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

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

#161

Post by ryan93 »

wibagusto wrote: post #48
HomeDeLaPot wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It’s not about being stupid it’s about their self-interests versus all the folks who live in Arizona and depend on the water supply. Remember intel’s modus operandi is increasing profits for shareholders.

Thank you for informing hacker news that companies want to make a profit. Now. Do you have some evidence that intel is harming people? The water is almost completely recycled

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

#162

Post by hosh »

MengerSponge wrote: post #153
da_chicken wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The biggest user of water here in Arizona are the commercial farmers. And farming has been booming in Arizona. I lived there about 10 years ago and even then there were a lot of complaints about all the tree farms (almonds, etc.) that were showing up in Arizona. Massive water consumption and virtually impossible to be sustainable in the desert.

The irony is that with current incentives, it's a self-reinforcing cycle. Nuts have a huge return on investment, so nut farmers can afford to buy even very expensive water, so they plant more trees, etc etc.

What’s also ironic is that people can grow nut trees in arid land at a smallholder scale. Folks in the permies.com forum talk about chucking nuts randomly, and the ones that survive to grow on their own are more drought-tolerant.

If you are not trying to force greater yield in order to squeeze out profit, the nut trees can do well to yield enough for people to have their fair share.

When done as part of a practice that involves diversifying crops, the entire smallhold is far more resilient to any number of external pressure, including climate, pests, market crashes, etc.

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

#163

Post by TrueDuality »

BurningFrog wrote: post #151
jjoonathan wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because water that isn't fresh can become fresh. We have the technology. They're already purifying a staggering amount of water, might as well purify a bit more while they're at it.

That still doesn't explain where this unfresh water comes from.

They're taking raw untreated river/lake/aquifer water, purifying it to an incredible degree for the fab. When they use the water it gets cleaned again.

Now that water can either be returned to the river/lake/aquifer or if you clean it sufficiently well it can go straight into municipal drinking water supplies. That's how this fresh water comes out of nowhere.

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

#164

Post by rmah »

pope_meat wrote: post #79
matheusmoreira wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Water shortage shouldn't be a thing, but greed and short sightedness is. Yup. We'll never ever run out of water. Whatever problems arise, there are solutions for them. People just don't want to pay. They want it cheap and convenient.

I don't want to be priced out of the water market the same way I got priced out of the housing market. But then again, sacrifices must be made to the profit gods, it is the way. Sigh.

That will only happen if you live in a region that is arid or semi-arid. Most of the US is literally overflowing with fresh water and almost all the expense for water is related to simply piping it to you or cleaning up the wastewater you create. For the vast majority of people in the USA, water is very cheap.

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

#165

Post by ryan93 »

throwaway894345 wrote: post #124
NikolaeVarius wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its fucking lawn grass. Its one of the most worthless things in the world and a complete waste of resources. At least chips do something other than sit there wasting water.

I agree. But the idea of asking tens or hundreds of thousands to give up their frivolities so a single corporation can profit strikes a nerve in me, however irrational it may be. I'm not reflexively anti-corporation--corporations are economically necessary--but I guess I'm touchy about the question of whether people exist for corporations or corporations for people.

They can keep their lawn. She’s should just have to pay more money since the water has more valuable uses elsewhere

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

#166

Post by kesselvon »

ovi256 wrote: post #52
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…

> Seems to more closely follow tax breaks and tax income It follows feasibility, AFAIK. All new manufacturing is in Southern US states because they're the ones that allow new plants to be built. The others tie projects down in long, expensive, non-successful environmental studies. At this point, it's easier to bring water to the desert (Arizona) than get approval for a manufacturing facility in a non-desert.

It's the lack of unions and cheap wages. Southern states are famously lax on workers rights and business regulations.

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

#167

Post by mywittyname »

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…

Without ICs, these devices have to rely on mechanical controllers, which are much larger, more expensive, less reliable, less efficient, louder, and really worse in ever metric.

I think your sentiment is not to produce wifi-powered, ad-driven refrigerators, and yeah, I can agree with that point. But the core ICs in these devices have been there for decades and do provide substantial, tangible benefits.

I can't speak for every device, but I've replaced the circuit board on a few appliances over the years and they are mostly generic boards with really cheap, ancient chips produced by brands most people have never heard of and sell in bulk for a quarter each. These are definitely not cutting the cutting edge designs that Intel will be building here. So let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater.

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

#168

Post by skybrian »

thehappypm wrote: post #95
ethanbond wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

… what? The US southwest is entering its first ever Tier 1 water shortage next year, meaning Arizona will have reduced supply equivalent to 1.2MM people’s annual consumption. No reason to believe we don’t go straight from here to Tier 2, onto Tier 3, and so on. Nature doesn’t provide enough water in a desert to be running sprawling metropolises and even more massive farms and graze land - especially water-intensive c…

Contrary to common belief, cities do not really need gigantic amounts of water. You take a shower, water goes down the drain, you can reclaim most of it if you want to. Don't allow irrigated lawns, reclaim gray water, urban water needs drop to a trickle. AZ is a leader in this space.

Is gray water reuse happening at scale?

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

#169

Post by speed_spread »

valine wrote: post #23
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.

Most newer CPU power is geared towards AI and telemetry (IoT, web advertising), which essentially feed the surveillance economy. Desktop CPUs have been powerful enough for non-ad driven web browsing and office applications for at least a decade.

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

#170

Post by dillondoyle »

hosh wrote: post #112
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 live in Phoenix and have heard some of the local discourse about this. Fabs need a lot of water, like a swimming pool. Once you fill it up, then you need comparatively less to stay operational. Intel has invested in both recycling water as well as partnering with organizations on water conservation and ecology projects. Arizona does draw water from the Colorado River, but among the four states, Arizona is at the bo…

Interesting relevent article came out from Bloomberg yesterday about Arizona water authority helping boost new more efficient and cheaper drip tech:

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2021-09-23/how-micro...

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