Ukraine is a major producer of neon gas, critical for lasers used in chipmaking

I&#x27;ve found the reason (I think) 90% of the world&#x27;s semiconductor-grade neon production is concentrated in one country. Per this German government whitepaper about the noble gas industry: the USSR massively overinvested in neon capacity in the 1980&#x27;s, in order to build space-based excimer laser weapons. Ukraine&#x27;s extant plants date (probably) to the 1980&#x27;s; they&#x27;re responsible for a global oversupply that&#x27;s persisted since the Cold War.<p>- <i>&quot;Neon was regarded as a strategic resource in the former Soviet Union, because it was believed to be required for the intended production of laser weapons for missile and satellite defence purposes in the 1980s. Accordingly, all major air separation units in the Soviet Union were equipped with neon, but also krypton and xenon, enrichment facilities or, in some cases, purification plants (cf. Sections 5.4 and 5.5). The domestic Soviet supply of neon was extremely large but demand low.&quot;</i><p>- <i>&quot;Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, global crude neon production was approximately 500–600 million l&#x2F;a (= 500,000–600,000 m3&#x2F;a). It was dominated by far by large-scale air separation units associated with metallurgical combines in Russia and Ukraine. Simultaneously, demand was estimated at around 300 million l&#x2F;a (cf. Section 4.2). In the years between 1990 and 2012, therefore, most crude neon was not purified, but released into the atmosphere, because there was no customer base.&quot;</i><p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.deutsche-rohstoffagentur.de&#x2F;DE&#x2F;Gemeinsames&#x2F;Produkte&#x2F;Downloads&#x2F;DERA_Rohstoffinformationen&#x2F;rohstoffinformationen-39_en.pdf" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.deutsche-rohstoffagentur.de&#x2F;DE&#x2F;Gemeinsames&#x2F;Produ...</a> (chapter 5.2)<p>For context, this would have overlapped with Energia&#x2F;Buran&#x27;s launch of the <i>Polyus</i> weapon (which was a megawatt CO2 laser).<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Polyus_(spacecraft)" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Polyus_(spacecraft)</a>

How is neon extracted and why does one country have a 90% monopoly (in this specific grade)?<p>edit: Found this C&amp;EN story from 2016 that adds context:<p>- <i>&quot;Chip makers, which account for more than 90% of global neon consumption, are already experiencing high prices and some shortages stemming from the Russian conflict with Ukraine, Shon-Roy says. The war, which started in 2014, interrupted global supplies of the gas, about 70% of which comes from Iceblick, a firm based in the Ukrainian city of Odessa.&quot;</i><p>- <i>&quot;Iceblick gathers and purifies neon from large cryogenic air separation units that supply oxygen and nitrogen to steelmakers. Most of the air separation units equipped to capture neon, which makes up only 18.2 ppm of the atmosphere by volume, are in Eastern Europe.&quot;</i><p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;pubs.acs.org&#x2F;doi&#x2F;10.1021&#x2F;cen-09410-notw7" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;pubs.acs.org&#x2F;doi&#x2F;10.1021&#x2F;cen-09410-notw7</a><p>This is puzzling to me, because I don&#x27;t get why <i>air separation</i> should naturally concentrate in exactly one place. It&#x27;s not tied to a rare and localized geologic formation, like helium sort-of is.<p>Also there&#x27;s cryogenic air separation plants all over the planet, why don&#x27;t they do neon too? (Asking in the spirit of curiosity)<p>edit #2: I&#x27;ve just found something that offers a possible explanation and it&#x27;s <i>far</i> more interesting than I expected:<p>- <i>&quot;Neon was regarded as a strategic resource in the former Soviet Union, because it was believed to be required for the intended production of laser weapons for missile and satellite defence purposes in the 1980s. Accordingly, all major air separation units in the Soviet Union were equipped with neon, but also krypton and xenon, enrichment facilities or, in some cases, purification plants (cf. Sections 5.4 and 5.5). The domestic Soviet supply of neon was extremely large but demand low.&quot;</i><p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.deutsche-rohstoffagentur.de&#x2F;DE&#x2F;Gemeinsames&#x2F;Produkte&#x2F;Downloads&#x2F;DERA_Rohstoffinformationen&#x2F;rohstoffinformationen-39_en.pdf" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.deutsche-rohstoffagentur.de&#x2F;DE&#x2F;Gemeinsames&#x2F;Produ...</a> (chapter 5.2)

We should be talking about grain, not gas.<p>Russia is the biggest exporter of wheat in the world with 18%. Ukraine accounts for 7% of the world&#x27;s wheat.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.aljazeera.com&#x2F;news&#x2F;2022&#x2F;2&#x2F;17&#x2F;infographic-russia-ukraine-and-the-global-wheat-supply-interactive" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.aljazeera.com&#x2F;news&#x2F;2022&#x2F;2&#x2F;17&#x2F;infographic-russia-...</a><p>This conflict will affect 1&#x2F;4 of the world&#x27;s wheat which will affect food prices.<p>In 2010 Russia stopped exporting wheat due to wildfires burning their fields (most likely caused by climate change). This caused a hike in food prices which helped trigger the Arab revolutions in 2011.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;2010_Russian_wildfires" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;2010_Russian_wildfires</a>

I was personally hit by this back in 2015 as a grad student. We called up our process gas supplier and asked for a k-cylinder of Neon and were laughed off the phone, so we ended up running our experiment on krypton for setup and used a lecture bottle of Neon that a partner lab had left over for the few minutes of data collection we needed to get our result[1].<p>At the time, we were cursing the semi industry for using up all of the remaining Neon with their billion dollar operating budgets...<p>[1]<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;iopscience.iop.org&#x2F;article&#x2F;10.1088&#x2F;0953-4075&#x2F;49&#x2F;15&#x2F;155601" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;iopscience.iop.org&#x2F;article&#x2F;10.1088&#x2F;0953-4075&#x2F;49&#x2F;15&#x2F;1...</a>

While the trade implications of this war are being consider, let&#x27;s think of the lives of our fellow hackers. These are people who along side us develop the software of the world.<p>They&#x27;re not necessarily soldiers, they&#x27;re just regular people and right now there are missiles flying at their homes, tanks in their streets.<p>Surely there is a way we can help the people.

