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Comment by runeofdoom | Hacker News Reader

Why is it for sale?

10 years ago, Congress decided we needed to transition off of it. Large amounts of the stockpile were sold off from 2013-2018 and this is the final part of the plan.

https://www.blm.gov/programs/energy-and-minerals/helium/fede...

Transition off of it? Dont we need it for superconducting coolant and some other things?

Yes. MRI machines need it, although I guess that kind of falls into the superconductor category. But I call that use case out because it's probably a good idea to have the government, or some trusted caretaker, look after at least two strategic stockpiles.

FWIU Nuclear Fusion can use (and produce) 4He ('He4') as fuel.

I think it makes sense to retain our nation's helium reserves.

You are thinking of helium-3, of which there is none stored here.

It is very much harder to fuse helium-4.

I think it's both Helium-3 and Helium-4?

(Tritium (3H) decays into 3He with a 12 year half life. Before 12*n years, tritium is radioactive and denser than water and so it will pool and concentrate in ocean cavities for example at the seafloor. Tritium also probably has affinity for certain types of trash floating in the ocean, which Seabin and The Ocean Cleanup are addressing.)

Is laser-based nuclear transmutation of e.g. He4 into He3 easier with the high heat of a nuclear fusion reaction?

Helion's fusion process involves both He3 and He4: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37403522

Thanks!

Had to scroll past a ton of doomsayers and jokes to find this obvious question. I'd like to understand the decision before speculating the meaning.

The top voted comment is always some variation of "capitalism bad".

The uranium capacity was already sold off. Another source of income was needed.

Cynical take: People in congress have wealthy contacts that want to buy and profit from this, and likely include the congress member as part of the profit sharing in some concealed manner

Generous take: congress recognizes government entities are inefficient and do a poor job at things like properly pricing and providing goods and services, which is explicitly outlined as a reason congress gave: selling it at market-driven prices

They give other reasons but there's basically zero reason to trust them. The truth is likely somewhere between the two takes above.

It isn't a cynical opinion if that turns out to be what is cynically being done.

It's cynical if it is presented without evidence.

Past behaviour predicts future behaviour.

The evidence is that this happens more often than not with every piece of legislation

Theres no need for giving random takes. Theres a reason thats been enumerated, it would be nice to just have that answer instead of cliche cynical clutter.

Actually, both need to be true, to an extent.

Government being inefficient is required for private companies to have any interest in ownership because profit is the incentive to solve market inefficiency.

If the government was doing an awesome job, the private sector wouldn't have any interest.

This is quite a rosy take. The private sector is always interested in capturing new customers, and lobbying to shut down public services is a great way to do that. It's pretty simple, first you strip the service or institution of funding, do other things to degrade operations, then you complain that it’s a huge problem that only the private sector can fix. Exhibit A, USPS. Exhibit B, US public schools. Exhibit C, the US VHA. Exhibit D, the UK’s NHS and Ontario Canada’s provincial healthcare system.

I can't help but notice you didn't give any actual examples of what you've said happens. All of those government programs still exist. Where's the example of the shut down public service?

Helium party balloons exist because the government is pricing helium below market value which both causes wasted helium and prevents private competition. Notice how USPS, which is required to operate as a business would (paying its own bills, which it does) has competition in the market?

There's definitely a role for the government in a lot of sectors but I can't for the life of me imagine why helium should be owned and operated as a government service.

There were attempts to bankrupt the USPS in the past decade with dumb crap like forcing them to prefund retirement benefits to a ridiculous degree

Attempts which failed.

Let a thousand HaaS startups bloom?

also any privatized railroad network

If the government was doing a sustainably awesome job, the private sector could easily have interest in destroying it for short-term gain.

> If the government was doing an awesome job, the private sector wouldn't have any interest.

Or, if the government was doing an awesome job, the private sector might want to get rid of public sector price ceilings.

The private tax prep lobby wants to keep the government out of tax filing.

Logistics companies want to kill the USPS.

I'm from a country where the government has several institutions to provide healthcare. It's not the absolute best, and depending on the institution one qualifies for it might not be quickest or cover all conditions.

As administrations have come and gone, there's been a back and forth between officials who want to privatize health, claiming inefficiency, dilapidated facilities and that the system is a drag on public finances, and officials who want to save the system from what they claim is purposeful gross mismanagement by administrations who want excuses to privatize it.

Overall, even if not as pristine or efficient as the private sector, this system of healthcare does means the private industry has to compete with "free".

When I have a cold, I don't think I've spent more than $10-20 on a private doctor's appointment, out of pocket with no insurance. I had a rare eye condition called Keratoconus. In the USA, the specialized procedure to treat it seems to generally cost between $2,500 and $4,000 per eye [1]. I paid about $650 per eye on a private ophthalmology clinic, again, with no insurance.

EDIT: To add an addendum, and in the topic of "efficiency", whenever I'm back home I tend to have more face-to-face time with my doctor. There isn't a team of nurses on every clinic to talk to and do the menial work. I even book appointments directly via WhatsApp with my gastroenterologist, and transfer money directly to their bank account, instead of going through a front-desk secretary, forms, and apps/paperwork. Without insurance "networks" I hear of a good doctor and just go, no problem.

This also means I tend to go to the doctor when I'm home, rather than when I'm in the USA. I find very interesting how for me personally, the experience seems to be much better in a country with an overall lower purchasing power than the USA.

[1]: https://www.nvisioncenters.com/corneal-cross-linking/costs-a...

lol, the 90's called, they want their "government can't do anything erficiently" hot take back.

I thought we'd collectively realized that "run the government like a business" was this ridiculous notion that the owning class sold us to raid public coffers to enrich their own, to our detriment.

USPS is run like a business and is one of the most successful and well liked arms of the government.

It really isn’t run like a business. 50 cents to send mail thousands of miles away to a mailbox that’s 3 hours from any major city? Show me any private mail carrier that would do this for less than 20x that cost

Or someone wants to exploit a natural monopoly.

Unfortunately, this is not a far-fetched possibility in this case, given the rarity of helium.

Why is it a natural monopoly? It's a monopoly right now because the government has prices so artificially low (subsidized by tax dollars) that private companies can't compete.

The market will efficiently squander it on party balloons.

To the contrary. If Helium is as rare, precious and limited as we're led to believe, the price caps would be removed and helium prices would skyrocket to what the market would bear. I guarantee hospitals are going to pay more for helium than party city.

Helium prices are artificially low leading to it's irreverent use.

The market doesn't care why customers pay a lot for something, and doesn't care if something like health care costs more than it needs to and thus serves fewer humans that it could, or how those few lucky are selected.

The market does things efficiently, they are only occasionally and incidentally desirable things. It more often does undesirable things efficiently.

The market is a tool like any other tool. It's effective, but has no innate value positive or negative in what direction that effectiveness is applied. It is a saw that will equally effectively cut your lumber or your leg.

When you apply that lack of value to a human, the term is sociopath, and is pretty much equated with evil outside of a clinical context. Not because the sociopath actively wants to harm, but merely because they are truely neutral and don't care one way or another.

The market is sociopathic, and is unfit for deciding anything.

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