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These types of articles/pronouncement always tend to make a connection that is nearly never warranted. That is, the article quotes this tweet that says "The modern economy rests on a single road in Spruce Pine, North Carolina. The road runs to the two mines that is the sole supplier of the quartz required to make the crucibles needed to refine silicon wafers." But the first sentence doesn't really follow from the second.

That is, even if all the silicon wafers are made from this quartz from NC today, it's not really because that is the only possible option, it's because that quartz is the highest quality that can be procured at a relatively low price. But if that factory and quarry went away tomorrow, I have no doubt that the worldwide semiconductor industry would quickly adjust to a different quartz supplier.

I think it's still a very cool factoid, but the subtext that "the whole world economy 'hinges' on a teeny NC town" is false.

This is addressed at the end of the article.

"...Mollick makes it clear in his social media thread that, yes, fully synthetic techniques are available to create similarly pure quartz. However, any sudden closure or interruption of the mining at Spruce Pine would likely cause "pretty catastrophic" disruption (and extra expense) for a few years as the industry scales up manufacturing."

I understand that 25% of all neon production was coming out of Mariupol, Ukraine (and another 25% out of Odessa) prior to the war. It would be interesting to see how the industry coped with a 50% loss of supply.

https://www.reuters.com/technology/exclusive-ukraine-halts-h...

Neon supply disruption started earlier with the Donbas war, so companies were already adapting to the neon squeeze. Approaches used include developing neon production capacity outside of Ukraine, optimizing process control to reduce neon consumption, and recycling neon gas that would formerly have been vented to the atmosphere:

"Gigaphoton Announces Neon Gas Rescue Program" (2015)

https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20150708005017/en/Gig...

"Linde installs neon production facility at ASU in Texas" (2016)

https://www.gasworld.com/story/linde-installs-neon-productio...

"Noble gases and the shock of war: Laser and semiconductor manufacturers adjust to price increases while securing supply chains" (2023)

https://spie.org/news/photonics-focus/mayjune-2023/supplying...

"Samsung to use recycled neon gas in chip manufacturing" (2024)

https://www.kedglobal.com/korean-chipmakers/newsView/ked2024...

Even then, I disagree with the characterization in that last sentence.

When billions (trillions?) of dollars are on the line, people and organizations tend to move with a degree of urgency not seen in the normal course of business.

Silicon wafers aren't made from that quartz; the crucibles in which silicon is melted is. The wafers themselves are made from metallurgical silicon that is subsequently converted to trichlorosilane, then repeatedly distilled to remove impurities, and then converted back to elemental silicon.

If we didn't have sufficiently pure quartz for the crucibles we could oxidize some of that purified silicon back into silicon dioxide and use that instead.

The first chemist who performed this process actually went to a college near my house.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Marcus_Olson

> I think it's still a very cool factoid, but [...] is false.

Technically, that falsehood is what makes it a factoid, since it resembles-but-isn't a fact, just like how a spheroid is not a true sphere, a meteoroid/asteroid isn't a true meteor/star, an android/gynoid isn't a true man/woman, and almost every other -oid word out there.

Now, there are some philistines out there who claim that popular misuse means the "correct" definition of factoid has changed recently... But either way, I still find it amusing that everyone agrees that "A factoid is a small fact" is itself a factoid.

Thank you. Have a great day.
We don't have the vocabulary to separate two ways people use "critical": "required for something's functioning", and "not substitutable".

A tire is critical to a car's functioning, but there's plenty of brands to choose from if one tire company goes bust. Ofc, substitutability is a matter of degree - cost/time.

Any language can explain that difference easily. Even if all the article said was that this factory was "critical" to the semiconductor industry, I wouldn't have commented. Saying "the semiconductor industry hinges on a quartz factory..." or "The modern economy rests on a single road in Spruce Pine, North Carolina" is a very different type of deliberate hyperbole.
There is a similar fallacy that I've seen many engineers & teams fall into. The occupy "critical" roles which without, the whole chain would break and everything would fall apart

However often times the project only needs that one critical role and can replace it fairly easily. (the on-ramp off-ramp costs are lower than the cost of redundancy or other political costs)

Ironically, "non-critical" roles can be more important from a business narrative or core competency pov.

E.g. "the AI expert/team" leaving breaks the narrative of being an AI company even if all they do is non-critical path exploratory research. The inability to get new hires breaks the narrative of a growth-company etc...

There is more leverage in being able to direct narrative energy than in being nominally critical

> E.g. "the AI expert/team" leaving breaks the narrative of being an AI company even if all they do is non-critical path exploratory research.

I find myself in this position (but, not AI). That sole researcher doesn't just have "narrative" power. I make prototypes which are fleshed out into products by more capable engineers. Without me, the team is a bunch of engineers with great intuition on engineering and some familiarity with my niche -- but not the depth of knowledge required for keen intuition. The result would be either stagnation, or very inefficient research as an engineer attempts to step into the research role, hoping to accidentally rediscover decades of specialized knowledge.