And Russia produces 50% of the worlds palladium which is critical for manufacturing ceramic capacitors.<p>Looks like we’re stuck between the hammer and the sickle…

I&#x27;m more concerned about Ukraine&#x27;s wheat exports, personally. Likely to become a critical issue much more quickly than neon gas.

Since it&#x27;s extracted from the air, it shouldn&#x27;t be too hard to start doing it here. I assume we do this for other gases already, so ramping it up for Neon may not be that difficult.

I&#x27;m more concerned about the probable loss of wheat supplies to the near east, especially Turkey and Egypt. But of course,they could just eat Revani or Basbousa instead.

who else said yesterday they would quit the news?<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=30430041" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=30430041</a>

EU and US response to Russia is totally ineffective. They should have moved troops in from the beginning.

First Crimea. Then Hong Kong. Then Afghanistan. Now Ukraine. Next Taiwan.

Here in NJ they separate neon from the air. This is not a problem.

Neon is a byproduct of producing liquid nitrogen, oxygen and other gas products.<p>Many other plants could start producing neon pretty easily. They just haven&#x27;t so far because neon isn&#x27;t profitable to produce and sell. But with a relatively-large but globally-insignificant price increase it would be.

<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;archive.is&#x2F;OBG4R" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;archive.is&#x2F;OBG4R</a>

Not anymore they&#x27;re not. Time to find another supplier.

Some Russian products that you would like to avoid:<p>* Yandex * Lukoil * WinRAR * Kaspersky * Lada * Russian Standard Original Vodka * Stoli Vodka * Baltika * Lukoil * Gazprom * Kamaz * Masha and the Bear * Kalashnikov * Stolichnaya * Ural motorcycles * VK

Time to move on to free electron lasers powered by compact accelerators.

So what happens to the chipmaking industry in the event of a Russian occupation of Ukraine and a Chinese occupation of Taiwan?

With some loss of performance, I think the excimer laser gas mix could use only He as an admix gas.

Can someone explain why neon is critical for &quot;lasers used in chip manufacturing&quot; ? I don&#x27;t think they&#x27;d be using He-Ne lasers, and if they are I would think those could be replaced fairly easily with solid-state lasers.

I&#x27;m glad to see we have the right reasons at heart for caring about human events.

After all those lies I&#x27;ve been told over and over and over again, over decades, about all those countries which got invaded by the US, bombed by the US, had their governments overthrown by the US ...<p>... why would I believe them about Russia?<p>Based on an image in a news-livestream yesterday, targets are solely military structures. The reporter did not fail in trying to make russia look bad, showing actually no regard to the information itself.<p>Personally, I can absolutely understand the desire to remove military equipment next to my doorstep, especially when it&#x27;s ran by a country which, FOR DECADES, used lies to take over countries and kill millions of people.

Didn’t Russia also say something like, laser weapons will be the future of warfare a while back?

This headline is disinformation.<p>No, Ukraine doesn&#x27;t produce neon. Russia produces it and sends it to Ukraine for processing and distribution. But, wait, there&#x27;s more.<p>Ukranian company Iceblick is the major producer of neon. It has production facilities in Odessa, Ukraine and Moscow, Russia. But wait, there&#x27;s more.<p>Iceblick is not a major producer of neon, Chinese companies produce a lot more... which is what is used in global chipmaking.<p>The claim in the article is that &quot;[Ukraine] supplies more than 90% of U.S. semiconductor-grade neon&quot;... which may not be true in the first place, but the modified title here suggests completely something else... which is blatantly false.

Let&#x27;s get that neon gas back!

well that explains a lot

90%! Did we really let ourselves become so reliant on Ukraine and Taiwan for computer chips? Taiwan being the next country most under threat.<p>In fact, Reuters just reported that &quot;Taiwan warns Chinese aircraft in its air defence zone&quot;<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.reuters.com&#x2F;world&#x2F;asia-pacific&#x2F;taiwan-reports-nine-chinese-aircraft-its-air-defence-zone-2022-02-24&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.reuters.com&#x2F;world&#x2F;asia-pacific&#x2F;taiwan-reports-ni...</a>

This is not the reason.<p>Pure and simply Russia needs people, its dying.<p>Low birth rate, high death rate, little immigration to make up the short fall (who wants to move to Russia :)), and to top off a weak economy that will struggle to support a small less active workforce. Interestingly Ukraine has pretty much the same population problem.<p>This will be increasingly common problem for countries as population growth slows.

Russia&#x27;s actions make me nervous that China will be emboldened to do the same for Taiwan

What would be some good stocks to invest to capitalize this? Perhaps some trading in Russian&#x2F;Ukrainian Stock Exchange? Is there any significant US company listed in Nasdaq or NYSE in this space?

No problem, the first thing invaders do is to extract and sell natural resources. See USA and Iraq oil.