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The Bromine Chokepoint

warontherocks.com

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Re: The Bromine Chokepoint

#101

Post by nl »

aidenn0 wrote: post #80
boondongle wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Part of the real confusion people have is - so many things about current trade are due to "current economic decision making". That is, something isn't rare or unable to be done elsewhere but that it's been done this way for efficiency of all involved. There's often a really weird undercurrent of nationalism that springs up in these dicussions as if its' "a country" that does something well as a function of being that…

I'd like to read a good article or book about the tension that exists between efficiency and resiliency. At the simplest level, unneeded redundancy is always less efficient, but also more resilient.

https://academic.oup.com/jiel/article/26/2/233/7071723

One case study involves economic coercion.

(Disclosure: I worked with the author, although not on this paper)

Re: The Bromine Chokepoint

#102

Post by nl »

onion2k wrote: post #90
bitcurious wrote: post #62

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.

I don't believe route limitation for dangerous goods is a thing. I looked on https://www.iata.org/en/publications/newsletters/iata-knowle...

Interestingly I asked both Claude and ChatGPT "does the Infectious Substances Shipping Regulations include anything about what routes for airfreight are allowed?" and it flagged it and wouldn't respond, although switching to Sonnet 4 allowed Claude to answer.

Re: The Bromine Chokepoint

#103

Post by Pay08 »

omegaworks wrote: post #82

>Three levers are available, and they require action simultaneously. The article fails to mention the fourth lever: cessation of hostilities, recognition of Iranian sovereignty, reparations for the displaced peoples of the region and curtailment of Israeli expansionist ambitions. If achieved, none of the collosal amounts of capital expenditure and effort required to immediately secure redundant alternatives to the Br…

Well, propaganda certainly works. Or botting does.

Re: The Bromine Chokepoint

#105

Post by latentframe »

Its an interesting argument but the main issue may be that the bottleneck is not bromine itself but qualification and purification infrastructure. That matters because physical scarcity have very different resilience options

Re: The Bromine Chokepoint

#106

Post by ted_dunning »

gorgoiler wrote: post #98

Is there an industrial valley anywhere in the world with expertise in silicon chip making that is also situated next to a bay-like area surrounded by brine ponds? Suggested search terms: “valley of silicon” and “bay-like area”. 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?

Sorta kinda.

TLDR: historical brine production and modern wetlands restoration.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Francisco_Bay_Salt_Ponds

Re: The Bromine Chokepoint

#107

Post by cess11 »

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…

Would you mind engaging with the arguments of the article as well?

Re: The Bromine Chokepoint

#108

Post by cess11 »

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...

There's a difference between "sand" in the general, and sand suitable for construction purposes. There's sharp sand and soft sand, and you need sharp sand for e.g. concrete, else it will crack and rot.

There is manufactured sand, but obviously it's more expensive than good old extraction of river beds and beaches, which is scarce.

https://web.archive.org/web/20140705163239/http://na.unep.ne...

Re: The Bromine Chokepoint

#109

Post by kingstnap »

aidenn0 wrote: post #80
boondongle wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Part of the real confusion people have is - so many things about current trade are due to "current economic decision making". That is, something isn't rare or unable to be done elsewhere but that it's been done this way for efficiency of all involved. There's often a really weird undercurrent of nationalism that springs up in these dicussions as if its' "a country" that does something well as a function of being that…

I'd like to read a good article or book about the tension that exists between efficiency and resiliency. At the simplest level, unneeded redundancy is always less efficient, but also more resilient.

Slack is a synonym for redundancy but is also a synonym for inefficiency.

Re: The Bromine Chokepoint

#110

Post by TeMPOraL »

onion2k wrote: post #92
quailfarmer wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given the importance of DRAM, I imagine they would get their own plane if required.

The issue isn't the plane. It's being allowed to fly over places where people live.

No better time than now to get into suborbital cargo freight business.
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