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Earlier quoted context omitted.
The production facility is a real vulnerability but the shipping factor is overstated - total supply for silicone etching could be airlifted. It’ll be more expensive but not a crisis.
Given the nature of just how nasty bromine is, I imagine air freight would not be legal over any populated flight corridor. That'll make it impossible to fly into Korea.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Given the nature of just how nasty bromine is, I imagine air freight would not be legal over any populated flight corridor. That'll make it impossible to fly into Korea.
Given the importance of DRAM, I imagine they would get their own plane if required.
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…
We went from supply chain shocks due to COVID, to a sift landing, to inflation, to supply chain instability due to tariffs, to petrochemical instability due to stupidity and ego. Plus the delusion that AI is going to fix everything Real Soon Now.
I don’t know how businesses make rational long range plans when the major actors are operating far from rational.
The US willingly jump into the Short Victorious trap without planning. We retired our Minesweepers, four of 11 carries are in process for repair, refurbishing, and refueling. Our allies are fine with letting us clean up our mess. And our diplomatic strategy seems to be Because we said so.
So when the big things are being handled this badly, I’m sure plenty of little things are ready to bite us in the ass.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Making it isn’t hard. The issue is that it’s such a low margin product that anyone spinning up a facility will not see any decent ROI. And local govt won’t allow competition because it risks collapsing their whole market if both producers fail at a the same time. This is what govt is good for, in respects to ensuring materials supply continuity for their domestic markets
The article says it would be difficult to ramp up other production. What is your claim based on?
Anyways, with that out of the way:
Quote me where I talked about difficulty of bringup (layperson: “ramping up”) production.
(I’m assuming that that is the “claim” that you think I made that you are referring to. If it’s not, please enlighten me.)
Unless you can quote me, you’re just coming up with something in your head and arguing with me about it. In fact, in my post, I made some light allusions to the not-insubstantial cost of a bringup.
I have a sense of complacency regarding all these. 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. Everything from Peak Oil to today has the globalized market/trade machine meeting the needs continuously with only leaf nodes for products being the constraint. Almos…
>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…
> Israel routes most trade through Mediterranean ports at Haifa and Ashdod, bypassing the Strait of Hormuz entirely. There is no "bypassing", Israel has never shipped anything through the Strait of Hormuz in the first place. The country borders the Mediterranean and the Red Sea, not the Persian Gulf. The entire article is predicated on the premise that it would be bad if Iran lobbed missiles at ICL's bromide faciliti…
>It's too far for drones. the current generation of drones - using cheap ICE engines from mopeds and small bikes - gets up to 2000km range.
https://pubs.usgs.gov/periodicals/mcs2026/mcs2026.pdf
One of the last things anyone is going to run out of.
Joking aside, is this what those brine ponds were for — the ones you see from the air on approach to SFO — or were they just for regular sea salt?
Complete tangent but “produced at is Sodom Facility” Wait what? Really - “ At ICL’s Sdom facility, the Dead Sea brines…” I always assumed it was gone for good … weird. I did not know that name was still in use …