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The Bromine Chokepoint

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Re: The Bromine Chokepoint

#31

Post by Animats »

No, there isn't likely to be a bromine shortage.

The US is a major producer of bromine.[1] It's not at all rare. It's just that the cheapest source is the Dead Sea, because that's concentrated brine. There are bromine wells in Arkansas. It's a by-product from some oil wells. It's in seawater. In California alone, the Salton Sea and the SF salt evaporator ponds are potential sources.

If the price goes up, the use of bromine for pool chemicals and fracking fluids will be affected long before the semiconductor industry.

[1] https://pubs.usgs.gov/periodicals/mcs2026/mcs2026-bromine.pd...

Re: The Bromine Chokepoint

#32

Post by mcmcmc »

toast0 wrote: post #22
csnover wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article isn’t arguing that if ICL facilities are disrupted, that’s it, no more bromine forever. It is saying that if these facilities are disrupted there will be an even bigger problem with DRAM supply than already exists because there is no excess supply, no good alternative, and no quick way to ramp up production. This dismissive contrarian Pollyanna attitude might serve well to minimise your personal anxiety,…

> I do not see how what you are saying is in any way the correct approach for making decisions or managing risk. What decisions or risk management can I reasonably take to mitigate the Bromine chokepoint? Or most of these deep pipeline logistics issues? Try to plan purchase with more lead time, look for alternatives beyond the original sales market, accept alternatives with less than originally desired specs or accep…

Plan for future market contractions, refocus on profitability over growth, assume future scaling plans may not be feasible

Re: The Bromine Chokepoint

#33

Post by [deleted] »

bawolff wrote: post #26
varispeed wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Funny they will blow up the world, just so they don't face the reality of Epstein files and kompromats in the archives of Moscow. Essentially cowards. and the reckoning will come anyway.

This is a bit nuts. USA has hated iran since the revolution. Trump himself has talked about blowing up iran since long before he was in power. The geopolitical situation favoured it (while still being highly risky) like no other time previously in history. Not everything is about epstein.

[deleted]

Re: The Bromine Chokepoint

#34

Post by timschmidt »

Animats wrote: post #31

No, there isn't likely to be a bromine shortage. The US is a major producer of bromine.[1] It's not at all rare. It's just that the cheapest source is the Dead Sea, because that's concentrated brine. There are bromine wells in Arkansas. It's a by-product from some oil wells. It's in seawater. In California alone, the Salton Sea and the SF salt evaporator ponds are potential sources. If the price goes up, the use of b…

Dow Chemical operates brine wells from which it extracts bromine in the middle lower peninsula of Michigan as well. Around Mt. Pleasant, St. Louis, and Midland. Besides all the uses you listed, it's also widely used as a fire retardant.

In 1973, Velsicol Chemical Corporation, who was operating in St. Louis, Michigan at the time, was manufacturing Polybrominated biphenyl fire retardant, as well as animal feed supplements. They were bagged similarly, and PBBs were accidentally shipped into the food supply. Which led to the largest livestock culling in US history at the time. https://www.michigan.gov/mdhhs/safety-injury-prev/environmen...

Re: The Bromine Chokepoint

#35

Post by deepsun »

All the supply chain posts forget to consider replacements. Not for the material, but for suppliers and sites.

Same thing happened with oil in 70s -- everyone was sure that oil is going to end. But as with lithium I'm pretty sure the world would find another place to source bromine.

Re: The Bromine Chokepoint

#36

Post by scythe »

chasil wrote: post #12
mullingitover wrote: post #8

[flagged]

Eisenhower's Iranian coup in 1953 set much of this in motion. I really don't understand the motivation, as British Petroleum (BP) was not a direct U.S. interest. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d%27%C3%A9ta...

The British blockade probably did more for the downfall of Mossadegh than the US influence on the Shah. Iran's economy was severely impacted by the blockade and this allowed the Shah to gain support within the Iranian government for a coup. The US decided to support a coup because it was feared that a collapse of the Iranian economy would open the door to communist revolutionaries, and the US was not prepared to go against Britain and try to stop the blockade. I have wondered, however, if the outcome of the Iran situation in 1953 affected Eisenhower's judgment about the Suez crisis in 1956.

By 1979 it was no longer possible to marshal public anger towards the UK whose empire had been completely dismantled. Meanwhile, the US continued to support the Shah's regime by selling weapons until 1979, and this was probably at least as important as the coup for the image of America as a public villain during the Islamic Revolution.

