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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

#441

Post by CharlieFinch »

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…

Hi, is Neon the reason Elon Musk is exploring Mars? Apparently it's meteors are rich in Neon, its atmosphere is rich in Neon and its mantle is possibly richher in Neon? https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S001910352... Mars’ atmospheric neon suggests volatile-rich primitive mantle

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

#442

Post by CharlieFinch »

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…

Ukraine supplies 90% high grade semiconductor global neon from it's iron ore mines. https://venturebeat.com/2022/02/24/ukraine-supplies-90-perce...

Key iron ore mine locations have been ''annexed'' by recent Russian invasion - Crimea, etc. in a pincer like strategic configuration. Please see map

https://www.mining-technology.com/projects/shymanivske-iron-...

Ninety per cent of neon production is in Russia and Ukraine.[43] As of 2020, the company Iceblick, with plants in Odessa and Moscow, supplies 65 per cent of the world's production of neon, as well as 15% of the krypton and xenon.[44][45]

Neon gas is extracted as a byproduct of iron smelting from neon rich iron ore.

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

#443

Post by eru »

netizen-936824 wrote: post #440
eru wrote: post #428

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, you can check on the working conditions. There's lots of stuff online. Life is better in Bangladesh now than it used to be. By a lot.

Only if you judge things from your own biased perspective

It's not just me. See eg https://borgenproject.org/top-10-facts-about-living-conditio...

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

#444

Post by eru »

marmarama wrote: post #439
eru wrote: post #435

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stockpiling is a rather straightforward operation. In addition, the benefits of stockpiling are both rivalrous and excludable. Ie stockpiles are not a 'public good'. So the private sector is perfectly capable of stockpiling, too.

But the private sector generally doesn't stockpile, because the cost of maintaining a stockpile exceeds any immediate economic benefit of doing so. It is economically inefficient almost all of the time. Very occasionally it becomes useful, but current accounting practice, corporation law and shareholder demands do not have mechanisms for incentivising it. One of the key roles of government is to provide services that…

Stockpiles are not a public good. They are both rivalrous and excludable.

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

#445

Post by voakbasda »

eru wrote: post #437
piva00 wrote: post #399

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Security is not profitable until a crisis hit, why would a private company in the JIT business world care about the security of a society if it's not profitable until it is? That's exactly how you get price gouging...

Price gouging is exactly what makes security profitable! That's very similar to how peaker plants work. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peaking_power_plant

Isn’t price gouging with security called a protection racket?

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

#446

Post by antifa »

r00fus wrote: post #425
dogma1138 wrote: post #34

And Russia produces 50% of the worlds palladium which is critical for manufacturing ceramic capacitors. Looks like we’re stuck between the hammer and the sickle…

Russia is not a communist country. That was the USSR. Your reference, while clever, is quite outdated.

It's kind of funny how many people either don't know or pretend to not know about some obscure thing that happened in 1989.

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

#447

Post by daniel-cussen »

eru wrote: post #433
daniel-cussen wrote: post #419

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You seem to be right, it was a military-industrial move by the Soviet Union to counter the Strategic Defense Initiative (Star Wars). Having read a briefing describing the rocket involved, it Star Wars was cutting-edge 2060's technology that happened to be possible in the 80's due to a long list of edge cases. Well in the end, those neon producers harmed capitalism as intended.

How did they harm capitalism?

Right now markets are feeling the pinch due to the neon shortage.

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

#448

Post by salawat »

eru wrote: post #444
marmarama wrote: post #439

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But the private sector generally doesn't stockpile, because the cost of maintaining a stockpile exceeds any immediate economic benefit of doing so. It is economically inefficient almost all of the time. Very occasionally it becomes useful, but current accounting practice, corporation law and shareholder demands do not have mechanisms for incentivising it. One of the key roles of government is to provide services that…

Stockpiles are not a public good. They are both rivalrous and excludable.

They are also prone to human acts of capriciousness that Governments as a whole are generally not.

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

#449

Post by netizen-936824 »

eru wrote: post #443
netizen-936824 wrote: post #440

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only if you judge things from your own biased perspective

It's not just me. See eg https://borgenproject.org/top-10-facts-about-living-conditio...

You're trusting the perspective of other people who are biased as well, and it's more about indigenous communities around the world rather than just Bangladesh.

There are many communities whose opinions and perspectives we just seem to ignore and we trust the "western" institutions who make publications on such matters

I'm not talking about how "wealthy" a community is in terms of material gains or technological improvements.

Communities see changes in their fundamental way of life due to industrialization which impacts their relationships with each other and their natural environments which, on average, seem to be worse than what they were doing before.

All of this industrialization comes from people wanting more profit, and we see working conditions and level of pay that would be unacceptable in the US but people write it off as being "okay" because "they're a developing nation" or "its a third world country" when the real reason is greed and a desire to skirt local regulations.

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

#450

Post by robertlagrant »

eru wrote: post #364
robertlagrant wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sometimes even a non-invisible hand of the market can get it right, if only by accident.

What do you mean by 'get it right' in this case? How would getting it wrong look?

Getting it wrong would be something that was a waste of money or deadly.
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