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I came here for this comment. Thank you for bringing this up. Although Phoenix is one of America's most progressive cities with regard to minimizing per-capita

I came here for this comment. Thank you for bringing this up. Although Phoenix is one of America's most progressive cities with regard to minimizing per-capita water usage, the whole prospect of the city of Phoenix was ill-conceived from the beginning. Of course that doesn't matter now -- the city is there. But I hope that TSMC knows what they're getting themselves in to.

shagie 4y ago
An article from August 2021: Water shortages loom over future semiconductor fabs in Arizona https://www.theverge.com/22628925/water-semiconductor-shortage-arizona-drought https://www.theverge.com/22628925/water-semiconductor-shorta... > Chipmakers are setting up shop in Arizona as drought worsens > Major semiconductor manufacturers looking to expand in Arizona will likely be spared from water cuts induced by an unprecedented water shortage in the Southwest, at least for now. As part of the scramble to end a shortage of another kind — the global dearth in semiconductor chips — both Intel and TSMC plan to open new facilities in Arizona. But they’re setting up shop just as one of the worst droughts in decades grows worse across the Western US. > ... > While Intel recycles much of its water, more fabs will mean it will need to send even more water through its systems. The company says that Arizona has been “vital” to Intel’s operations for more than four decades. The state is already home to its first “mega-factory network” and its newest semiconductor fab. Intel used more than 5.2 billion gallons of water in Arizona in 2020 — roughly 20 percent of which was reclaimed water, according to its most recent corporate responsibility report. > ... > TSMC said in an email to The Verge that for now it doesn’t expect the water shortage to have “any impact” on its plan to build a new fab in Arizona, although it says it will “continue to monitor the water supply situation closely.”
- gdilla 4y ago
  I was also wondering about the added energy needed to keep the fab cool enough to work in during the punishing summer months in phoenix. Seems like an odd choice.
  - coredog64 4y ago
    If only there was a way to turn energetic photons into electricity?
- tony_cannistra 4y ago
  Thanks for sharing that. At the very least, Arizona has "water budget" in the form of severely curtailing water-intensive agriculture. I am hopeful that the politicians there are smart enough to realize that semiconductor fabs are an industry whose water needs are worth prioritizing more than farming alfalfa in the desert. The problem is that these agricultural water rights are old, and the folks who hold them are often disenfranchised. Using a ton of water in the desert to farm is their whole livlihood; we don't just pull people's generational careers out from under them any more, like we used to. Not without a chance at an alternative.
  - coredog64 4y ago
    Farmers are selling their farmland to developers who then turn it into housing. Everyone wins: Residential water use is significantly lower than agricultural, the farmers get rich, and more housing is being built.
    - Mistletoe 4y ago
      Should people live in an area with no water? It feels like we have so many problems caused by people just not living in the locations in the USA where there is lots of rainfall and water. I have tons of water, my state just uses lakes filled by rainwater. We make electricity with it too. https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Average_precipitation_in_the_lower_48_states_of_the_USA.png https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Average_precipitat... I always find it interesting that people keep cramming into the western and specifically southwestern part of the USA. Like the original settlers just kept going that way due to the human natural urge to keep going further and hope things would be better over the horizon. I often wonder what America would be like if the western US was settled first. I imagine people would have noticed how awful and non-conducive to human life it is and kept on trucking to the promised land in the East.
      - tony_cannistra 4y ago
        I hear you, but I feel like this argument is fraught. We can't (shouldn't) really be telling people what they can/can't do. We can restructure incentives, though. (e.g.: taxes). Perhaps this is just kicking the ethical quandary down the road.
downrightmike 4y ago
These plants will be 100% recycling on water and Phoenix gives a lot of water to Tucson to store that they could pull back as needed. Central Arizona Project is a good read. reply
icey 4y ago
There have been people living where Phoenix sits today for at least 1,500 years. The canals in Phoenix were originally dug by the Hohokam 1,400+ years ago. Dutch settlers used what remained to design the canal system that's used today. Here's a cool article that describes some of what they built http://www.azheritagewaters.nau.edu/loc_hohokam.html http://www.azheritagewaters.nau.edu/loc_hohokam.html

