Helene takes ultrapure quartz mines offline, threatens tech supply chains

Spruce Pine, NC contains largest known deposit of high-purity quartz.

See full article...

 

[Snark218]

Who the fuck broke Ars and how can I fix it. Has enshittification finally come to destroy my favorite site? That fucking sucks.

"A new design I don't like" is not what enshittification means, dude.

 

[ZenBeam]

We're kind of derailing the thread here, but I would suggest people give them a few days to shake out issues and then see where things land. I am not, so far, much caring for the new UI either. But maybe they will be tweaking it to resolve some of the bigger issues with it?

"You never get a second chance to make a first impression."

 

[Program_024]

This story reminded me of something that happened in Manitoba last year related to high grade quartz and it had its own set of environmental impacts. I think it illustrated the demand for this material.

There's this sand aquifer in Manitoba that lots of people rely on east of Winnipeg. Water quality is generally pretty good and it is pretty productive as far as I understand. The sand itself though, is high grade quartz sand. So naturally, a company came along to look at extracting this sand for the semiconductor industry.

The extraction plan was pretty simple. The sand itself was unconsolidated, but too deep to economically dig it out. So the plan was to put in what was basically a well field and to pump out the sand and permanently remove the aquifer material. Seems straightforward, but there was a lot of public blowback on the plan. Water quality and quantity was a big concern. You are mobilizing sediment which in turn mobilizes anything stuck to them and they get sent down gradient and impacting water quality. You are also pumping water that would otherwise go to domestic and agricultural users just to extract the sand.

And then there were concerns about land subsidence and collapse. The aquifer material was holding up the bedrock above. Obviously removing th sand is also removing the support underneath the overburden. Also they were proposing to permanently remove aquifer material which wouldn't be great for long term aquifer health either.

Eventually the project got denied at the provincial level. There was a lot of drama over the whole thing. It just goes to show how much of a demand there is for high grade silica.

 

[Jeff S]

I think that's unlikely. It's tough to justify a business model of keeping a mine open -- with all the capital, labor, and regulatory cost that entails -- where the plan is to be a backup source for suppliers which likely have lower costs than you and might get knocked offline once every few decades. And you likely wouldn't be able to entirely fill the gap, so the global industry would still face disruption.

It's likely more cost-effective to maintain a stockpile of a critical resource, akin to how the U.S. has its Strategic Petroleum Reserve.

I think you're making a big assumption that initially the costs of competitors will be lower. That may eventually be the case, but it is usually the case (though there are exceptions) that when a new synthetic version of something natural is first manufactured at commercial scale, that it is a bit MORE expensive than the natural sources. But then, over time, technology improves, larger scale factories are built to get better economies of scale, etc, etc and the costs come down below the natural version.

Which might mean that the mine is eventually doomed. But initially, what I'd expect might be the case is that the silicon industry starts buying maybe 10% or 20% of their silicon from the synthetic producers and 80-90% from the mine still, but over time, the synthetic producers start getting a larger and larger share of the market.

But, that could happen two ways - in the "zero sum" version, the mine's sales decrease, because demand stays about the same, but market share bleeds off to their synthetic competitors. The "non zero sum" version though looks like the mine continuing to make money, because growth in demand for HPQ increases, and so even as the synthetic alternatives are growing their sales and market share, the mine sales remains at 100% of their output potential, because the entire market is growing. Kind of suspect the latter might be the case, given the industry's new obsession with AI and its huge demand for new chips for AI (although, that's likely a boom that will eventually plateau - but it could be years of growth before that new demand plateau is reached.

 

[chaos215bar2]

Silicon and oxygen are literally the two most common elements in Earth’s crust. It might be a little more expensive in the long run, but the industry will figure it out.

And yes, the new layout is… not great.

 

[Jeff S]

"A new design I don't like" is not what enshittification means, dude.

It can be part of enshittification - a lot of UI design changes at a lot of companies are specifically driven by the profit-enshittification cycle. A worse design being put in place in order to increase advertising revenue, for example. I'm not saying that's the case here at Ars, but. . . maybe?

