[helsinkiandrew]

> Helium supply issues are only going to make this worse.

I believe helium, although important constitutes a small percent of the cost of semiconductors, so its effect on price will be less severe. It will be more noticeable in other uses of helium though - party balloons could get very expensive etc.

[crote]

On the other hand: how flexible is the demand?

A hospital isn't going to shut down because their MRI's new helium load is getting more expensive - they'll pay a fortune for it. For a lot of other applications there are no suitable alternatives either.

The real question then becomes: what's going to happen when there's a 1000x price increase?

[leptons]

Considering helium is a finite resource on earth, it should be made illegal to put it in a party balloon.

[Hendrikto]

It’s not illegal to put gas in your car. That is a finite resource too.

[gwerbin]

There's more of it at least.

The problem is not that it's finite, the problem is that by the time prices rise enough to discourage people from using it frivolously, you might already be dangerously low on it.

[MSFT_Edging]

Is it illegal to pull the ladder up behind you in a flood?

[dj_mc_merlin]

This is a really interesting question. Is it? My intuition would say no since you have no inherent duty to protect or help others. I have no clue though.

[Groxx]

If there's no downside to leaving the ladder in place, then I would think yes - there's a reasonable expectation that people will die due to your actions. You'd likely have to argue about "involuntary manslaughter" vs something more intentional though, depending on circumstances.

If there is a reasonable downside, probably no? You have a right to try to keep yourself alive, in nearly all contexts.

[leptons]

There are alternatives to oil for energy, a lot of them. Helium is unique in its place in the universe, for the properties it possesses as an element. And once it's gone, it's gone. Hydrogen is similar but extremely volatile, where Helium is not volatile.

Helium could be made with nuclear fusion, but a 1 Gigawatt nuclear fusion plant would only produce 200kg of helium per year, so it's still not a viable path to make the quantities of helium we currently use. Current usage is almost 30 Million kg per year.

[15155]

Not really: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fischer%E2%80%93Tropsch_proces...

[Hendrikto]

If that is your argument, we can also produce Helium in nuclear reactors. It is just impractical for the amount that we use.

[noelsusman]

The helium that goes into balloons is mostly a byproduct of industrial grade helium production that would otherwise just go to waste. It's not pure enough for industrial uses.

[zozbot234]

You could always purify it, it's just uneconomic to do so at a smaller scale. But if the price rises enough, that will change and no one will be using helium for party balloons.

[TheCoelacanth]

Parties would be more interesting if the balloons were filled with hydrogen gas anyway.

[rkomorn]

Reminds me of a demo my college physics professor did in our first class (presumably to get our attention).

He had two floating balloons, one about twice as big as the other. Pointed a blowtorch at the smaller one and it (of course) popped.

"That one was filled with helium. Now, there's only one gas less dense than helium..." and right as I thought to myself "he's not gonna do what I think he's gonna do", he pointed the blowtorch at the other balloon which exploded into a much larger (and much louder) fireball.

Attention captured, for sure.

[genxy]

> although important constitutes a small percent of the cost of semiconductors, so its effect on price will be less severe

You should think about this some more.

[viccis]

You should elaborate your snarky rebuttal more.

[IshKebab]

I thought about it more. He's right though so I'm not sure what the extra thinking was meant to do...

[torginus]

--reasoning_effort: xhigh