Qatar helium shutdown puts chip supply chain on a two-week clock • Hacker News Board

Re: Qatar helium shutdown puts chip supply chain on a two-week clock

#61

Post by renewiltord » Fri, Mar 13, 2026, 2:16 PM UTC

bombcar wrote: post #35

coldpie wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think about how we could've paid for two brand new, gigawatt-scale nuclear power plants for the same amount of money as Elon Musk flushed down the toilet to try to shut down a website he didn't like. Extreme wealth is a mental illness, and wealth caps are healthcare.

It's worse when you realize that Musk at least does something with his insane wealth, even if it's also insane. Most either do nothing really of note, or donate it to "causes", which may be good, but kind of boring.

He’s not “doing something with his insane wealth”. He’s wealthy because he’s doing something. The moment he announces he’s stepping back and going to be boring he loses half his wealth or more.

God does not come down from the heavens and bestow money that one spends on what one chooses. People value his companies because he’s there. TSLA will instantly collapse in valuation if he exits.

Re: Qatar helium shutdown puts chip supply chain on a two-week clock

#62

Post by bondarchuk » Fri, Mar 13, 2026, 2:16 PM UTC

yread wrote: post #31

surgical_fire wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> haha yes, the grand seismic risks (economic risk in single digit percentages of the profits available) If I lived in the region I wouldn't really care if the economic risk is single digit percentage. I would prefer my house to keep standing. > they are actively and very costly going to fill them with concrete to ensure in the future (even in whatever extreme scenario) they cannot be used again. I think you are argu…

Groningen gas field produced 40 billion m3 a year. 100m3 is 1MWh, currently sold for 50 eur. So the production would generate revenue of 20 billion eur a year. Tax it at 10%, get 2B eur. Buy/build houses for 400k a piece, 5.000 a year. There are cca 10.000 houses with minor or major damage. In 2 fucking years everyone gets a new second house for free and we get cheap gas.

Ah, sorry, this will not work, we are not capable of building new houses in any significant capacity. I don't know why but it's the reality.

Re: Qatar helium shutdown puts chip supply chain on a two-week clock

#63

Post by ceejayoz » Fri, Mar 13, 2026, 2:16 PM UTC

mvdwoord wrote: post #8

expedition32 wrote: post #3

[flagged]

Can not see them fuck it up more than my own government spending millions to pour concrete into our own excellent natural gas wells (while selling whatever did come out under market price to other countries), and our neighbors on the east celebrating while they blow up nuclear power plants. At least the US and Israel have a chance of improving their position in the geopolitical landscape. We are just slowly then swif…

> At least the US and Israel have a chance of improving their position in the geopolitical landscape.

This seems, uh, awfully optimistic.

Re: Qatar helium shutdown puts chip supply chain on a two-week clock

#64

Post by infogulch » Fri, Mar 13, 2026, 2:16 PM UTC

cagenut wrote: post #46

bix6 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why did we sell it instead of lease? This seems like something that should be in public hands.

sorry thats too far left wing an opinion in america today

The sale was completed in 2024.

Re: Qatar helium shutdown puts chip supply chain on a two-week clock

#65

Post by walletdrainer » Fri, Mar 13, 2026, 2:16 PM UTC

littlestymaar wrote: post #52

yread wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Groningen gas field produced 40 billion m3 a year. 100m3 is 1MWh, currently sold for 50 eur. So the production would generate revenue of 20 billion eur a year. Tax it at 10%, get 2B eur. Buy/build houses for 400k a piece, 5.000 a year. There are cca 10.000 houses with minor or major damage. In 2 fucking years everyone gets a new second house for free and we get cheap gas.

You realize that people's houses are more than a number in a balance sheet? Losing all your personal items and memories + living homeless for a few years while the reconstruction is in progress isn't minor inconvenience.

Bullshit they are, houses are entirely replaceable and in fact many people do so every couple of years.

Some jurisdictions even have “tenants rights” laws that literally force landlords to terminate all contracts whenever a tenant is about to have lived in a location for too long.

Re: Qatar helium shutdown puts chip supply chain on a two-week clock

#66

Post by actionfromafar » Fri, Mar 13, 2026, 2:17 PM UTC

Forgeties79 wrote: post #36

coldpie wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think about how we could've paid for two brand new, gigawatt-scale nuclear power plants for the same amount of money as Elon Musk flushed down the toilet to try to shut down a website he didn't like. Extreme wealth is a mental illness, and wealth caps are healthcare.

At this point I wish he had shut it down. Instead he turned into a mouthpiece for the right and duped his followers into thinking he’s “liberated” the site and made it into some bastion of free speech.

You can't do that with two gigawatt-scale nuclear power plants!

Re: Qatar helium shutdown puts chip supply chain on a two-week clock

#67

Post by piva00 » Fri, Mar 13, 2026, 2:17 PM UTC

bix6 wrote: post #37

vasco wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Messer Completes Acquisition of Federal Helium System from BLM https://www.messer-us.com/press-releases/messer-completes-ac...

Why did we sell it instead of lease? This seems like something that should be in public hands.

Ideological idiocy, the dismantling of anything public turning into private hands is ideologically pure for libertarian-inclined folks, no matter how strategically stupid it might be.

Re: Qatar helium shutdown puts chip supply chain on a two-week clock

#68

Post by ceejayoz » Fri, Mar 13, 2026, 2:18 PM UTC

breppp wrote: post #47

fabian2k wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no such thing as "officially closed". The moment people start shooting there, driving a ship across becomes dangerous. This was an absolutely predictable consequence of the attacks on Iran, you didn't need to wait until several tankers were burning to know these attacks were likely to happen and the strait would become essentially too risky to pass.

Back then there were only two ships attacked in the straits, and one was an Iranian shadow fleet ship. I am not sure that is "closing the straits" in any shape or form

That's precisely how you close the straits; by making everyone scared to go through.

Re: Qatar helium shutdown puts chip supply chain on a two-week clock

#69

Post by close04 » Fri, Mar 13, 2026, 2:18 PM UTC

2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: post #29

api wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's one of the most disappointing things to me. These people have such resources and the limit of their vision is: bang young girls, accumulate bling, push divisive hateful politics, start wars. That's it. That's the best they can do. Even nominally selfish far-sighted things like genuinely funding a deep research program for life extension is not really something they're into. I mean some of them are "into" it in…

I think we are somewhere in between. Most of us know what we should be doing but actually doing it is hard! As an aside this might indicative of today's defective rich. Carnegie built over 2,500 libraries for example.

To put that in context, Wikipedia says about Carnegie:

> he gave away around $350 million (equivalent to $6.9 billion in 2025 dollars), almost 90 percent of his fortune, to charities, foundations and universities

Those famously "richest Americans" were worth single digit billions in today's money. Musk is reportedly worth $600-800 billions. Imagine what he could do with that money. The Gilded Age industrialists were already devils, but to say the quality of the ultra-rich today is in the gutter would be an offense to the gutter.

Re: Qatar helium shutdown puts chip supply chain on a two-week clock

#70

Post by actionfromafar » Fri, Mar 13, 2026, 2:18 PM UTC

greesil wrote: post #50

bombcar wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's worse when you realize that Musk at least does something with his insane wealth, even if it's also insane. Most either do nothing really of note, or donate it to "causes", which may be good, but kind of boring.

I can appreciate boring nowadays.

Musk tried boring for a bit. Don't hear much about it nowadays.