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> Something is infinitely better than nothing. Eh, honestly, that's a largely meaningless statement. Let's say we went from 40 million cubic meters of helium
by zzalpha 11y ago
> Something is infinitely better than nothing.
Eh, honestly, that's a largely meaningless statement.
Let's say we went from 40 million cubic meters of helium a day to 1.
That would effectively eliminate the vast majority of industrial helium applications due to cost.
So no, "something" isn't better than "nothing" if you go from "abundant" to "very scarce".
And yes, there are absolutely applications (such as welding) where there are alternatives available (argon and xenon, particularly). But that isn't solving the helium shortage problem. It's coping with it. Which we should be doing. But we can't expect fusion to help us along... it's not an answer, here.
- jfoutz 11y agoI think zamalek is making a point about marginal value - kinda. The vast majority of helium users are screwed. they've just got to figure out something else. But some users, say MRI machine makers, really need it. And people want MRIs. So, they'll mark up the cost of their machines by a million dollars (or whatever). Really, if there's demand at thousands of dollars per cubic meter, we'll find a way. my guess is harvesting from the moon, rather than fusion. We might also just say fuck it, reserve the last million cubic feet for science experiments and call it a day. I think your point is, there are tons of industrial uses of helium right now, and if it were to be gone today, it would be a huge problem. imho, we should probably tax the hell out of its usage right now to force people find alternatives and be more efficient. The price change is coming even if we don't want it to. it can be gradual or a hockey stick. We both agree cutting the supply by 7 or 8 orders of magnitude one afternoon would really suck.