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The Black Hills are a relatively obscure source of the semiconductor-grade quartz we use in everything from chips to nuclear warheads. Protests in Asheville abo
by a_vanderbilt 2y ago
The Black Hills are a relatively obscure source of the semiconductor-grade quartz we use in everything from chips to nuclear warheads. Protests in Asheville about non-proliferation have popped up about it for years. I expect there will be measurable effects from this incident, and hopefully, some of those will be in local policy to prevent it from happening again. Asheville was my second home, and it's sad to see WNC suffer like this.
- brightball 2y agoI’m just a little south of there and watching what has happened is gut wrenching.
- jkhdigital 2y agoAbout four years ago my parents got a cabin up in the mountains right along the NC-TN border, and we’ve been up there almost every summer since. Just last month we went tubing on the North Toe, so I know exactly where that CSX rail line is. Just wish I had the free time to go and help volunteer!
- pfdietz 2y agoCorrection: the quartz here is used for making crucibles, not the silicon for chips themselves. The latter is far more pure than this quartz could be, and is produced by a multistage purification process (involving distillation of trichlorosilane) starting with relatively impure metallurgical silicon. And that is produced by reducing quartz with carbon in an arc furnace, so unless that carbon is extremely pure (and it's not) you're introducing impurities anyway.
- gosub100 2y agoWhat is the crucible used for and why must it be made of quartz? Is it for refining or shaping the plutonium?
- binarymax 2y agoPluntonium? In semiconductor manufacturing? Tell me more please.
- mystified5016 2y ago> The Black Hills are a relatively obscure source of the semiconductor-grade quartz we use in everything from chips to nuclear warheads. Maybe read the thread you're replying to?
- kevindamm 2y agoNuclear warheads have electronics with very sensitive timing requirements. It is these components, and not the processing of fissile material, that the quartz is needed for.
- pfdietz 2y agoI see. If a component is in a nuclear warhead, it must be made of plutonium. The things one learns!
- gosub100 2y agoI just saw that it was the target of "non-proliferation protestors" so I thought it had some arcane use as a component of a warhead.
- a_vanderbilt 2y agoThey have a use, but my ability to talk about it is limited.
- mikeyouse 2y agoThey melt the high-purity silicon in high-purity quartz crucibles to ensure a single crystal in the resulting product; https://www.mmtc.co.jp/en/products/quartz.html https://www.mmtc.co.jp/en/products/quartz.html "Semiconductor devices, the foundation of the semiconductor industry, are manufactured by creating a fine electronic circuit on a silicon wafer made of single-crystal silicon. Single-crystal silicon is made from high-purity polycrystalline silicon (polysilicon) and is grown by filling a quartz crucible with the silicon before heating and melting it in the extracting machine. A high-purity quartz crucible is the optimal container to ensure the purity of molten silicon when manufacturing single-crystal silicon."
- 0cf8612b2e1e 2y agoIf it is mostly for the crucibles, wouldn’t you expect a fairly modest impact to the market? Presumably everyone that needs one already has them in usage. Or do the crucibles wear out at a quick pace?
- ac29 2y agoThe article says the crucibles can often only be used once.
- rdl 2y agoCurious what the specific connection between ultra-pure quartz and nuclear weapons is.
- adastra22 2y agoTiming devices for ultra synchronized implosion.