
Helium shortages will impact quantum computer research - jonbaer
https://www.techrepublic.com/article/how-helium-shortages-will-impact-quantum-computer-research/
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b_tterc_p
Maybe this is a dumb question but if people believe helium is valuable, and we
put helium into useless balloons, why aren’t people buying up large quantities
of helium and saving it for inevitable price increases?

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NikkiA
Partly because you can't store helium long term, it escapes from any known
container.

There are probably individuals that have tried to store large amounts, but are
going to have a sad feeling when they try to let the helium out from their
million dollar bunch of tanks.

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AWildC182
Source? I can't find anything on long term helium storage being impossible.

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astrodust
It's the smallest monatomic gas, so it can wriggle through even the tiniest of
holes.

Normally you'd liquify a gas to store it, but helium doesn't liquify until you
crank it down to 4°K, which is really, really cold. Liquid oxygen and nitrogen
have significantly higher boiling points.

Now if you do liquify it, the real fun is it's a superfluid so it's going to
crawl all over the inside of the container, it won't just stay at the bottom.

So if you don't keep it at 4°K, or -270°C, it's going to boil, and if it boils
it's a gas, and if it's a gas it's going to find any opening to squeeze out
of.

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jeffwass
>Now if you do liquify it, the real fun is it's a superfluid so it's going to
crawl all over the inside of the container, it won't just stay at the bottom.

Not true. LHe’s boiling point (at atmospheric pressure) is 4.2K. The lambda
point when it becomes a superfluid is 2.2K. So there’s a decent temperature
range when it behaves as a normal liquid.

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astrodust
Good point but it also means that if you can keep it precisely in the 2.2K to
4.2K range then nothing strange happens.

That's a pretty narrow band to operate in.

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jeffwass
It’s a wider range than you think. Temperatures work logarithmically.

The lambda point occurs at roughly half the absolute temperature of the
boiling point.

For comparison room temp is roughly 300K, and half of that is 150K or minus
120°C.

Would you call the temperature range between minus 120°C and room temp (call
it 20°C) a “narrow band”?

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jonbaer
Should probably be noted,
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helium-3](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helium-3),
"The abundance of helium-3 is thought to be greater on the Moon than on Earth"
and [https://io9.gizmodo.com/could-helium-3-really-solve-
earths-e...](https://io9.gizmodo.com/could-helium-3-really-solve-earths-
energy-problems-5908499)

~~~
namirez
This might be useful only for future fusion reactors. It's too expensive for
cooling purposes though.

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pacificmint
The article discusses several current uses for He3 and cites a yearly demand
of 70,000 liters.

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gaze
There’s efforts to rebuild circuit QED such that temperatures this low aren’t
needed. I wouldn’t worry too much about this.

