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The U.S. just sold its helium stockpile. Here’s why the medical world is worried. (www.nbcnews.com)

submitted 7 months ago by Five@slrpnk.net to c/news@beehaw.org

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[–] squaresinger@feddit.de 0 points 7 months ago (1 children)

But we are consuming about 6 million tons per year (https://www.chemanalyst.com/industry-report/helium-gas-market-578).

The 3000 tons are just a drop in the water and it's pretty much impossible to get to all that.

[–] user134450@feddit.de 0 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

oh i must have missed a few orders of magnitude there. 6Mt of helium is a ridiculous amount though ... what is all that used for? according to WA that is about the water volume of the three gorges dam at STP

Edit: just read the report, wow, more than a quarter of all the helium is used just for "breathing mixes" which i assume means its for scuba diving.

[–] squaresinger@feddit.de 0 points 7 months ago

There's quite a large amount of the usage which could be labelled "for fun".