7 ms·

I always find this so funny: In 2015, Intel, the largest semiconductor company by market capitalization, used nine billion gallons of water Hmm, I bet they bu

by RC_ITR 4y ago

I always find this so funny: In 2015, Intel, the largest semiconductor company by market capitalization, used nine billion gallons of water Hmm, I bet they build their factories by the Great lakes then! Oh - Intel’s new Arizona fabs to be production ready in 2024, creating more than 3,000 high-tech jobs [0] I better start taking really short showers to make up for that! [0] https://www.chandleraz.gov/news-center/intel-breaks-ground-two-new-semiconductor-factories https://www.chandleraz.gov/news-center/intel-breaks-ground-t...

andirk 4y ago
Pro tip for giant corp: build where it's cheapest regardless of nature. The State will pick up the buck!
- pm90 4y ago
  not really. States don't always honor agreements if they don't make sense. They can have a change in leadership etc.
  - hobs 4y ago
    Then you sue and generally win, contracts with big corps usually have a lot of force.
glitcher 4y ago
Yes, and the media is very guilty of pushing this narrative that households need to be held responsible for rationing water, when the Arizona Department of Water Resources openly shares this data: "Irrigated agriculture is the largest user of water in Arizona, consuming about 74 percent of the available water supply." https://new.azwater.gov/conservation/agriculture https://new.azwater.gov/conservation/agriculture "In Arizona, approximately 15 percent of the water supply is for commercial, industrial and institutional uses." https://new.azwater.gov/conservation/commercial-industrial https://new.azwater.gov/conservation/commercial-industrial So it's on us to do everything we can to optimize the last 10% of all the available water. To be clear I think we all should do our part, but there are so many misleading news stories that fail to even acknowledge the reality of our water distribution.
- llamaimperative 4y ago
  Well hey, what else are you expecting those farms in the middle of the desert to use? I mean, my great great great grandpappy put this farm here and it's basically communism to take away our unlimited free and nearly-free water.
  - artificial 4y ago
    Speaking of desert farms: California feeds the US. https://stacker.com/stories/3183/states-biggest-agriculture-industry https://stacker.com/stories/3183/states-biggest-agriculture-...
    - baidifnaoxi 4y ago
      So, not exactly. California just shows up as #1 because of the total value of the crop. Look at the moneymaker: “Fruit, Tree nuts”. That’s Grapes (for wine) and Almonds. Both crops are non-essential (speaking scientifically). Others are important, but also fall lower on the spectrum of key essentials. California is important but remove Grapes and Almonds and some of the other non essentials (like avocados, sweet potatoes, etc) and California is somewhere at the bottom of the top 10. Compare that to #2 on the list, Iowa. If Iowa didn’t produce the $17bn of “grains, oilseeds, dry beans, etc”, then large swaths of the Americas experience severe nutrition issues. I love California and live here, but let’s not kid ourselves - the Midwest feeds the US
      - artificial 4y ago
        Yes, the do produce and the midwest isn't a state. https://www.cdfa.ca.gov/Statistics/PDFs/2020_Exports_Publication.pdf https://www.cdfa.ca.gov/Statistics/PDFs/2020_Exports_Publica...
