Posted on 01/26/2024 6:15:56 AM PST by logi_cal869
On Thursday, the U.S. government sold the Federal Helium Reserve, a massive underground stockpile based in Amarillo, Texas, that supplies up to 30% of the country’s helium.
Once the deal is finalized, the buyer — which will likely be the highest bidder, the industrial gas company Messer — will claim some 425 miles of pipelines spanning Texas, Kansas and Oklahoma, plus about 1 billion cubic feet of the only element on Earth cold enough to make an MRI machine work.
Regulatory and logistical issues with the facility threaten a temporary shutdown as it passes from public to private ownership, and hospital supply chain experts worry the sale could have serious consequences for health care down the road — especially when it comes to MRIs.
To be sure, a Federal Helium Reserve shutdown wouldn’t mean that MRIs would suddenly power down across the country, said Soumi Saha, senior vice president of government affairs at Premier Inc., which contracts with helium suppliers on behalf of 4,400 hospitals in the U.S. “But we are stressing about this shortage. From a health care perspective, MRI machines are the No. 1 concern.”
(Excerpt) Read more at nbcnews.com ...
Prior analysis:
https://www.science.org/content/article/impending-sale-scientifically-critical-helium-sparks-worries
Clickable prior analysis:
https://www.science.org/content/article/impending-sale-scientifically-critical-helium-sparks-worries
Dead people don’t need MRI machines.
Lordy that is a stupid move
So now a German company - which only began operating in America in 2019 after the Linde-Praxair merger - is going to be in possession of America’s largest stockpile of helium.
Why?
Yep, Gotta keep that helium around for airships the Navy gave up almost a century ago.
Nice tidy 10% for the big guy and donations to the DNC.
Yeah: Uranium One deja vu...
“F”ING O’BIDEN!!! Somebody in Congress needs to be all over this!
For crying out loud, how much cocaine does the Biden family need?
You know why it is named helium? Because it is so rare we found it in the Sun before we found it on the Earth.
Primary sources are from radioactive decay or other alpha-particle emitters.
They're all probably getting a piece of the action.
Check
Maybe the learned a lesson from the Hindenburg.
IIRC, Ambassador Dogbert stole the mud from the Elbonians...
we are stressing about this shortage. From a health care perspective, MRI machines are the No. 1 concern.”
——-
Helium has many uses:
cooling medium for the large hadron collider.
superconducting magnets in MRI scanners and NMR spectrometers.
to fill decorative balloons, weather balloons and airships.
used to detect leaks, like in car-conditioning systems.
helium-neon gas lasers are used to scan barcodes at checkouts.
From
Very concerning, read the article and it said they have been working on this sale for a decade. But, I did not see why. Why are they selling it?
Not a great thing but unless the company has its own army, there’s always nationalization.
Because of the shortage, there’s been a push for hospitals to get new mri machines that run off of little to no helium. Who makes these new mri machines and who is ‘getting a piece of that action’?
“Gotta keep that helium around for airships the Navy gave up almost a century ago.”
It’s not the 1930s anymore (but it does rhyme with it)
Helium is used in MRIs. I’m due for an MRI next week.
“For an MRI machine to keep going, it typically utilizes around 1,700 liters of liquid helium. Keeping in mind just how frequently MRI machines are used and how vital they are in diagnosing and monitoring health conditions, it comes as no surprise that the medical field is one of the most active users of helium.”
https://www.nexair.com/learning-center/how-does-helium-work-in-mri-machines/
iirc helium is used in spacex starship raptor engines
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