*squeeks* And One More Thing

September 12, 2024 6:43 AM

iPhones are allergic to helium
posted by lucidium (21 comments total)

Fun story! But KILLER title. Well done, Lucidium.
posted by Frayed Knot at 7:34 AM on September 12 [5 favorites]

iPhones are allergic to helium

They were in 2018, anyway.
posted by Thorzdad at 7:46 AM on September 12

Hydrogen, too. So don't count on you IPhone working in LaPorte, Texas, next to the Hydrogen plants.

I am sure they are just living in a hydrogen plume, since it s unregulated by Clean Air Act
posted by eustatic at 8:06 AM on September 12

So have they addressed this yet in the intervening years?
posted by limeonaire at 8:11 AM on September 12

I learned about this phenomenon from Applied Science.
posted by neonamber at 8:37 AM on September 12 [1 favorite]

Given the increasing price and scarcity of helium, I'm amazed that it was the device failures that caused the loss to be detected. Once that helium is gone, it is gone forever. It seemed an expensive gas to be cavalier about.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 8:38 AM on September 12 [3 favorites]

seemed an expensive gas to be cavalier about

🎈
posted by HearHere at 8:44 AM on September 12 [4 favorites]

It seemed an expensive gas to be cavalier about.

Indeed it does, which makes it all the more inexplicable that Congress mandated that the National Helium Reserve be liquidated.
posted by adamrice at 9:26 AM on September 12 [4 favorites]

Really interesting!

Good set of data for those writing spy thrillers and the like.
posted by gwint at 10:22 AM on September 12

Given the increasing price and scarcity of helium, I'm amazed that it was the device failures that caused the loss to be detected. Once that helium is gone, it is gone forever. It seemed an expensive gas to be cavalier about.

it is technically a fossil resource but it seems like the main restriction is just how few places are actually looking for it and recovering it. But with increased prices more countries are looking to produce it:

Russia is set to open a massive new plant that will soon supply helium to China, thereby edging out Algeria as the world’s third-largest producer.

“Russia is going to become the number-three producer as early as 2025, and they’ll end up accounting for a quarter of the world’s supply within the next five years,” says Kornbluth.

Qatargas in Qatar is opening a fourth plant, which—together with Russia’s new facility—should expand global helium supply by about 50% in the next few years, he adds.

Some companies are now considering sites where they could extract helium without treating it as a by-product of natural gas. Helium One is exploring several such sources in Tanzania...

the US still has enough helium in natural-gas reservoirs to last 150 more years, according to a recent USGS analysis.

imho the big problem may be that if and when we phase out fossil fuels it may become economically harder to extract helium since it's usually a byproduct of natural gas production.
posted by BungaDunga at 10:24 AM on September 12 [2 favorites]

also if I had to guess, 99.9% of wasted helium is due to all the natural gas production that doesn't capture the associated helium, which is nearly all of it, since there's usually not high enough concentrations to be economical. at least helium that's used in industry and not recycled is used more than zero times
posted by BungaDunga at 10:26 AM on September 12 [1 favorite]

Congress mandated that the National Helium Reserve be liquidated

Well they’ll have to get it awfully cold.
posted by saturday_morning at 11:00 AM on September 12 [17 favorites]

>> Congress mandated that the National Helium Reserve be liquidated

> Well they’ll have to get it awfully cold.

It'll take up a lot less space though!
posted by genpfault at 11:02 AM on September 12 [3 favorites]

In 1977 Issac Asimov wrote an essay called, IIRC, "Vanishing Element" which warned of the permanent loss of helium as it can escape into space through the Earth's atmosphere. I can't remember where I read it but think it was in a magazine.
posted by bz at 11:47 AM on September 12

> I learned about this phenomenon from Applied Science.

That was a really cool look at the actual MEMS device.
posted by lucidium at 11:51 AM on September 12

The discovery of a massive helium deposit in Minnesota was announced earlier this year. And then they announced it's even better than that:

Laboratory tests in June placed helium concentrations in the reservoir between 8.7% and 14.5%, topping previous maximum estimates of 12.4% and 13.8%. The concentrations are the highest the industry has ever seen: To put those figures into context, any helium deposit with a concentration above 0.3% is considered economically significant, Abraham James previously told Live Science.

posted by JoeZydeco at 12:07 PM on September 12 [3 favorites]

Interesting news. Is there anything like a spot market for helium that we can see drop on the announcement?
posted by pwnguin at 2:53 PM on September 12

The discovery of a massive helium deposit in Minnesota was announced earlier this year.

Minnesotans must be floating on air.
posted by fairmettle at 1:53 AM on September 13

discovery of a massive helium deposit in Minnesota

Does the location of that helium correlate with an equally massive uranium, thorium, or natural gas deposit? That sounds quite fantastic, in the classic sense of that word.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 9:06 PM on September 13

Does the location of that helium correlate with an equally massive uranium, thorium, or natural gas deposit? That sounds quite fantastic, in the classic sense of that word.


Yes? From the article:

Normally, helium is obtained as a byproduct of natural gas production, as it accumulates underground in pockets of methane and other hydrocarbons. Minnesota is one of just a handful of locations globally where helium is known to exist without hydrocarbons — the others being in Greenland and southern and eastern Africa. These sites all feature a crust of granite rock rich in uranium and thorium, as well as a rift system that fractures the rock to expose the helium produced through radioactive decay. A dose of volcanism then releases helium atoms from the rock.

posted by pwnguin at 9:37 AM on September 14

Minnesotans must be floating on air.

^ᵒᵖᵉ
posted by BungaDunga at 2:09 PM on September 14