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Solar prices may be going up due to the quartz mines in North Carolina being shut down due to hurricane Helene. Apparently it's the source of the purest quartz

• ben_w 2y ago
  Given the need to remove all the oxygen and add several nines of additional purity regardless, that article is ringing "investor sales pitch" alarm bells for me. Quick google suggests the USA produced about 3.6% of global silicon in 2021. Even if this is about literally wanting quartz itself rather than as a source of silicon, IIRC most industrial uses are synthetic quartz rather than natural.
• defrost 2y ago
  Ben's correct, the US simply isn't a significant player in the global PV supply chain. Perhaps later, but not at present.
• dgellow 2y ago
  I found this Wired article from 2018 with interesting information https://www.wired.com/story/book-excerpt-science-of-ultra-pure-silicon/ https://www.wired.com/story/book-excerpt-science-of-ultra-pu.... But I cannot find actual numbers to help understand how important that mine is. Are we talking about 1, 10, 50, 70+ percent of the ultra pure quarts market? From what I can see the US doesn’t seem to be a large player