Matt

Father, husband, cyclist, runner, snowboarder, nihilist on my better days. He/him because trans rights matter. Abortion rights are human rights.

[Ammanichanda @Arkasiraee]

Helium looks simple.

It’s one of the lightest elements in the universe.

But industrially, it’s one of the hardest substances on Earth to handle.

What you’re really looking at is a supply chain balanced on extreme physics, not just infrastructure.

Only about 16 major liquefaction plants globally feed the entire world’s demand. And building a new one isn’t like adding capacity in oil or gas.

It’s a 3 to 6 year process because helium refuses to behave like any other gas.

At cryogenic temperatures, most gases cool when expanded. Helium does the opposite. Above −228°C, it heats up when you try to cool it using standard expansion. So to push it down to −269°C, near absolute zero, you need precision systems like turboexpanders spinning at up to 250,000 rpm.

These are not mass-manufactured. Fewer than five companies in the world can build them.

And liquefaction is just the beginning.

To reach semiconductor-grade purity, 99.9999%, helium has to be concentrated over a thousand times and then purified through multiple stages across an enormous temperature range.

The final step involves zirconium alloy systems heated to around 700°C, chemically trapping impurities down to parts per billion. Even those cartridges come from a handful of suppliers with lead times stretching up to two years.

Now layer in the fragility.

The United States Bureau of Land Management completed the sale of the U.S. strategic helium reserve in 2024. That buffer is gone.

And industries like semiconductor manufacturing operate with barely a week of inventory.

So this isn’t just a niche industrial detail.

It’s a system where:-

• Supply is hyper-concentrated
• Technology is ultra-specialized
• Replacement timelines are measured in years
• Demand comes from industries that cannot pause

My reading is this,

Helium is not scarce because it’s rare.

It’s scarce because controlling it sits at the edge of engineering limits.

And when something that complex becomes a single point of failure for chips, healthcare, and space systems, it quietly becomes one of the most strategic materials in the modern world.

[Matt @MattWollenb]

@Jess140Tee @Brad604 Because they are. They will continue to get worse.

[Matt @MattWollenb]

@LevinJacob94170 @jacobrintamaki Other than 1.3 billion people who will the Chinese be selling their products to? Is that really your question?

[Ryan Moulton @moultano]

There is actually a giant conspiracy to secretly modify the weather. It has been going on for 50 years. Some of the biggest companies on earth have funded disinformation campaigns in every major newspaper and bought off politicians to hide it. Guess what it is?

[Matt @MattWollenb]

@FrankLRizzo @Sn35190318 @GlennCraven @xPhatGodZilla7 @skrimbeezo @coolgreatokay @Josiahk_ng @whstancil

[Matt @MattWollenb]

@ToonLibertarian @Gritty20202

[Aaron Astor @AstorAaron]

@politico Since nobody seems to have actually read the article (it's paywalled), here it is. More importantly, it's describing dire economic circumstances that have faced ordinary Americans for 20 years, not just the last four.

https://t.co/oAIZoIv6hm

[Matt @MattWollenb]

@beverlyalford @FranceneCarroll @daveyjonz @AesPolitics1

[Matt @MattWollenb]

@MargoEpperson1 @Jasmine_Darlin @GundamNoContext lol another Trump voter duped, no wonder he loves the uneducated.

“eight out of the top 10 firms receiving government contracts during the Trump presidency have been government-certified as having offshored jobs”

https://t.co/BnLrN2jkcL

[MA5K CEO @Nobbie_OCs]

Beyond going incredibly hard, the TIE Fighter short film perfectly sums up why the Rebels relied so heavily on hit & run tactics for most of the Imperial Era

(Please watch this on Youtube it's amazing)

[Alastair McAlpine, MD @AlastairMcA30]

98% of physicians vaccinate their children fully and on-schedule.

Because they know that #vaccineswork.

[Matt @MattWollenb]

@mr_e_guy @zaptrapped @AlastairMcA30 Everything is a conspiracy if you don’t know how anything works.

[Matt @MattWollenb]

@ryankatzrosene Wasn’t coal basically just replaced by methane/natural gas? Better in the long term sure, but worse for the climate in the near future. Efficiency still being gobbled up to produce ever greater emissions.

[Taylor Trogdon @TTrogdon]

I don’t care if you’re a weather hobbyist or a professional meteorologist, this is one of the most pristine real-life examples of (explosive) extratropical cyclogenesis that I’ve observed in quite some time.

I know there’s plenty of severe and winter weather fanatics out there, but all my synopticians, please stand up.

[⃠ emojibake @emojibakemono]

love his stuff

[Massive Attack @MassiveAttackUK]

Really smashed the elite there guys.

[Joseph Fasano @Joseph_Fasano_]

🕯️

[Canadian Paintings @Canada_Painting]

The Scream
Kent Monkman ~ Cree
2017
#NDTR

[Matt @MattWollenb]

@CNDinshorts @WitchingHourYT @AB_Disadvantage @InuitRose54 Some of the best and brightest people in Canada have dedicated their lives to helping uncover the horrors of residential schools. There is no both sides, there are the established facts of the matter. It’s up to you to educate yourself about them.

https://t.co/slQ8lJfJDu

[Matt @MattWollenb]

@preta_6 @MizzzAlia @JimMcMurtry01 You, and your friend, are on the wrong side of every single issue I’ve seen you post about. It would almost be impressive if it wasn’t so embarrassing.