 

[real mikeb_60]

The view commnts button does not work properly.

FTFY

 

[DancesWithBikers]

In hopes of saving this comment section I'd like to note that the best place to express your thoughts is the help and feedback forum.
https://meincmagazine.com/civis/threads/the-new-ars-technica-front-page-design-is-coming.1503149/

Was this actually announced? Did I miss it?

Yuck!

 

[KingStudMuffin]

I think you're making a big assumption that initially the costs of competitors will be lower. That may eventually be the case, but it is usually the case (though there are exceptions) that when a new synthetic version of something natural is first manufactured at commercial scale, that it is a bit MORE expensive than the natural sources. But then, over time, technology improves, larger scale factories are built to get better economies of scale, etc, etc and the costs come down below the natural version.

I'm not talking about competitors like manufacturers of synthetic HPQ; I'm talking about the mines which are the subject of the article. If they're not producing, that might last a few months while roads are rebuilt, electric service is restored, safety inspections are performed, etc. Presumably the mines near Spruce Pine have ~70% of the global market due to quality or costs or both. Once they're producing again, they'll be satisfying market demand and the need for a backup source is far less acute.

I wasn't even going to go into the potential future threat from synthetic HPQ if one were contemplating opening a new mine.

 

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

I assume that JIT and lean inventory are god and risks aren't real until it's too late and they've actually happened; but this particular commodity seems like a weird thing to not have a solid stash of warehoused.

Storage isn't free, obviously; but the stuff is already being packaged up for long distance shipping and quartz is shelf-stable on timescales that likely exceed human civilization; along with there not exactly being semiconductor weevils that will sneak in to spoil the crop.

There are a lot of semiconductor reagents that this is not true of; and if you aren't getting fresh stock more or less continuously from the chemical plants you have a real problem; but this is not one of those.

 

[FSM4ever]

Another silicon material, so-called silicon metal—a lower-grade and more easily accessible material that is largely sourced in China—is also listed as a critical raw material for the silicon industry by the European Commission, the UK, India, and South Korea. But it is unclear what percentage of it is refined for use in computing.

This is quite misleading and suggests that the author didn’t understand much about the subject.

It makes it sound that elemental silicon (I guess you can call it silicon metal, although it’s not quite metal) is something they mine or something in China. And I’m sure everyone knows that it is what the modern semiconductors are made from.

Elemental silicon is actually made from quartz (silicon dioxide SiO2) through pretty energy intensive process. It is not yet “another silicon material“ that can be mined.

Actually, one can take less pure natural SiO2, produce elemental Si, purify it chemically, and then oxidize it back to SiO2, it is certainly doable but expensive, so if there is pure SiO2 available to be mined, it certainly makes economical sense.

Seriously, either the author or an editor at the Wired could clarify these confusions about the most basic facts by having a short conversation with ChatGPT.

 

[nehinks]

This is quite misleading and suggests that the author didn’t understand much about the subject.

It makes it sound that elemental silicon (I guess you can call it silicon metal, although it’s not quite metal) is something they mine or something in China. And I’m sure everyone knows that it is what the modern semiconductors are made from.

Elemental silicon is actually made from quartz (silicon dioxide SiO2) through pretty energy intensive process. It is not yet “another silicon material“ that can be mined.

Actually, one can take less pure natural SiO2, produce elemental Si, purify it chemically, and then oxidize it back to SiO2, it is certainly doable but expensive, so if there is pure SiO2 available to be mined, it certainly makes economical sense.

Seriously, either the author or an editor at the Wired could clarify these confusions about the most basic facts by having a short conversation with ChatGPT.

It's Wired - what did you expect?

I also noticed there were zero figures on percentages or even dollar amounts produced by these mines. IE, lots of doom and gloom claims with no actual hard figures. No discussion of synthetic versions and how the economics match up. Etc.

I miss when Wired articles were limited to the weekend.

Edit: it's actually an interesting topic, Wired just did a crap job about researching it as usual.

 

[raxadian]

This article feels written by AI.