Re: The Bromine Chokepoint

#37

Post by jubilanti »

chromacity wrote: post #2

Ah, this week's iteration of "we're running out of sand". I'm sure one of these predictions will eventually come true, but we have articles that overstate the likelihood and consequences of running out of pretty much every month. I'm not keeping track, but some of the things we ran out of include sand, helium, tellurium, tantalum, niobium, bees...

This argument chain in this article is 100% speculative and circumstantial. The fearmongering that this could "halt production of the world's supply of memory chips" is absurd and irresponsible. But you don't get to the front page of HN with "bromine is important, the current cheapest and highest volume producer is in a war zone, so we should make sure the supply chain is robust, here are some ideas."

The article cites "multiple occasions" in which Iranian missiles got through and hit the Negev region. Follow the link and that's two incidents almost a month ago, when Iran tried to hit the nuclear research facility. They hit one town 35km north and another 20km to the west. Those are the only strikes the article cites in the area. That was in the early days of the war, when Iran was firing their most precise missiles, in direct response to US-Israeli attacks on Iran's Natanz nuclear facility and still...

The ICL bromine facility is another 25km to the west of that town, or 40km from the nuclear research facility. There's not a lot of industrial or residential in the area. If they manage to hit anything, it'll almost certainly be the evaporation pools.

Okay but then "The mechanism of disruption does not require a direct hit on an ICL facility" but then that paragraph is the most circumstantial. The mechanism is insurance rates, which apply for any ship that docks at an Israeli port? How are those going to go up any more than they already are with a near miss, and if so, how is that not just standard above-average wartime inflation? How are the ships with the bromine not going to get to South Korea via the Mediterranean if insurance rates rise?

But really what's the likelihood that Iran is going to fire off whatever of its remaining stocks of still very imprecise missiles are left, to try to hit a needle in a haystack target with nothing else around for collateral damage?

Re: The Bromine Chokepoint

#38

Post by phist_mcgee »

foobiekr wrote: post #21
MontyCarloHall wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>There’s always The One Factory In North Carolina That Produces The Essential Ingredient and it turns out that it’s just the price optimal one and there is enough capacity around the world to substitute. If you're referring to Spruce Pine in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene [0, 1], the predictions that chipmaking would be severely disrupted turned out to not come true because the Spruce Pine mine sustained a lot les…

I think his bigger point is that it seems to always go this way. About two weeks ago there was a panic about helium and chipmaking and the crisis that the strait would cause. One that didn't even bother to look into where helium is sourced. I think the world is much, much more varied and complex than these "this is the one true doom" mindsets can fathom. It's a constructed theory that makes perfect sense until it mee…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2IsR06zf8nQ

Re: The Bromine Chokepoint

#39

Post by vlovich123 »

nradov wrote: post #28
vlovich123 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Helium has been increasing in price at about 8% per annum compared with 2% for inflation, so it seems like a strong case that we are actually running out of easily accessible, cheap helium access. Since 2006 there have been 4 global supply disruptions and it’s now believed to be a regular occurrence vs not really happening before. It only seems like nothing happens if you stop paying attention.

Helium isn't a good example. Prices were artificially low for a long time due to the US federal government gradually selling off their strategic reserve. As a scuba diver it was great but we knew it couldn't last.

That wouldn’t explain the 8% growth per year from before the sell off of the government strategic reserve which should have provided downward pressure. In fact, the supply chain shocks started happening just as the reserves got depleted. Shocker that.

Re: The Bromine Chokepoint

#40

Post by jubilanti »

csnover wrote: post #13
chromacity wrote: post #2

Ah, this week's iteration of "we're running out of sand". I'm sure one of these predictions will eventually come true, but we have articles that overstate the likelihood and consequences of running out of pretty much every month. I'm not keeping track, but some of the things we ran out of include sand, helium, tellurium, tantalum, niobium, bees...

The article isn’t arguing that if ICL facilities are disrupted, that’s it, no more bromine forever. It is saying that if these facilities are disrupted there will be an even bigger problem with DRAM supply than already exists because there is no excess supply, no good alternative, and no quick way to ramp up production. This dismissive contrarian Pollyanna attitude might serve well to minimise your personal anxiety,…

> It is saying that if these facilities are disrupted there will be an even bigger problem with DRAM supply than already exists because there is no excess supply, no good alternative, and no quick way to ramp up production.

Then the title "Could Halt Production of the World’s Memory Chips" is a lie.

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