An accident at a research lab has resulted in hurricane-force winds converging on it from all directions. Air goes in, doesn't come out: Evidently the scientists, who were exploring the properties of spacetime, punched a hole somewhere else in space -- and space is mostly a vacuum. They're all dead now and no one knows how to keep all of Earth's atmosphere from disappearing through the hole. A man arrives on the scene and offers to stop the loss of air -- but if he succeeds, he must have the title to the property the hole stands on. The authorities agree, and he sets off in a very strange, armored vehicle that has a pair of spoonlike arms on top. He negotiates the rubble with some difficulty through the wind. When he reaches what used to be the lab, he parks the vehicle in the dead air under the hole and allows the arms to swing upward. The two ends of the spoon come together and fit tightly, like the two halves of the Magdeburg sphere from the early study of vacuums. The hole is enclosed, the terrible wind stops, and the problem is solved. "But why did you want the deed to the property?" he is asked. He shows his questioner that he has included a spigot in the sphere. He can now empty any desired container and provide buyers with a high vacuum without any energy cost for pumping.
It disturbed me that he would so calmly waste the Earth's atmosphere to empty light bulbs -- compare "The Dwindling Sphere" -- but it was an elegant solution to a difficult problem. I probably read this story in a 60s or 70s anthology, in English. I don't recall any names, personal or geographic, from the story.
