en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Helium_Reserve
The National Helium Reserve, also known as the Federal Helium Reserve, was a strategic reserve of the United States, which once held over 1 billion cubic meters (about 170,000,000 kg)[a] of helium gas.
The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) transferred the reserve to the General Services Administration (GSA) as surplus property, but a 2022 auction[10] failed to finalize a sale.[11] On June 22, 2023, the GSA announced a new auction of the facilities and remaining helium.[12] The auction of the last helium assets was due to take place in November, 2023.[13] Though the last of the Cliffside reserve was to be sold by November 2023, more natural gas was discovered at the site than was previously known, and the Bureau of Land Management extended the auction to January 25, 2024 to allow for increased bids.[14] In 2024 the remaining reserve was sold to the highest bidder, Messer Group.[15]
Arguably not the best timing on that.
empireOfLove2@lemmy.dbzer0.com 23 hours ago
Gee I wonder who else has a lot of tappable helium- ah, right. russia.
irmadlad@lemmy.world 22 hours ago
Russians aren’t brown skinned people tho. We almost exclusively bomb brown skin people.
empireOfLove2@lemmy.dbzer0.com 22 hours ago
We do, but what I mean is this is yet another way Russia will benefit from the pedo-war. Oil goes up, they become a critical supplier of helium, they’ll make shitloads of billions to try and prop their own war machine back up. One big huge giant present to Putin, one dictator to another.
irmadlad@lemmy.world 19 hours ago
I don’t honestly think that Russia couldn’t already afford modern infrastructure and military, as much as I think the government crippled because it’s basically run mafia style where everyone is skimming heavily. on the take. and money being funneled to already wealthy pockets. This sounds vaguely familiar. Even down to people ‘falling’ out of a window from great heights. I get what you are saying tho. Russia is rich in natural resources if they can figure out how to extract a lot of it from the frozen tundra.