MRI machines need thousands of liters of liquid helium to function. Health care workers say they can’t afford any disruptions to the helium supply chain.
We could recover a lot more helium from natural gas production (some fields contain a lot) but right now it’s vented because it doesn’t have enough value for the operators. Only a few places worldwide bother recovering it during refinement.
But as it gets scarcer the price will go up. Unfortunately the already vented helium is gone forever 😔
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We could recover a lot more helium from natural gas production (some fields contain a lot) but right now it’s vented because it doesn’t have enough value for the operators. Only a few places worldwide bother recovering it during refinement.
But as it gets scarcer the price will go up. Unfortunately the already vented helium is gone forever 😔
capitalism at its finest
Stuff only becomes valuable when it’s mostly gone…