At the time, we were cursing the semi industry for using up all of the remaining Neon with their billion dollar operating budgets... [1]https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/0953-4075/49/15/155601 https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/0953-4075/49/15/1...

eanc 5y ago

I'm glad to see we have the right reasons at heart for caring about human events.

Aeolun 5y ago
Dunno, feels like a tech related excuse to talk about current events on here.
nomel 5y ago
There are many externalities of war. They're all bad, all important, and all worth talking about, to help prevent wars.

tammer 5y ago

well that explains a lot

twarge 5y ago

Here in NJ they separate neon from the air. This is not a problem.

g45ylkjlk45y 5y ago

RspecMAuthortah 5y ago

What would be some good stocks to invest to capitalize this? Perhaps some trading in Russian/Ukrainian Stock Exchange? Is there any significant US company listed in Nasdaq or NYSE in this space?

snemvalts 5y ago
Don't put any money into both stock exchanges right now, especially the russian one.
- s1artibartfast 5y ago
  Why not? Seems like a great time. Buy low
  - verve_rat 5y ago
    Because sanctions might mean you can't get your money back from Russia. And Ukraine might not exist as a country soon.
    - s1artibartfast 5y ago
      What money would go into Russia? Just buy on a US stock exchange
      - jannyfer 5y ago
        You replied to a comment suggesting not putting money into Russian or Ukrainian stock exchanges, asking why not. > Don't put any money into both stock exchanges right now, especially the russian one. Then you are asking what money would go into Russia...
        s1artibartfast 5y ago
        Fair, but you can still buy Russian company stock on other exchanges, pink sheets, ect.

blobbers 5y ago

While the trade implications of this war are being consider, let's think of the lives of our fellow hackers. These are people who along side us develop the software of the world. They're not necessarily soldiers, they're just regular people and right now there are missiles flying at their homes, tanks in their streets. Surely there is a way we can help the people.

k0k0r0 5y ago
Yeah, anyone an idea? There is outages of the internet and mobile communications in some areas? For example is there anything one can do forom here about that?
- eru 5y ago
  In general, if you want to help, have a look at https://www.givewell.org/ https://www.givewell.org/ and just pick any one of their top charities. (Yes, their top charities don't necessarily have anything to do with whatever cause is currently in the news. They go by 'greatest improvement in human lives per buck' regardless of where those people are.)

phkahler 5y ago

Time to move on to free electron lasers powered by compact accelerators.

steve76 5y ago

verisimi 5y ago

Let's get that neon gas back!

neves 5y ago

No problem, the first thing invaders do is to extract and sell natural resources. See USA and Iraq oil.

redisman 5y ago
Extract wheat in Ukraine in… February. Sure
- krisoft 5y ago
  You are assuming that they won’t stay.

mblock 5y ago

Didn’t Russia also say something like, laser weapons will be the future of warfare a while back?

aj7 5y ago

With some loss of performance, I think the excimer laser gas mix could use only He as an admix gas.

ComradePhil 5y ago

This headline is disinformation. No, Ukraine doesn't produce neon. Russia produces it and sends it to Ukraine for processing and distribution. But, wait, there's more. Ukranian company Iceblick is the major producer of neon. It has production facilities in Odessa, Ukraine and Moscow, Russia. But wait, there's more. Iceblick is not a major producer of neon, Chinese companies produce a lot more... which is what is used in global chipmaking. The claim in the article is that "[Ukraine] supplies more than 90% of U.S. semiconductor-grade neon"... which may not be true in the first place, but the modified title here suggests completely something else... which is blatantly false.

sycren 5y ago

So what happens to the chipmaking industry in the event of a Russian occupation of Ukraine and a Chinese occupation of Taiwan?

MrYellowP 5y ago

After all those lies I've been told over and over and over again, over decades, about all those countries which got invaded by the US, bombed by the US, had their governments overthrown by the US ... ... why would I believe them about Russia? Based on an image in a news-livestream yesterday, targets are solely military structures. The reporter did not fail in trying to make russia look bad, showing actually no regard to the information itself. Personally, I can absolutely understand the desire to remove military equipment next to my doorstep, especially when it's ran by a country which, FOR DECADES, used lies to take over countries and kill millions of people.