Iran’s attack this week on Qatar’s natural gas export facility threatens to disrupt not just world energy markets but also global technology supply chains because the helium it produces is crucial for a range of advanced industries.
Best known as the gas that makes party balloons float, helium is also a key input in chipmaking, space rockets and medical imaging.
Qatar supplies a third of the world’s helium, according to the U.S. Geological Survey, but the nation had to halt production shortly after the war erupted three weeks ago. The latest Iranian strikes against the region’s energy producing infrastructure have added to supply worries, with Qatar’s state-owned gas company saying it would crimp helium exports by 14%.
Good, I’m willing to go a decade without any technological advances as long as the minmaxing libertarian stemlords who have the fucking hubris to think their logic autism means they’ve figured out the world and therefore are our sheppards eat a fat slice of the humble pie. And I’m talking about the Musks, Theils, and Bezos of the world.
Whether that’s humiliation or bankruptcy or death I do not care.
I guess you’re not waiting on an MRI.
This stuff is used to cool things like MRI machines and the like not just for manufacturing things. Would you go a decade without getting any medical scans?
Most Americans already do so there’s less of a frame of reference for the necessity of things like MRI machines.