[at_a_remove]

Here's something I can only speculate on with the cold chain.

I have mentioned it elsewhere on HN, but I've handle dry ice and liquid nitrogen quite a bit, first in college and then just later for fun. Several years back, I noticed a very large price hike in dry ice, as well as a drop in availability (less available in my city, vanishing from small towns). I was told by someone in my supply chain that federal regulations around dry ice had changed, resulting in only a few players being left in the game and of course the price going up.

I wonder if now, a decade or so later, the law of unindented consequences has reared its often invisible head.

[jonemo]

Hi, author of the article here. If you can remember or find any additional details about this, I would be curious to learn more about it. I admittedly didn't research the dry ice section too deeply because it is so ubiquitous.

This NPR All Things Considered clip made me wonder if dry ice might be more complicated than I thought: https://www.npr.org/2020/12/24/950102003/does-u-s-have-enoug... Note how the interviewee's business is located in Miami but the dry ice comes from Georgia. Surely a populous state like Florida has local dry ice production?

Also, fun fact: "[Fearing a dry ice shortage,] the Wisconsin Cheese Makers Association sent a letter to state and federal officials asking that 350,000 pounds of dry ice a week be set aside." Source: https://www.cbs58.com/news/cheese-industry-threatened-by-cov...

[at_a_remove]

If I had to take a stab, I would say 2008, but I could be wrong. I'd have to see if I could get into some "still closed to the public" places to ask for more specifics and go from there, because this was less than a minute of conversation over a decade back.

You're right in that it was once ubiquitous but it has grown steadily less so.

[hef19898]

That looks an US thing, I got 50kg of dry ice for close to nothing from a small local outlet last year just to remove some rust and old paint. At scale it might be different so, 50kg are nowhere near enough.

[sdiepend]

Here we use dry ice to cool our beers at festivals :D