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That is not how that works. Las vegas is full of pools and fountains... INDOORS. they retain the moisture in their enclosed ecosystems. We have ACs that pull w

That is not how that works. Las vegas is full of pools and fountains... INDOORS. they retain the moisture in their enclosed ecosystems. We have ACs that pull water out of the air, and we also know how to make buildings.

j_walter 5y ago
You can't just have AC when it comes to industrial cooling. You have to have chillers connected to cooling towers and those work on evaporative cooling. Feel free to debate all day on this though...I literally run the department in charge of it at a semiconductor manufacturing plant. Here is proof, it's just some of the cooling towers at Intel's current site in Chandler: https://www.google.com/maps/@33.2451403,-111.8923691,135m/data=!3m1!1e3 https://www.google.com/maps/@33.2451403,-111.8923691,135m/da...
- tinco 5y ago
  So is the problem then that you can't push enough heat into the air, so you need to evaporate water? Sounds like a nice input to a desalination plant. Does this mean you agree that Arizona is a strange choice? If they need so much water, does that mean you agree that
  - j_walter 5y ago
    Absolutely it's a strange choice. From a power perspective it can make sense since solar works very well, but from a water perspective it's a very strange choice. Cheap land is also a very big factor. TSMC purchased over a thousand acres. Where else in the US can you find a thousand acres so near a populous area and so easily accessible off a major freeway like that? Tax promises and Trump trying to sway the state for the 2020 election had more to do with the choice than anything I think.
    - paulmd 5y ago
      the west coast also has a pretty low incidence of natural disasters. The east coast regularly gets bad hurricanes, the northeast and midwest get really bad snowstorms, plains states regularly get tornadoes, etc, but on the west coast if you pick a region that's not geologically active then there aren't really a ton of huge natural disasters that occur regularly. of course I guess there's wildfires now too, but that's not really an Arizona thing either. of course you're not wrong about companies often being lured by the particular states that are willing to offer them massive tax breaks, in some cases even to places like Texas that do get hurricanes on an occasional basis. And that doesn't always work out well in the end like with the Texas power outages that seem to be occurring more and more frequently, there are a LOT of fabs in Dallas/etc that are having to deal with widespread power outages multiple times a year. (you're the expert here but it seems like the generator capacity usually isn't sufficient to continue normal operation of the fab, it's more to maintain containment/purity of the feedstock and you still lose wafers that were in-process at the time? that's the impression I've gotten at least)
      - j_walter 5y ago
        No semiconductor site has enough backup generators to run continuously and you can only have so much diesel onsite to run those generators (a few hours or maybe a full day if you are lucky). They are there for basic safety systems, air handling and lighting. For example Samsung was down for many weeks after the February storm that caused power outages and fuel delivery issues. They literally ran out of diesel to run the generators and their cleanroom air stopped circulating. It took weeks to get things back to normal and my understanding is getting the air quality back was the hardest part. https://www.zdnet.com/article/samsung-reopens-austin-chip-plant-after-shutdown-from-winter-storm/ https://www.zdnet.com/article/samsung-reopens-austin-chip-pl...
        paulmd 5y ago
        Your comments in this thread have been really interesting to read and I thank you for taking the time to respond to us all!
      - tw04 5y ago

j_walter 5y ago

You can't just have AC when it comes to industrial cooling. You have to have chillers connected to cooling towers and those work on evaporative cooling. Feel free to debate all day on this though...I literally run the department in charge of it at a semiconductor manufacturing plant. Here is proof, it's just some of the cooling towers at Intel's current site in Chandler: https://www.google.com/maps/@33.2451403,-111.8923691,135m/data=!3m1!1e3 https://www.google.com/maps/@33.2451403,-111.8923691,135m/da...

tinco 5y ago
So is the problem then that you can't push enough heat into the air, so you need to evaporate water? Sounds like a nice input to a desalination plant. Does this mean you agree that Arizona is a strange choice? If they need so much water, does that mean you agree that
- j_walter 5y ago
  Absolutely it's a strange choice. From a power perspective it can make sense since solar works very well, but from a water perspective it's a very strange choice. Cheap land is also a very big factor. TSMC purchased over a thousand acres. Where else in the US can you find a thousand acres so near a populous area and so easily accessible off a major freeway like that? Tax promises and Trump trying to sway the state for the 2020 election had more to do with the choice than anything I think.
  - paulmd 5y ago
    the west coast also has a pretty low incidence of natural disasters. The east coast regularly gets bad hurricanes, the northeast and midwest get really bad snowstorms, plains states regularly get tornadoes, etc, but on the west coast if you pick a region that's not geologically active then there aren't really a ton of huge natural disasters that occur regularly. of course I guess there's wildfires now too, but that's not really an Arizona thing either. of course you're not wrong about companies often being lured by the particular states that are willing to offer them massive tax breaks, in some cases even to places like Texas that do get hurricanes on an occasional basis. And that doesn't always work out well in the end like with the Texas power outages that seem to be occurring more and more frequently, there are a LOT of fabs in Dallas/etc that are having to deal with widespread power outages multiple times a year. (you're the expert here but it seems like the generator capacity usually isn't sufficient to continue normal operation of the fab, it's more to maintain containment/purity of the feedstock and you still lose wafers that were in-process at the time? that's the impression I've gotten at least)
    - j_walter 5y ago
      No semiconductor site has enough backup generators to run continuously and you can only have so much diesel onsite to run those generators (a few hours or maybe a full day if you are lucky). They are there for basic safety systems, air handling and lighting. For example Samsung was down for many weeks after the February storm that caused power outages and fuel delivery issues. They literally ran out of diesel to run the generators and their cleanroom air stopped circulating. It took weeks to get things back to normal and my understanding is getting the air quality back was the hardest part. https://www.zdnet.com/article/samsung-reopens-austin-chip-plant-after-shutdown-from-winter-storm/ https://www.zdnet.com/article/samsung-reopens-austin-chip-pl...
      - paulmd 5y ago
        Your comments in this thread have been really interesting to read and I thank you for taking the time to respond to us all!
    - tw04 5y ago