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

reuters.com

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

#271

Post by cik2e »

rodgerd wrote: post #248
partiallypro wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.

The issue is what happens when you have a vast population of childless retirees and not enough younger working people to subsidize their existence.

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

#272

Post by lotsofpulp »

netizen-936824 wrote: post #242
lotsofpulp wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Businesses also need to have customers. No clothes maker was forced to manufacture in poor countries, but the alternative was to simply stop existing since insufficient customers are willing to pay the price premium for purely American made clothes. Hence the only solution would have been legislation forcing domestic manufacturing.

That's assuming that our current model is the only/best way of doing things, which is a bit shortsighted

You will have to elaborate on what life looks like without businesses selling to customers, and otherwise going out of business if they do not sell to customers.

At least it does not seem to involve any conventional use of the word business.

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

#273

Post by baybal2 »

pier25 wrote: post #167

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-... 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…

Worse, you have to add Kazakhstan, which is now under a Russian thumb too, and Uzbekistan.

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

#274

Post by rplnt »

pier25 wrote: post #167

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-... 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…

> This conflict will affect 1/4 of the world's wheat which will affect food prices.

That's not 1/4 of worldwide wheat production, but 1/4 of exports of wheat. Those are numbers that differ by orders of magnitude.

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

#275

Post by baybal2 »

MisterTea wrote: post #185
whatshisface wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> 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 que…

People don't understand why semiconductor argon, and neon can't be substituted by argon, and neon used in welding.

It's very hard to purify noble gasses, as they are almost completely chemically inert, and chemistry needed to make, say, same argon, to form compounds with anything else is something needing very special equipment, and know how.

Welding grade argon is dirt cheap, 99.999% argon is very expensive, and 99.999999% argon is many times as expensive as welding gas.

It's much worse with neon.

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

#276

Post by cjbgkagh »

k0k0r0 wrote: post #263
amelius wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> 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.

CIA Director Bill Burns predicted exactly this back in 2008 when George Bush declared Ukraine would eventually join NATO.

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

#277

Post by fosk »

k0k0r0 wrote: post #263
amelius wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> 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.

If Ukraine becomes a NATO member, Russia won’t be able to defend it’s border from a conventional attack.

By looking at a map, this is quite evident.

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

#278

Post by pier25 »

rplnt wrote: post #274
pier25 wrote: post #167

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-... 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…

> This conflict will affect 1/4 of the world's wheat which will affect food prices. That's not 1/4 of worldwide wheat production, but 1/4 of exports of wheat. Those are numbers that differ by orders of magnitude.

Good point!

My main point still stands though.

Edit:

BTW I wish I could edit my previous comment to rectify my mistake but I can't.

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

#279

Post by baybal2 »

perihelions wrote: post #2

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, ab…

> How is neon extracted and why does one country have a 90% monopoly (in this specific grade)?

"Specific grade" - you need very, very, very high purity gasses for lasers.

Noble gasses are very, very, very hard to purify because they are chemically inert.

Welding gas (argon) is dirt cheap, 99.99% pure argon is surprisingly expensive, and semiconductor grade Argon, or Neon at 99.99999%+ purity far more.

Ultrapure neon is a great example of a single source critical input for the semiconductor industry. There are hundreds of similar small companies around the world supplying something completely irreplaceable.

Semiconductor industry is extremely fragile.

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

#280

Post by coolso »

xadhominemx wrote: post #232
coolso wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Politicians of all sorts have been saying lots of things for decades. The fact is, nobody as influential or as powerful as Trump ever actually did anything about most of them. In particular, the anti-China anti-offshoring sentiment. It took Trump yelling about it from the rooftops for over 5 years, and getting over half the population as passionate about it as he was, and then Trump actually doing things about it whi…

Trump didn’t do anything about it either

That’s… unequivocally false.
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