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Intel breaks ground on $20B Arizona plants as U.S. chip factory race heats up

reuters.com

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Re: Intel breaks ground on $20B Arizona plants as U.S. chip factory race heats up

#21

Post by kirjav »

thehappypm wrote: post #8
kd913 wrote: post #5

Doesn't chip making a lot of water, most of it in Arizona is fed by Lake Mead? The same reservoir that is at 30% capacity, with acute water shortages and with 4 years of increased precipitation necessary for an adequate refill. We are adding a chip making facility which needs a lot of water here? This sounds like a recipe for disaster whenever there is a period of water stress which appears to be occurring in that re…

Arizona is famously good at water management. They require a 100 year plan and are basically completely non-dependent on the ever-shrinking Colorado River. If any state would have a plan for recycling and make sure this plan is done appropriately it’s AZ.

I am not sure having a giant aqueduct diverting water from Colorado River counts as "completely non-dependent". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Arizona_Project

Re: Intel breaks ground on $20B Arizona plants as U.S. chip factory race heats up

#22

Post by buryat »

kd913 wrote: post #5

Doesn't chip making a lot of water, most of it in Arizona is fed by Lake Mead? The same reservoir that is at 30% capacity, with acute water shortages and with 4 years of increased precipitation necessary for an adequate refill. We are adding a chip making facility which needs a lot of water here? This sounds like a recipe for disaster whenever there is a period of water stress which appears to be occurring in that re…

I decided to check how much water a plant would use

a plant used 4 million gallons of water a day (according to https://www.theverge.com/22628925/water-semiconductor-shorta...) which is about 126000 metric tons a day

arizona used 7 million acre-foot of water in 2017 (https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/arizona-environme...) which is about 19000 acre-feet a day == 23014434 metric ton a day (using http://www.conversion-website.com/volume/acre-foot-to-ton-wa...)

so a chip plant would be responsible for about 0.55% of overall water usage

Re: Intel breaks ground on $20B Arizona plants as U.S. chip factory race heats up

#23

Post by valine »

wiz21c wrote: post #18

Next time the communication department says "less is more", I'll explode. Do we really need to produce more IC's ? Can't we just limit the demand a bit ? Can't we make washing machines, cars, bikes, fridges, dish washers, coffee machines,... without IC's ? My Core2 Duo is 12 years old and I still use it 8 hours a day, do I really need a new generation CPU ? I understand that global economy (and thus employment and ot…

How exactly do you expect to build an EV without ICs? We’ve already tried cars without ICs, they’re noisy polluters. You talk about sustainability like we weren’t pumping carbon into the atmosphere before computers.

Also maybe your job is such that you can get by with and old power hungry cpu like the core 2 duo, most people can’t.

Re: Intel breaks ground on $20B Arizona plants as U.S. chip factory race heats up

#24

Post by mcphage »

wiz21c wrote: post #18

Next time the communication department says "less is more", I'll explode. Do we really need to produce more IC's ? Can't we just limit the demand a bit ? Can't we make washing machines, cars, bikes, fridges, dish washers, coffee machines,... without IC's ? My Core2 Duo is 12 years old and I still use it 8 hours a day, do I really need a new generation CPU ? I understand that global economy (and thus employment and ot…

> Do we really need to produce more IC's ?

In this case, it's not so much about more ICs (although we do need more right now), but it's who's making the ICs. The US is trying to ramp up their internal production capability, rather than depending on Taiwan as heavily.

Re: Intel breaks ground on $20B Arizona plants as U.S. chip factory race heats up

#25

Post by gitfan86 »

tyleo wrote: post #17
bserge wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can they create a water pipeline from elsewhere? Crazy, but not that far out. Oil and gas is transported this way.

Anecdotal but I have a friend who is an engineer in water treatment and he said pipelines aren’t a silver bullet for two reasons: 1. They are leaky so you end up paying more for the same amount of water 2. Wherever you are buying the water from (the source of the pipeline) knows their water is valuable and can charge more

Also future weather patterns are hard to predict. What if 20 years from now a place who needs water today is getting a ton of rain?

Re: Intel breaks ground on $20B Arizona plants as U.S. chip factory race heats up

#26

Post by phreeza »

baybal2 wrote: post #20
kd913 wrote: post #5

Doesn't chip making a lot of water, most of it in Arizona is fed by Lake Mead? The same reservoir that is at 30% capacity, with acute water shortages and with 4 years of increased precipitation necessary for an adequate refill. We are adding a chip making facility which needs a lot of water here? This sounds like a recipe for disaster whenever there is a period of water stress which appears to be occurring in that re…

Microchips are a more strategic resource than water. I would not be surprised if even using tanker caravans to bring water from Utah is an option for chip production.

Surely water is more strategically important than chips? It's just that chips are scarcer and thus easier to deny an enemy. If an enemy had the choice to deny one of the two resources, water would be the better strategic choice.

Re: Intel breaks ground on $20B Arizona plants as U.S. chip factory race heats up

#27

Post by raverbashing »

thehappypm wrote: post #10
bloopernova wrote: post #2

Forgive my ignorance, but wouldn't you want to build a semiconductor fabrication factory somewhere cold? Or is it because Arizona is dry? (honest questions, I don't know what impacts the location of a fab)

Arizona is a place where, with enough investment (like the billions here) power can be extremely green and cheap, with solar. Needing a huge amount of air conditioning is not a problem when it coincides with the moment the sun is pouring huge amounts of energy into your solar array.

If you can manage to build your solar as to shade your building, your AC costs will greatly diminish as well.

Re: Intel breaks ground on $20B Arizona plants as U.S. chip factory race heats up

#28

Post by comeonseriously »

baybal2 wrote: post #20
kd913 wrote: post #5

Doesn't chip making a lot of water, most of it in Arizona is fed by Lake Mead? The same reservoir that is at 30% capacity, with acute water shortages and with 4 years of increased precipitation necessary for an adequate refill. We are adding a chip making facility which needs a lot of water here? This sounds like a recipe for disaster whenever there is a period of water stress which appears to be occurring in that re…

Microchips are a more strategic resource than water. I would not be surprised if even using tanker caravans to bring water from Utah is an option for chip production.

That would be, what, several thousand trucks per day? I don't see how that would be any better.

Re: Intel breaks ground on $20B Arizona plants as U.S. chip factory race heats up

#29

Post by HomeDeLaPot »

kd913 wrote: post #5

Doesn't chip making a lot of water, most of it in Arizona is fed by Lake Mead? The same reservoir that is at 30% capacity, with acute water shortages and with 4 years of increased precipitation necessary for an adequate refill. We are adding a chip making facility which needs a lot of water here? This sounds like a recipe for disaster whenever there is a period of water stress which appears to be occurring in that re…

Intel isn't stupid; they will want a return on their investment. I would love to see the internal whitepaper or whatever that summarized the decision.

Re: Intel breaks ground on $20B Arizona plants as U.S. chip factory race heats up

#30

Post by baybal2 »

comeonseriously wrote: post #28
baybal2 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Microchips are a more strategic resource than water. I would not be surprised if even using tanker caravans to bring water from Utah is an option for chip production.

That would be, what, several thousand trucks per day? I don't see how that would be any better.

Yes， now calculate the fuel cost. Expensive， but not crazy expensive in comparison to other wafer costs
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