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submitted 7 months ago by L4s@lemmy.world to c/technology@lemmy.world

"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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[-] solarvector@lemmy.zip 182 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

Hopefully we stop wasting this limited resource on fucking balloons.

Edit: well this kicked off a fun and respectful conversation. The information I can find from actual scientists says wasting helium on balloons is bad. The balloon lobby says it is just a waste byproduct. The balloon lobby brings nothing of value to the world in terms of plastic or helium use, so I'm going to go with the science opinion on this one.

[-] skillissuer@discuss.tchncs.de 10 points 7 months ago

helium just boils off in MRI/NMR machines, this is the major use of helium i think. if you could recycle that in machines that already are out there, that would solve lots of problems. there are newer systems that do not require cryogens or just require liquid nitrogen which is much cheaper and less energy intensive. these things use closed loop refrigeration, but in turn you need to supply them with power

[-] Hamartiogonic@sopuli.xyz 1 points 7 months ago

Sounds like superconductor research could end up fixing that problem. Once we have a suitable conductor material, you no longer need to keep it that cool.

[-] skillissuer@discuss.tchncs.de 1 points 7 months ago

not exactly, because if someone finds out that high temperature superconductor works even better at 4K, then it will be running at 4K, making entire thing more compact or allowing for higher fields

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this post was submitted on 02 Mar 2024
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