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

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

#361

Post by SenHeng »

xandrius wrote: post #274
whyenot wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I bought a Mac Mini in February and maxed out the ram and storage. Now, it seems like that was a prescient move, but honestly I really only bought it for photo editing and playing the new World of Warcraft expansion (don't judge me!).

Serious question: how does WoW still appeal to players except for habit social connections to keep them locked into the game? I used to spend nights and love the game, now, even with all these expansions it feels exactly like it was in 2006 but without what happened to the gaming world in the past 20 years.

I don’t know. I still fire up FF14 every couple of weeks for a few dungeon runs. No more social interactions with the various channels, I barely talk to my party even.

I think it’s just familiarity and not wanting to learn a whole new system when I’m looking to shut my brain down for a couple hours.

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

#362

Post by schiffern »

tempaccount5050 wrote: post #341
schiffern wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Commercial uses layered surge protectors (Type I, II, and III), which is also recommended for other users but rarely followed. In surge prone areas, at a minimum I would have good quality whole-house surge protector (eg Siemens 140 or Eaton 108), and a good quality surge protector strip for any computer/TV/phone charger. I also put surge protectors in front of expensive white goods like the fridge, washer/dryer, dish…

Are you in an area with a bad electrical grid or something? In 40+ years I've never had a single device get fried from a surge/storm. My "surge protector" power strips are from the 90s and probably don't even work.

Not too bad, just rural. We used to lose stuff every 10 years or so.

One day The Big One came along and fried nearly everything. "Once burned, twice shy."

Hopefully someone can learn from my mistake and not have to do it post-mortem.

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

#363

Post by whatsupdog »

sillystuff wrote: post #254

The US just finished divesting itself from its strategic helium reserve in 2024 due to the "Helium Stewardship Act of 2013"[1] But, now we have a strategic bitcoin reserve. [1] https://www.congress.gov/bill/113th-congress/house-bill/527

They started selling in 1996: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Helium_Reserve

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

#364

Post by jiggawatts »

bgnn wrote: post #353
jiggawatts wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't Helium one of the easiest elements to purify? Just cool it below 14 Kelvin, which will make everything else freeze out. Collect the remaining liquid, which should be pure Helium.

14 kelvin is not easy to achieve at scale + after that, you need to keep it pure.

Apparently 14 K cooling is not used even up to 5N or 6N purity, commercial large-scale sources use various other tricks to remove the other gases. They do cool the input gas down to liquid nitrogen temperatures as one of the first steps.

My point is that there's "maximally efficient / profitable" versus "can be made available as an emergency alternative".

Cooling to 14 K isn't the cheapest option, but it has very low complexity. You can "simply" pressurise the source gas, cool it to room temperature through an ordinary heat exchanger, then allow it to expand. The only issue is that if you do this naively, the expansion nozzle will get clogged with ice.

Obviously, this wastes a lot of Helium, but we have lots of it. If what's needed is high purity Helium, then throwing away even 90% to get 10% that's 6N pure should be no problem for an industrial nation.

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

#365

Post by whatsupdog »

jayd16 wrote: post #292
backprop1989 wrote: post #262

Step 1: Put the helium in a blimp Step 2: Fly around the straight and over to Taiwan Step 3: Pump it into the chip factory There you go, solved it.

How do you get the blimp back?

I think bigger question is, how do you bring the blimp down without dumping out helium?

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

#366

Post by cleandreams »

jmyeet wrote: post #345

This situation would be laughable if the consequences weren't so dire. I have problems adequately stating just how incompetent and ill-thought out this entire misadventure was. I say this because everything that's happened has been completely foreseeable and foreseen , including the ability of Iran to retaliate by closing the Strait of Hormuz. This has been something many militaries around the world have planned scen…

Not just many foreign militaries. Our military. General Dan Caine by report advised Trump about the negative consequences of this action. MAGA elected a fantasist and narcissist and we will all bear the consequences. I was no fan of Kamala but the appalling limitations of Trump are of a different order and it is a disgrace that our voters by majority elected him.

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

#367

Post by mcv »

lanstin wrote: post #317
jltsiren wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lightning damage is mostly an issue if the last-mile power lines are above ground. In my experience, power surges in urban areas with a decent grid are so rare that people generally don't bother protecting their devices.

I have lived in the DC metro area inside the beltway or in Sillicon Valley my entire adult life and have only had above ground power wiring. Despite tree ordnances and wind storms and a grid so aged if we see lightning we lose power.

I've heard that before, that the US apparently loves above ground power lines. In NL it's only the long distance ones that are above ground. Even in most rural areas, I think everything is below ground.

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

#368

Post by darknavi »

fuddle wrote: post #304
backprop1989 wrote: post #262

Step 1: Put the helium in a blimp Step 2: Fly around the straight and over to Taiwan Step 3: Pump it into the chip factory There you go, solved it.

An easy target for a drone!

At least it'd be non-flammable helium!

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

#369

Post by numpad0 »

whatsupdog wrote: post #365
jayd16 wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you get the blimp back?

I think bigger question is, how do you bring the blimp down without dumping out helium?

Airships have air bags inside. Same deals as submarines. They take in and out ambient stuff into the bags to control buoyancy.

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

#370

Post by nwallin »

rootusrootus wrote: post #190
pfdietz wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps "balloon grade" here is not " party balloon grade". Weather balloons? Research balloons?

My guess is that places like AirGas aren't really supplying many weather or research balloons. I suspect the easier answer is 'Balloon Time is low grade crap aimed at people who don't know any better and just want to pick up some balloon gas while grocery shopping.' It's like the difference between people who go to a gas station to refill propane tanks, and people who swap them at Home Depot. (though the smart feller…

AirGas prioritizes industrial users, in the case of helium, copper welding. Argon is perfectly good enough for almost all welding purposes, but copper is different because of its heat conductivity. The heat from the weld really wants to go anywhere else. Helium has substantially higher heat conductivity than argon, which allows the heat to flow from the electric arc into the metal faster, resulting in better welds.

Obviously you can't have oxygen in welding gas; it would oxidize the shit out of everything.

A little bit of oxygen in party balloon gas is beneficial. Some kid will breathe it, and when they do, you didn't want them to asphyxiate themselves.

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