        baidifnaoxi 4y ago
        Thanks for posting that. It simply proves my point. Add up the non-essential products (almonds, grapes, etc) and remove that from the total. You will see the total output of CA agriculture drops significantly. You know what I meant when I said “Midwest”. Again, the point of the article was that drought conditions are occurring and, in CA, 75% of the water consumption is due to “agriculture” as has been stated above, and after removing commercial uses, only 11% is residential. My insinuation is that (1) Agriculture is the key impactor of drought conditions, (2) when policy makers and those with your opinions talk about the problem being irrigated water uses, it’s always deflected as “CA feeds the US, we have to protect it” giving the industry a free pass, (3) If we put in policy, like paying fairly for water, the industry would be impacted negatively, but as your document proves - it wouldn’t substantially impact core nutrition of the US - just the convenience of a bunch of rich wine and charcuterie consumers.
greeneggs 4y ago
To put 15 billion gallons of water in context, that's about the same amount of water as used by 15 to 30 square miles of alfalfa. Arizona has ~400 square miles dedicated to growing alfalfa, worth ~$400 million per year. (Maybe someone else can put this in terms of Libraries of Congress?) sources: https://wisdomanswer.com/how-much-water-does-an-alfalfa-plant-need-per-day/ https://wisdomanswer.com/how-much-water-does-an-alfalfa-plan... https://civileats.com/2021/09/15/climate-change-could-put-an-end-to-arizonas-alfalfa-heyday/ https://civileats.com/2021/09/15/climate-change-could-put-an...
- WeylandYutani 4y ago
  If you are going to use water at least let it be used for an industry that ads to the economy. Intel provides a few thousand high paying jobs. Agriculture is heavily mechanised with the remainder of the work going to immigrants. Farming in my opinion is one of those industries that doesn't make sense in a Western economy. It's heavily subsidized because of "identity politics" not cold hard economic facts.
  - PaulDavisThe1st 4y ago
    Do you mean "western" as in "Western USA" or as in "the West, i.e USA, Europe etc" ? Food production independence absolutely makes sense. Growing food in a desert based on ignorant and overblown ideas from the 1940s about the impact of damming a couple of rivers and distributing the water ... probably not so much.
ars 4y ago
> used nine billion gallons of water "About 80% of that water was captured after use and purified at treatment plants operated by Intel and the city of Chandler, then either returned to the fabs for reuse in manufacturing or its cooling towers, or reused within the city or injected into the ground to recharge the aquifer." https://www.azcentral.com/story/opinion/op-ed/joannaallhands/2022/03/04/arizona-semiconductor-intel-tsmc-water-use/6915685001/ https://www.azcentral.com/story/opinion/op-ed/joannaallhands...
- RC_ITR 4y ago
  >Intel has two campuses in Chandler with multiple fabs, for example, which used about 16,000 acre-feet (5bn gallons) of municipal water in 2020... About 6,200 (1.5bn gallons) acre-feet of water were treated on-site and reused without entering the municipal wastewater system. Oh wow, about 1/3 of the 5 billion gallons of water this one campus was used at least more than once. Problem solved!

