“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.

  • conciselyverbose@sh.itjust.works
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    8 months ago

    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.

    • skillissuer@discuss.tchncs.de
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      8 months ago

      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

      • givesomefucks@lemmy.world
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        8 months ago

        Exactly…

        People out here just telling everyone they don’t know what “profit margin” means.