- "This high demand exists because neon is an essential, irreplaceable, and major component of argon-fluorine-neon excimer pulsed lasers." Incidentally, that's

- "This high demand exists because neon is an essential, irreplaceable, and major component of argon-fluorine-neon excimer pulsed lasers." Incidentally, that's the type of very high-power laser that was once considered indispensable for space-based missile defense satellites (like Polyus and the Star Wars concepts). To my understanding, this is the actual root cause of the current neon crisis: Soviet military overinvestment in the 1980's, creating a post-Cold War glut that priced out any new competition. Hence, the modern supply chain ended up relying on two countries that are now at war. From this German government whitepaper about the noble gas industry: - "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) (By the way, this source links neon production to cryogenic oxygen separators at steel factories, whereas OP links it to Haber-Bosch plants (ammonia fertilizer). Anyone know which one is correct? Maybe both?)