Hurricane Helene Took Out NC Town the Entire Tech World Relies On (axios.com) 31
The small town of Spruce Pine, North Carolina, which supplies high-purity quartz essential for semiconductor production, is reeling from the damage caused by Tropical Storm Helene. An anonymous reader quotes a report from Axios: Spruce Pine is one of the only places in the world to mine high-purity quartz. The mineral is an essential ingredient of chips in countless products, including medical devices, solar panels, cellphones and the chips powering the latest tech craze: artificial intelligence. It's difficult to underscore the significance of Spruce Pine -- a town of about 2,000 people, known for its charming downtown and blossoming arts scene -- to the global economy. Economics editor Ed Conway put it best in his 2023 book "Material World," writing: "It is rare, unheard of almost, for a single site to control the global supply of a crucial material. Yet if you want to get high-purity quartz -- the kind you need to make those crucibles without which you can't make silicon wafers -- it has to come from Spruce Pine."
The Quartz Corp and Sibelco both export high-purity quartz from Spruce Pine. While there are other places to find the material, such as Russia and Brazil, this mountain town has the highest quantity of the highest purity, says Conway. A few weeks of shutdown is not the end of the world, Conway tells Axios. However, longer than that could put the industry into "another crisis." The semiconductor industry would need to find alternatives. [...] The mines in Spruce Pine are still accounting for their workers and families, the international companies stated. The level of destruction at the sites is unknown. However, even if the facilities are intact, the railroads that move the quartz will likely need drastic repairs. The Quartz Corp and Sibelco temporarily halted operations on Sept. 26 and haven't said when they might reopen. "This is second order of priority," The Quartz Corp said in a statement. "Our top priority remains the health and safety of our employees and their families."
The Quartz Corp and Sibelco both export high-purity quartz from Spruce Pine. While there are other places to find the material, such as Russia and Brazil, this mountain town has the highest quantity of the highest purity, says Conway. A few weeks of shutdown is not the end of the world, Conway tells Axios. However, longer than that could put the industry into "another crisis." The semiconductor industry would need to find alternatives. [...] The mines in Spruce Pine are still accounting for their workers and families, the international companies stated. The level of destruction at the sites is unknown. However, even if the facilities are intact, the railroads that move the quartz will likely need drastic repairs. The Quartz Corp and Sibelco temporarily halted operations on Sept. 26 and haven't said when they might reopen. "This is second order of priority," The Quartz Corp said in a statement. "Our top priority remains the health and safety of our employees and their families."
piezo (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Top 10 exporters of high quality quartz (Score:5, Informative)
Wrong kind of quartz. This chart is about high quality quartz. The one being talked about in the topic is high purity quartz. It's a different mineral.
There are basically three main manufacturers of HPQ. Sibelco, TQC and Pacific Quartz. Here's a good primer:
https://maxtonco.com/top-3-hig... [maxtonco.com]
And all of the highest purity quartz comes from that NC mountain. It's a complete monopoly.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: Top 10 exporters of high quality quartz (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
And all of the highest purity quartz comes from that NC mountain. It's a complete monopoly.
Labeling that phenomenon a “monopoly” is like a premium purse manufacturer accusing a literal crocodile of patent and design infringement. Organizations may artificially create a monopoly around a resource, but that’s hardly the fault of nature. It’s a “complete” monopoly because human corruption made it so.
And to be quite honest, this sounds more like a town trying to redefine quartz as gold with clickbait hype for their own benefit. Wonder why no one heard of this to
Re: Top 10 exporters of high quality quartz (Score:2)
Don't look to the federal government (Score:1, Funny)
Your money went to Ukraine and Israel. The states are on their own!
Re: (Score:2, Troll)
Shouldn't you be knocking on doors in swing-states?
Gotta love how the “United” States of America has been reduced to The Mixed living in half a dozen purple States. Hell of a way to define democracy, as if to say Fuck The Rest.