 

[Ravant]

Is this one of those things where this HPQ is there, so it's cheaper to just dig it out of the ground rather than purifying it in a lab from less pure feedstock?

More or less. The purity/clarity coming from the HPQ dug up there have been generated from a lot of pressure, heat, and surprisingly, friction over time. (Yes, even though it's considered East Coast, we do occasionally get earthquakes, and the Appalachians were at one time a very active series of mountains.) Unlike lab-grown diamonds, which can get similar, but more often than not, better results than mined diamonds (despite what industry incumbents claim), quartz's lab-grown process is still a few years off from reaching parity.

The fact that Quartz is SiO2 makes it more complex to synthesize than just taking a bunch of carbon atoms, cooking them, and smashing them together really hard. We're close though, and there are a few companies who could likely step up to make the artificial HPQ start to make sense soon.

The downside to artificial HPQ vs. mined HPQ, is the energy requirements to actually make it? Would contribute non-trivially to further anthropogenic global warming, unless they could find an atmospherically clean source of energy, like nuclear, wind, solar, or hydroelectric. And contributing further to climate change means more devastating storms like what rocked Asheville in the first place. So, at least in my opinion, we should probably just take what the Earth made for us for a few more years while we drop those energy requirements on the lab-grown.

 

[Fatesrider]

This looks like an opportunity for the artificial/synthetic quartz industry to step up to the plate.

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/synt...87V9GfV47BguzfS6jgU5u1dlPh5eEzRnapQWe1Zd_8C3Q

IMHO, this is the only real way to go overall.

Anything mined is finite. Quartz is abundant, but if a particular kind is needed, and not abundant, then manufacturing it is the only reasonable option.

I can't speak to the "green" of manufacturing vs mining, since it seems to me both would have major environmental impacts of some climate change flavor. But being able to keep things running is likely going to be more vital as mankind's ability to help or further hurt the environment begins to dim in the face of the tipping points falling left and right.

So manufacture it. Just don't blow it all on fucking AI...

 

[Oldmanalex]

I wrote to the Ars Technical people when I could neither see, nor write comments. This comment is proof that Moonshark is still active and responsive. It was a crisis as the Ars commentary is the pressure relief valve on my snark tank, which has seen a lot of fueling up recently. But if Obergruppenfuhrer spellchecker keeps changing Ars to Arc or Are, it may be too little too late.....

 

[Oldmanalex]

More or less. The purity/clarity coming from the HPQ dug up there have been generated from a lot of pressure, heat, and surprisingly, friction over time. (Yes, even though it's considered East Coast, we do occasionally get earthquakes, and the Appalachians were at one time a very active series of mountains.) Unlike lab-grown diamonds, which can get similar, but more often than not, better results than mined diamonds (despite what industry incumbents claim), quartz's lab-grown process is still a few years off from reaching parity.

The fact that Quartz is SiO2 makes it more complex to synthesize than just taking a bunch of carbon atoms, cooking them, and smashing them together really hard. We're close though, and there are a few companies who could likely step up to make the artificial HPQ start to make sense soon.

The downside to artificial HPQ vs. mined HPQ, is the energy requirements to actually make it? Would contribute non-trivially to further anthropogenic global warming, unless they could find an atmospherically clean source of energy, like nuclear, wind, solar, or hydroelectric. And contributing further to climate change means more devastating storms like what rocked Asheville in the first place. So, at least in my opinion, we should probably just take what the Earth made for us for a few more years while we drop those energy requirements on the lab-grown.

I think that economics will cause the energy cost/lb to drop all of its own. Although capitalism has its huge flaws, few will buy a pound of quartz which includes $100 worth of electricity, when someone else is selling the same thing with only $20 of electricity in it, at 80% of the price.

 

[Ravant]

IMHO, this is the only real way to go overall.

Anything mined is finite. Quartz is abundant, but if a particular kind is needed, and not abundant, then manufacturing it is the only reasonable option.