by RC_ITR 4y ago

andirk 4y ago

Pro tip for giant corp: build where it's cheapest regardless of nature. The State will pick up the buck!

pm90 4y ago
not really. States don't always honor agreements if they don't make sense. They can have a change in leadership etc.
- hobs 4y ago
  Then you sue and generally win, contracts with big corps usually have a lot of force.

glitcher 4y ago

Yes, and the media is very guilty of pushing this narrative that households need to be held responsible for rationing water, when the Arizona Department of Water Resources openly shares this data: "Irrigated agriculture is the largest user of water in Arizona, consuming about 74 percent of the available water supply." https://new.azwater.gov/conservation/agriculture https://new.azwater.gov/conservation/agriculture "In Arizona, approximately 15 percent of the water supply is for commercial, industrial and institutional uses." https://new.azwater.gov/conservation/commercial-industrial https://new.azwater.gov/conservation/commercial-industrial So it's on us to do everything we can to optimize the last 10% of all the available water. To be clear I think we all should do our part, but there are so many misleading news stories that fail to even acknowledge the reality of our water distribution.

llamaimperative 4y ago
Well hey, what else are you expecting those farms in the middle of the desert to use? I mean, my great great great grandpappy put this farm here and it's basically communism to take away our unlimited free and nearly-free water.
- artificial 4y ago
  Speaking of desert farms: California feeds the US. https://stacker.com/stories/3183/states-biggest-agriculture-industry https://stacker.com/stories/3183/states-biggest-agriculture-...
  - baidifnaoxi 4y ago
    So, not exactly. California just shows up as #1 because of the total value of the crop. Look at the moneymaker: “Fruit, Tree nuts”. That’s Grapes (for wine) and Almonds. Both crops are non-essential (speaking scientifically). Others are important, but also fall lower on the spectrum of key essentials. California is important but remove Grapes and Almonds and some of the other non essentials (like avocados, sweet potatoes, etc) and California is somewhere at the bottom of the top 10. Compare that to #2 on the list, Iowa. If Iowa didn’t produce the $17bn of “grains, oilseeds, dry beans, etc”, then large swaths of the Americas experience severe nutrition issues. I love California and live here, but let’s not kid ourselves - the Midwest feeds the US
    - artificial 4y ago
      Yes, the do produce and the midwest isn't a state. https://www.cdfa.ca.gov/Statistics/PDFs/2020_Exports_Publication.pdf https://www.cdfa.ca.gov/Statistics/PDFs/2020_Exports_Publica...
      - baidifnaoxi 4y ago
        Thanks for posting that. It simply proves my point. Add up the non-essential products (almonds, grapes, etc) and remove that from the total. You will see the total output of CA agriculture drops significantly. You know what I meant when I said “Midwest”. Again, the point of the article was that drought conditions are occurring and, in CA, 75% of the water consumption is due to “agriculture” as has been stated above, and after removing commercial uses, only 11% is residential. My insinuation is that (1) Agriculture is the key impactor of drought conditions, (2) when policy makers and those with your opinions talk about the problem being irrigated water uses, it’s always deflected as “CA feeds the US, we have to protect it” giving the industry a free pass, (3) If we put in policy, like paying fairly for water, the industry would be impacted negatively, but as your document proves - it wouldn’t substantially impact core nutrition of the US - just the convenience of a bunch of rich wine and charcuterie consumers.

greeneggs 4y ago

To put 15 billion gallons of water in context, that's about the same amount of water as used by 15 to 30 square miles of alfalfa. Arizona has ~400 square miles dedicated to growing alfalfa, worth ~$400 million per year. (Maybe someone else can put this in terms of Libraries of Congress?) sources: https://wisdomanswer.com/how-much-water-does-an-alfalfa-plant-need-per-day/ https://wisdomanswer.com/how-much-water-does-an-alfalfa-plan... https://civileats.com/2021/09/15/climate-change-could-put-an-end-to-arizonas-alfalfa-heyday/ https://civileats.com/2021/09/15/climate-change-could-put-an...

WeylandYutani 4y ago
If you are going to use water at least let it be used for an industry that ads to the economy. Intel provides a few thousand high paying jobs. Agriculture is heavily mechanised with the remainder of the work going to immigrants. Farming in my opinion is one of those industries that doesn't make sense in a Western economy. It's heavily subsidized because of "identity politics" not cold hard economic facts.
- PaulDavisThe1st 4y ago
  Do you mean "western" as in "Western USA" or as in "the West, i.e USA, Europe etc" ? Food production independence absolutely makes sense. Growing food in a desert based on ignorant and overblown ideas from the 1940s about the impact of damming a couple of rivers and distributing the water ... probably not so much.

ars 4y ago

> used nine billion gallons of water "About 80% of that water was captured after use and purified at treatment plants operated by Intel and the city of Chandler, then either returned to the fabs for reuse in manufacturing or its cooling towers, or reused within the city or injected into the ground to recharge the aquifer." https://www.azcentral.com/story/opinion/op-ed/joannaallhands/2022/03/04/arizona-semiconductor-intel-tsmc-water-use/6915685001/ https://www.azcentral.com/story/opinion/op-ed/joannaallhands...

RC_ITR 4y ago
>Intel has two campuses in Chandler with multiple fabs, for example, which used about 16,000 acre-feet (5bn gallons) of municipal water in 2020... About 6,200 (1.5bn gallons) acre-feet of water were treated on-site and reused without entering the municipal wastewater system. Oh wow, about 1/3 of the 5 billion gallons of water this one campus was used at least more than once. Problem solved!