Re: (Score:2)
Gotta love how the âoeUnitedâ States of America has been reduced to The Mixed living in half a dozen purple States. Hell of a way to define democracy, as if to say Fuck The Rest.
Oof sorry about your troll mod, there. I shoulda warned you not to fact-check the right!
Re: (Score:1)
Ukraine's a military bargain: our #2 enemy is getting decimated without us sending troops.
Israel on the other hand requires a tub of Alka-Seltzer.
Just to be clear, we are talking about sand... (Score:1)
priorities (Score:2, Insightful)
The sad part for the community is that the mine will be more of a priority for recovery than the people.
Re:priorities (Score:4, Informative)
Re: (Score:3)
Reopening the mine, getting people back to work and earning an income is a good way to help them recover.
Re:priorities (Score:4, Insightful)
A mine with a valuable resource gives people a reason to stay and a reason for investment into infrastructure to move the minerals and to build homes for the workers and businesses to serve the needs of the people living in those homes, much in the same way the needs of farmers were the reason for a town to spring up in the first place. Their mine will give their community a better chance at survival than the sympathies of a country.
Re: priorities (Score:2)
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There are no known other sources. That mountain is geologically unique in the world. There are mountains of similar make, but they do not produce quartz of quite as high purity.
And when it comes to top tier semiconductors, you need high purity at scale. So you need that NC mountain mines to function.
China (Score:2)
Re: China (Score:2)
Read what you wrote back to yourself and see if you can spot your error.
Question for the experts (Score:4, Insightful)
Thanks to Luckyo who posted this link for an intro to the subject:
https://maxtonco.com/top-3-hig... [maxtonco.com]
Follow these links as well:
https://www.sibelco.com/en [sibelco.com]
https://www.sibelco.com/en/150... [sibelco.com]
My question is this:
Industry needs the quartz.
Sibelco et al supply it as they do because high grade ores can be mined and processed to serve the needs of customers and the industry, and mining nature's ore is the most economically efficient way to do so.
But, what if supply dries up, because the ore body is spent, or because of geopolitical BS, or "the economy" changes, or in this case due to natural disaster?
Can such high grade quartz be manufactured.
We can do the same for diamonds using carbon, so why not for quartz using silicon or silica?
There was an economic incentive to do so for diamonds because diamonds have high retail value.
Sand, silica, and glass are abundant and cheap, so mining existing deposits is cheap, but if the natural reserves dry up, could manufactured quartz be just as or nearly as cheap?
Is this technically possible?
(Has it been demonstrated or done already?)
If the right economic or geopolitical incentive was there, could this be done, and with how much development effort or lead time?
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Can such high grade quartz be manufactured.
Yes, but at higher cost. It's not like the Quartz at Spruce Pine has no contaminants at all, it is just more pure than in other places, so it requires less expensive processing to reach the required purity.
Re: (Score:2)
They already produce synthetic High Purity Quartz for the semiconductor industry, and they use a CVD process similar to synthetic diamonds. It's a lot slower and more expensive than just digging it out of the ground which is why it isn't the primary method of obtaining this material.
https://www.ndk.com/en/product... [ndk.com]
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If the US is so “frail” when it comes to surviving the worst of Mother Nature, please direct me to those “strong” countries that build Cat-5 rated houses, complete with manufacturer guarantees and warranties.
I’ll wait.
And money will fix this... (Score:2)
Either they have insurance, or someone else will get enough money to access a valuable resource again.
If it truly matters, then someone should legislate how secure access should be to it. I'm sure we could create transport methods that still worked with enough money thrown at it.
For crucibles... not wafers. (Score:2)
"... the kind you need to make those crucibles without which you can't make silicon wafers ..."
So we've lost access to a material needed to make a tool with. I assume we can wait on that for a bit, worst case. Just keep using the old ones.
Or this some stupid disposable, one use 'tool'?