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"A dream. It's perfect": Helium discovery in northern Minnesota may be biggest ever in North America (www.cbsnews.com)

submitted 9 months ago by L4s to c/technology

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"A dream. It's perfect": Helium discovery in northern Minnesota may be biggest ever in North America::For a century, the U.S. Government-owned the largest helium reserve in the country, but the biggest exporters now are in Russia, Qatar and Tanzania. With this new discovery, Minnesota could be joining that list.

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[–] drislands 19 points 9 months ago (2 children)

Ah yes, we're wasting helium, so finding more isn't a good thing. Of course. 🙄

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago

Yeah it'll hopefully see us through to when we're collecting it in space - there's plenty up there and they've already come up with some good ways of collecting it

[–] givesomefucks -5 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Imagine we found out climate change predictions were a decade early, so we kept pace and didn't use the extra time to try and fix it....

It's not bad news that we got another decade, but it doesn't matter that much in the long run if we still don't fix the underlying issue

[–] drislands 7 points 9 months ago (1 children)

I don't disagree with your general point. But finding a new source of Helium, regardless of the rate of use, is a good thing.

That aside -- are you saying Helium is related to climate change? Curious to know how, if so.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (2 children)

Edit : minor addition. I was reading a comment the other day and found out helium can also result from other reactions outside of a star, such as the decay of a radioactive element, which ejects an alpha particle (which is just a helium molecule with special attributes, aka no electrons). The alpha particle crashes into something, picks up electrons and suddenly its a helium.

No, they are clearly making the following comparison.

For climate change : World is heating up, heading toward the result of mass extinctions. The most valuable resource is the time to act. Ten extra years to work on the root cause. Unsustainable emissions.
For Helium : A finite resource is being exhausted, heading toward a world with no helium (helium is typically created by one of the fusion cycles in the core of a star, fusion is a nascient technology on earth). The most valuable resource is time to act, +X% helium extra supply to address the root cause, unsustainable consumption.

In both cases, the root cause is being (mostly) ignored.

So they're pointing out that if you have 800 finite helium, then suddenly you find out you have 880 helium.. that hasn't changed the finite nature of the helium. The root cause remains a "spending problem". And they are likely annoyed that 880 ~> 880 results in, " Omg yay!" vs what should be, "Oh thank goodness, more time to address the root cause of consumption."

Idk, was that not obvious? I'm not being facetious here, I'm really asking. Brings to mind the "curse of knowledge" fallacy where when you understand something you assume others do, and they often don't, resulting in disjointed communication where the listener can't grasp the idea. As condescending as this sounds I assure you its only because I'm not a writer, I'm legitimately making an attempt to communicate neutrally with you as we both seem to have genuine interest.

Anyway, corrections and such always welcome. All numbers in this post made up for illustrative purposes only.

[–] drislands 2 points 9 months ago (1 children)

I sincerely appreciate your effort to relate your perspective. I think I did originally interpret the comment how you described, but I over thought it and wondered if there was a connection I was unaware of.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

Ah! Makes sense to me.

There is always a chance I misinterpreted as well, I def have whooshed on many jokes on Lemmy. Can't win them all lol.

[–] 3volver 0 points 9 months ago

That argument makes sense, it's hard to view finding new helium deposits as good news if we keep wasting helium. As far as I can tell though, helium is already becoming much more expensive which may lead to less waste. It will become more scarce and expensive before the technology gets better at capturing it and storing it. https://www.technologyreview.com/2024/02/25/1088930/global-helium-market-semiconductors/