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Is the chip industry in these metrics? Big Intel plant being built in Ohio on land which had been farms. https://www.bizjournals.com/columbus/news/2022/06/30/i

Is the chip industry in these metrics? Big Intel plant being built in Ohio on land which had been farms. https://www.bizjournals.com/columbus/news/2022/06/30/intel-infrastructure-columbus-new-albany-deal.html https://www.bizjournals.com/columbus/news/2022/06/30/intel-i... "The average semiconductor fab uses somewhere between 2 million and 4 million gallons of water per day"

smcl 4y ago
Aren’t many of these fabs self-contained - ie they “use” a lot but treat and then re-use it
- lazide 4y ago
  No, they usually don’t reuse the water
  - smcl 4y ago
    I was thinking of an HN submission or comment a while ago that described how Arizona did this, I found this which appears to agree: https://sustainablewater.com/water-and-fabs-in-arizona/ https://sustainablewater.com/water-and-fabs-in-arizona/ > Arizona has [some non-water requirements for Semi fab location]; however, it faces water challenges. Semiconductor fabs require tremendous quantities of highly pure water, using between two and four million gallons daily.[1] The fact that Arizona has become a semiconductor fab given these high water requirements may seem bewildering. > ... Although these companies use vast amounts of water, they also recycle aggressively
    - lazide 4y ago
      It was greenwashing if I remember correctly. They had to do ‘water credits’ to improve watersheds elsewhere in AZ, which they used to claim they were doing good things in the area they were in. When really, they weren’t.
      - smcl 4y ago
        Oh damn, so something like the carbon credits thing Tesla did? In that case what on earth are they doing putting such a facility in such a water-poor locale.
        lazide 4y ago
        Cheap labor already familiar with chip manufacturing, cheap land, good tax treatment, and tax credits from the gov’t if I remember correctly.
hedora 4y ago
That part of Ohio is a drained swamp land, and is projected to get more water due to global warming. The chip plants being built in the southwest are fed from the Colorado River, and are using scarce water.

smcl 4y ago

Aren’t many of these fabs self-contained - ie they “use” a lot but treat and then re-use it

lazide 4y ago
No, they usually don’t reuse the water
- smcl 4y ago
  I was thinking of an HN submission or comment a while ago that described how Arizona did this, I found this which appears to agree: https://sustainablewater.com/water-and-fabs-in-arizona/ https://sustainablewater.com/water-and-fabs-in-arizona/ > Arizona has [some non-water requirements for Semi fab location]; however, it faces water challenges. Semiconductor fabs require tremendous quantities of highly pure water, using between two and four million gallons daily.[1] The fact that Arizona has become a semiconductor fab given these high water requirements may seem bewildering. > ... Although these companies use vast amounts of water, they also recycle aggressively
  - lazide 4y ago
    It was greenwashing if I remember correctly. They had to do ‘water credits’ to improve watersheds elsewhere in AZ, which they used to claim they were doing good things in the area they were in. When really, they weren’t.
    - smcl 4y ago
      Oh damn, so something like the carbon credits thing Tesla did? In that case what on earth are they doing putting such a facility in such a water-poor locale.
      - lazide 4y ago
        Cheap labor already familiar with chip manufacturing, cheap land, good tax treatment, and tax credits from the gov’t if I remember correctly.

hedora 4y ago

That part of Ohio is a drained swamp land, and is projected to get more water due to global warming. The chip plants being built in the southwest are fed from the Colorado River, and are using scarce water.