I can't speak to the "green" of manufacturing vs mining, since it seems to me both would have major environmental impacts of some climate change flavor. But being able to keep things running is likely going to be more vital as mankind's ability to help or further hurt the environment begins to dim in the face of the tipping points falling left and right.

So manufacture it. Just don't blow it all on fucking AI...

On Diamond? I 100% agree. Manufacture that all day, every day, even on leap-years. It's worth it every time.

For right now, we're good on supplies of HPQ, that particular mine isn't remotely close to depletion. The environmental impacts of mining quartz are not remotely as bad as those of, say, fracking, or coal mining, and any atmospheric contributions are either minimized by use of electric machinery that's mostly running on local hydroelectric, or by the sheer fact that running old diesel machines is far more expensive than running newer, more efficient ones, so to maximize profit, these mines typically will stay on the cutting-to-bleeding-edge for fuel efficiency. And while only upgrading one may not be all that impactful, every time they renew their fleet, the amount of fuel they end up saving can be more effectively measured in tons than gallons.

Quartz Corp's spills, while ecologically horrific, aren't going to have any sort of lasting impact on the global environment to any degree like coal does. And given most of those manufactured HPQ groups are solidly in "We burn coal here" territory, even if they don't directly do it themselves. The global, longer-lasting impact of burning coal, concentrating the mercury, lead, thorium, and uranium naturally occurring in coal-ash, and belching all those tons of CO2 into the atmosphere is a significantly larger threat.

In short, continuing to mine the available HPQ until we can either improve the artificial purification process, or add more renewable/nuclear to the grid/continue to phase out coal and natural gas, is going to be our best option. I'm with you on preferring lab-grown to mined, but right now, bigger fish to fry and all that.

 

[Frank C.]

Here to complain. This change is horrible. What drug addicted person OK’d this?

 

[mozbo]

<snip>

Also, did all y'all read about how the US Gov had a deal to keep private the Hurricane data??? Oh, we need to vote in reps OF the PEOPLE, FOR the People, and By (not BUY) the people.

WTAF

This should be front-paged on Ars.

 

[NotEntirelySirius]

This new website layout is awful and creates a ton of wasted space. For the love of ARS, please give us the option to change it back.

And it doesn’t signal articles read so I can’t fast scroll to where I left off. This feels a lot like change for the sake of change rather than any real progress!

 

[thinkonaut]

After reading this story I'm curious to learn more about exactly what geological processes created this large deposit of HPQ. Wikipedia has an article which gives some basic info, though more searching/clicking is needed to get the details: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spruce_Pine_Mining_District

Meanwhile, on human timescales, I'm sorry for the plight of Spruce Pine the town, and all of western NC.

 

[lasertekk]

I see all the complaints are stacked here. I have to agree. What happened to the website? This is horrible.

 

[Pinmin]

I used to work in the semiconductor industry; the short version is chips are made on silicon wafers. Wafers are thin slices of a long round silicon ingot. This ingot is a precise crystal form of silicon grown from a pool of melted silicon. The melted silicon is from raw chunks of silicon, along with doping agents (that make it N type or P type), heated up in a large quartz “bowl” or crucible. This has to be ultra pure so it doesn’t cause impurities in the silicon crystal. So no quartz crucibles, no silicon wafers, and no chips on those wafers.

 

[TimeToTilt]

Maybe something we should overproduce and add to the emergency stockpile? If it's that important, and that hard to access elsewhere that seems like a good idea.

 

[Bill T.]

I used to work in the semiconductor industry; the short version is chips are made on silicon wafers. Wafers are thin slices of a long round silicon ingot. This ingot is a precise crystal form of silicon grown from a pool of melted silicon. The melted silicon is from raw chunks of silicon, along with doping agents (that make it N type or P type), heated up in a large quartz “bowl” or crucible. This has to be ultra pure so it doesn’t cause impurities in the silicon crystal. So no quartz crucibles, no silicon wafers, and no chips on those wafers.

How frequently do the crucibles need to be replaced? Offhand it sounds like they should last until they get broke.