shagie 4y ago

An article from August 2021: Water shortages loom over future semiconductor fabs in Arizona https://www.theverge.com/22628925/water-semiconductor-shortage-arizona-drought https://www.theverge.com/22628925/water-semiconductor-shorta... > Chipmakers are setting up shop in Arizona as drought worsens > Major semiconductor manufacturers looking to expand in Arizona will likely be spared from water cuts induced by an unprecedented water shortage in the Southwest, at least for now. As part of the scramble to end a shortage of another kind — the global dearth in semiconductor chips — both Intel and TSMC plan to open new facilities in Arizona. But they’re setting up shop just as one of the worst droughts in decades grows worse across the Western US. > ... > While Intel recycles much of its water, more fabs will mean it will need to send even more water through its systems. The company says that Arizona has been “vital” to Intel’s operations for more than four decades. The state is already home to its first “mega-factory network” and its newest semiconductor fab. Intel used more than 5.2 billion gallons of water in Arizona in 2020 — roughly 20 percent of which was reclaimed water, according to its most recent corporate responsibility report. > ... > TSMC said in an email to The Verge that for now it doesn’t expect the water shortage to have “any impact” on its plan to build a new fab in Arizona, although it says it will “continue to monitor the water supply situation closely.”

gdilla 4y ago
I was also wondering about the added energy needed to keep the fab cool enough to work in during the punishing summer months in phoenix. Seems like an odd choice.
- coredog64 4y ago
  If only there was a way to turn energetic photons into electricity?
tony_cannistra 4y ago
Thanks for sharing that. At the very least, Arizona has "water budget" in the form of severely curtailing water-intensive agriculture. I am hopeful that the politicians there are smart enough to realize that semiconductor fabs are an industry whose water needs are worth prioritizing more than farming alfalfa in the desert. The problem is that these agricultural water rights are old, and the folks who hold them are often disenfranchised. Using a ton of water in the desert to farm is their whole livlihood; we don't just pull people's generational careers out from under them any more, like we used to. Not without a chance at an alternative.
- coredog64 4y ago
  Farmers are selling their farmland to developers who then turn it into housing. Everyone wins: Residential water use is significantly lower than agricultural, the farmers get rich, and more housing is being built.
  - Mistletoe 4y ago
    Should people live in an area with no water? It feels like we have so many problems caused by people just not living in the locations in the USA where there is lots of rainfall and water. I have tons of water, my state just uses lakes filled by rainwater. We make electricity with it too. https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Average_precipitation_in_the_lower_48_states_of_the_USA.png https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Average_precipitat... I always find it interesting that people keep cramming into the western and specifically southwestern part of the USA. Like the original settlers just kept going that way due to the human natural urge to keep going further and hope things would be better over the horizon. I often wonder what America would be like if the western US was settled first. I imagine people would have noticed how awful and non-conducive to human life it is and kept on trucking to the promised land in the East.
    - tony_cannistra 4y ago
      I hear you, but I feel like this argument is fraught. We can't (shouldn't) really be telling people what they can/can't do. We can restructure incentives, though. (e.g.: taxes). Perhaps this is just kicking the ethical quandary down the road.

downrightmike 4y ago

These plants will be 100% recycling on water and Phoenix gives a lot of water to Tucson to store that they could pull back as needed. Central Arizona Project is a good read. reply

icey 4y ago

There have been people living where Phoenix sits today for at least 1,500 years. The canals in Phoenix were originally dug by the Hohokam 1,400+ years ago. Dutch settlers used what remained to design the canal system that's used today. Here's a cool article that describes some of what they built http://www.azheritagewaters.nau.edu/loc_hohokam.html http://www.azheritagewaters.nau.edu/loc_hohokam.html