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TSMC ups Arizona investment from $12B to $40B with second semi fab

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Re: TSMC ups Arizona investment from $12B to $40B with second semi fab

#141

Post by Analemma_ »

treesknees wrote: post #67
_8j50 wrote: post #45

Don't these fabs need like an insane amount of water? Why would they build it of all places in arizona which as far as I know barely meets drinking water requirements (at least at some cities) and is basically mostly a desert?

They do need a lot of water, initially, but it was pointed out that it's similar to filling a swimming pool [1]. Yes you need a lot of water at first, however it's not as though all that water is just being dumped outside to evaporate. It's cleaned and recycled, and recaptured from the air within the plant. While Arizona doesn't have an abundance of excess water, they do have pretty strict usage guidelines and rules…

This seems wrong. Didn't TSMC have to throttle down production recently because Taiwan had a drought? Why would they have had to do that if the plants don't need new water after the "initial fill"?

Re: TSMC ups Arizona investment from $12B to $40B with second semi fab

#142

Post by jfghi »

zdw wrote: post #131
thehappypm wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn’t solar the cheapest energy per KwH? A sunny place like Arizona with tons of empty space should be able to cheaply deploy lots of energy.

There's also a nuclear plant nearby in AZ: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palo_Verde_Nuclear_Generating_... Nuclear + Solar seems like it would be a pretty ideal mix in a hot climate, especially given that peak demand for air conditioning coincides with solar maximum output, and Nuclear could handle some of the base/overnight load.

Do these plants not require tons of water?

Re: TSMC ups Arizona investment from $12B to $40B with second semi fab

#143

Post by vinibrito »

uni_rule wrote: post #76
aresant wrote: post #57

This + the recent news that Apple is planning to diversify production out of China (1) is hard not to read into regarding the US' view of where US/China relations are heading . . . any geopolitical armchair experts have a view? (1) https://www.wsj.com/articles/apple-china-factory-protests-fo...

Policies like this actually move pretty slowly. This is still a reaction to Ukraine in february, not planning for anything in particular, just the possibility of a fucked status quo.

Or maybe even a reaction to the pandemic. Which means a couple years ago at least.

Re: TSMC ups Arizona investment from $12B to $40B with second semi fab

#144

Post by shagie »

bcrosby95 wrote: post #132
Mistletoe wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Should people live in an area with no water? It feels like we have so many problems caused by people just not living in the locations in the USA where there is lots of rainfall and water. I have tons of water, my state just uses lakes filled by rainwater. We make electricity with it too. https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Average_precipitat... I always find it interesting that people keep cramming into the wes…

Should people live in an area that needs to burn fossil fuels for heating? Energy efficient heat pumps, which AC is, only work on a relatively narrow band of temperature differentials. You can't really use them in freezing conditions. There's lots of hand wringing about living in hot, dry climates. It's just odd to me because where people live, in general, are not particularly amenable to the number of humans living…

Heat pumps have come a long way. https://youtu.be/MFEHFsO-XSI gets into the energy efficiency of heat pumps and their temperature tolerances.

Re: TSMC ups Arizona investment from $12B to $40B with second semi fab

#145

Post by ti00 »

Animatronio wrote: post #72
boc wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or conversely the US will commit even more resources to the defense of Taiwan now that their own domestic supply of chips is safe. The US had no strategic interest in Ukraine yet we’ve all seen the reaction. The US will gladly defend Taiwan and create the hill for the CCP to die upon.

Now please explain why would the US send troops to defend TW if there's nothing actually valuable there anymore? Ukraine was hugely important for it's position next to Russia, and so is TW. And still, no US troops on the ground in Ukraine, and there won't be any in TW. This is a smart way of giving up on TW without actually admitting it, and there's nothing to be ashamed of, really.

Far beyond the value of TSMC, Taiwan is the lynchpin of the first island chain [1]. Taiwan remaining friendly to US interests is crucial to the integrity of the first island chain and thus the US island chain strategy[2]. In the event of conflict with China, control of the first island chain would allow the US to effectively interdict all maritime trade to China by denying access through the chokepoints created by the first island chain. This is frankly much more valuable to the US from a strategic perspective than TSMC (though TSMC is obviously very important).

You can also note the importance that Chinese planners place on this as well by looking at the Belt and Road Initiative, in particular the land-based projects that aim to connect China to European markets via rail [3][4].

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_island_chain

2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Island_chain_strategy

3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Eurasian_Land_Bridge

4. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China%E2%80%93Central_Asia%E2%...

Re: TSMC ups Arizona investment from $12B to $40B with second semi fab

#146

Post by bmitc »

brookst wrote: post #28
bmitc wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It’s good news geopolitically I actually think the opposite. It will be good for global supply chains but not geopolitics, because it reduces the reliance on Taiwan thus opening it up for assimilation.

Even if it were bad for Taiwan, geopolitics is about more than Taiwan. But I’m not sure this is bad for Taiwan: today, China can wipe out TSMC overnight. With these fabs there will be Taiwanese revenue streams coming from mainland US, which streams can support Taiwan government and military. Walk me through why it’s bad for Taiwan to be more economically diversified?

> geopolitics is about more than Taiwan

That’s obvious and wasn’t stated otherwise.

Re: TSMC ups Arizona investment from $12B to $40B with second semi fab

#148

Post by nickvanw »

Vt71fcAqt7 wrote: post #114
peteradio wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is the longest and (large enough) volume water piping system in the world? From my recollection its not long enough to significantly make inroads to another state. edit: I think I might be wrong, looks like China has done significant waterworks across their country.

Why isn't it the same as say an oil pipeline? Those can get really long.

Oil is significantly more valuable than water - the added cost per gallon of water would be astronomical.

1 oil barrel is 42 gallons and costs around $75 today. I pay about $6 per CCF of water which is 748 gallons. It might be worth doing this with oil, but even if you scaled it up, it would be hard not to have the transport cost more than the actual water.

Re: TSMC ups Arizona investment from $12B to $40B with second semi fab

#149

Post by briffle »

thechao wrote: post #108
andrewmutz wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who makes those expensive machines? Are they made in-house by companies like TSMC? Or are they purchased from others? And whats the geopolitics of that part of the supply chain (made in taiwan? made in china? made elsewhere?)

In many ways, ASML: https://www.asml.com/en/products/euv-lithography-systems

ASML is the very high end, but there are many other manufacturers as well. Canon and Nikon both make lithography systems used in many wafer fabs.

Re: TSMC ups Arizona investment from $12B to $40B with second semi fab

#150

Post by selectodude »

adam_arthur wrote: post #119
NikolaNovak wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>Oil pipelines have already proven the economic viability. For oil . Water has far lower value density.

For water. Its proven we can build many thousand miles of pipeline for 10s of billions. Which is vastly cheap enough and sufficient to solve this problem. Much cheaper than alternatives

Where is the water coming from? It’s not coming from the Great Lakes or the Mississippi River. Where are these enormous volumes of untapped water that we can pump over the Rocky Mountains?
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