 

[Doc12]

Is this one of those things where this HPQ is there, so it's cheaper to just dig it out of the ground rather than purifying it in a lab from less pure feedstock?

There are a number of known synthetic paths to producing crucibles etc from sol gel synthesis (densified aerogels) and modified chemical vapor deposition (mCVD). I suspect that cost is the major driver holding back transition so possible that this event could create renewed interest in alternatives to mined HPQ.

 

[Deleted member 874035]

“Won’t somebody think of the supply chain???”

Meanwhile the fema short fall is 8.7 billion on the eve of the US giving another 9 billion to blow up women and children

 

[arnowi]

Semiconductors are the fundamental building blocks of modern IT. Transistors, a type of semiconductor device, are the small electronic switches that perform computation functions in every tech gadget, from smartphones to electric scooters, data centers, and military aircraft. They make possible the processors that power most of the world’s smart gadgets.

This must be a Wired article...

 

[unbob]

We're kind of derailing the thread here, but I would suggest people give them a few days to shake out issues and then see where things land. I am not, so far, much caring for the new UI either. But maybe they will be tweaking it to resolve some of the bigger issues with it?

Too many web designers with nothing else to do but re-design web sites. Unfortunately, this is a common occurrence these days and a major frustration for users.

 

[unbob]

"Community platform by XenForo® © 2010-2021 XenForo Ltd."
XenForo sucks!

 

[ossuary]

Yes, the design is not pleasant but back to the article....

The quartz and possible lithium resources in those areas are contributing to quite a bit of frothing and gnashing in the um, I will not use the C word, let's say alternative thinking crowds right now. Take a piece of truth add in some accusations mix with a bit of FUD and boom you get a whole other type of dangerous situation brewing.

 

[glogloglo]

TIL there are two ultra-enjoyable quartz applications in the southeast.. The one I knew about, Siesta Key, has it's ice-cold sand with an incredible powerdered-sugar softness, and the other, a critical component in all our gear. Quartz is awesome!!!

 

[Faustius23]

I'm confused. Why is this a problem when we've got multiple companies manufacturing ultra high purity synthetic quartz?

https://corporate.epson/en/technology/search-by-products/microdevice/artificial-crystal.html
https://www.ndk.com/en/products/crystal/products/n-grade-ex.html

 

[star-strewn]

If a months long disruption of a world wide mission critical substance is likely than you’re doing it wrong.

I don’t care if it’s global warming, world wide economic disruption or aliens you need to stockpile stuff because Murphy was an optimist.

I hope by now the pandemic has taught companies to be more wary of "just in time" shipping. To take a page from NASA, you're really asking for "No Earlier Than when I need it" shipping.

 

[The Wonderful Wizard]

Possibly. Although, that mine might be back online fast enough that it doesn't really give much window of opportunity for new entrants to bring product to market. However, I suppose even if the mine comes back online, this might give investors reason to start thinking about the fact that there is opportunity created by the systemic risk of pretty much the entire industry relying on a single point of failure.

The report on the Bloomberg Odd Lots podcast said that the Indian and Brazilian deposits weren’t as pure as this one. if I were a Chinese economic planner I’d be spending pretty freely to produce a viable alternative: India is playing both sides and doing very well out of it, so they can’t be relied on, the risk that Brazil will be brought back under full American control hasn’t entirely gone away, and it’s an essential product.

 

[Jeff S]

The report on the Bloomberg Odd Lots podcast said that the Indian and Brazilian deposits weren’t as pure as this one. if I were a Chinese economic planner I’d be spending pretty freely to produce a viable alternative: India is playing both sides and doing very well out of it, so they can’t be relied on, the risk that Brazil will be brought back under full American control hasn’t entirely gone away, and it’s an essential product.

Also, corps/investors in the US should consider the high probability that if China starts to develop capability to create 'refined quartz' I'll call it - it's not really synthetic, because it comes from natural, impure sources and that would then be purified in industrial processes - sounds refining to me - then they will likely get good at it and start exporting it cheaply to other countries. So a US corp might want to get out in front of that and get it cheap before China does.