An AI company without an AI just won't be able to execute at the pace of an AI company with that expert. And likewise, us niche experts don't go far without a solid engineering team to back us up.

There's a whole school of "Industry X is totally dependent on far flung facility Y" journalism. ("your cellphone depends on coltan from African wars" from a few years back is the worst offender - not that people shouldn't be concerned with such wars but concern should be based on a reasonable lens).

That said, the world has experienced quite a few supply chain disruptions in recent years and a big factor is large-scale, highly capitalized enterprises wind-up preferring situations of not producing at all to situations of increasing or continuing production at a lower profit rate for an emergency situation. (I remember covid vaccine production was limited by drug companies unwillingness to invest in new gene printing machines, US hospitals didn't buy US made masks because neither the mask manufacturer would make/accept short-term contracts at temporarily higher prices, etc. We all whine about AMD's unwillingness to compete directly with Nvidia with a Cuda-clone system).

Which is say, yes markets generally take risks into account but some amount of fragility seems to be a risk markets are willing to pay.

This comment reads like someone that has already forgotten about the supply chain nightmare of the past couple of years. Yeah, And, So to the idea that other suppliers can, could, might be available.

How long does it take to suddenly have those suppliers ramp up their production to the same levels? How long does it take for a new shipper to be found from that new location? How long does it take to make any changes to the processing because it's the same but different as far as what is coming in?

Switching to a new vendor when you're comparing shopping at Walmart, Target, Amazon is not any where close to the same thing as receiving raw material from a new vendor for an industrial process.

These comments about the Covid supply chain issues only further prove my point:

1. Most importantly, the pandemic was global. Pretty much every country was affected, so it's not like if you wanted to switch supply chains from one place to another that the other place didn't also have significant pandemic issues.

2. I never said their wouldn't be an adjustment, I'm just arguing that you always see this type of hyperbole like "The world economy hinges on one tiny town in North Carolina!!", as if this is the sole source of vibranium like in the Black Panther movie. Even at the height of the pandemic, with major supply disruptions, I'd hardly call a 12% decline in vehicle output or a Christmas without a PlayStation some sort of "catastrophe". If this factory disappeared tomorrow, yes, a ton of people in the semiconductor industry would scramble, and you might see some prices rise short term, but the average person would probably not even notice.

Other similar articles:

- lithium from Chile

- phosphates from Belarus

- rare earths from China

Yes. It's not like similar factories haven't suddenly stopped production elsewhere:

https://www.spglobal.com/commodityinsights/en/ci/research-an...

It was uncomfortable for a while, but the world didn't end. Supply chains adjusted pretty quickly.

It's kind of like peak oil. It's the price, not the amount. So 'peak oil' isn't completely wrong, it's just complicated.

---

> I think it's still a very cool factoid, but the subtext that "the whole world economy 'hinges' on a teeny NC town" --is false.--

is oversimplified to the point of being misleading.

Peak oil is defined in terms of production. When total global production decreases, the moment of maximum production will be peak oil. Unless of course it's later exceeded, which could easily happen.

Why this will happen, when this will happen, and what the economic consequences will be, we can only speculate about. But it's the amount, not the price.

> I think it's still a very cool factoid, but the subtext that "the whole world economy 'hinges' on a teeny NC town" is false.

Let them have their mistaken day in the sun, I've no doubt that the market would adjust pretty quickly rather than, you know, stop making semiconductors forever if this place disappeared off the map.

The point isn’t that it’s a strictly necessary part of the chain, rather that it is now a significant choke point.
Fun fact, the quartz is used to make the big crucibles where the silicon wafers crystallize by starting from a seed in the center which is slowly drawn upward. My grandmother was a quartz salesperson for GE for decades (they sourced their quartz from this same company) and they make the crucibles. My grandma lived in a place with a small yard and her garden was planted in these very modern-looking quartz crucibles that were destined for chipmakers but had some tiny flaw on the inner surface so they couldn't be sold.
I was very confused initially because you talked about 'seed' as well as a garden. Do you mean something like this? [1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Czochralski_method

Yes, exactly.
That's neat!

My uncle gave me a bunch of large electrical insulators from the old high-tension transmission lines heading West from Hoover Dam. They make great yard ornaments.

Quartz singing bowls have historically been sourced from flawed crucibles. I don't know if that's still true exclusively or even primarily. Just always thought it was cool.
The quartz being formed when Africa and North Carolina were one and pressed up against one another is really neat. Similar, NC is the only major source in the US for emeralds for the same reason.
There's a competitor in Drag, Norway.[1]

There was a startup in Australia that was going to mine ultra-high quality quartz.[2] No site updates since 2021.

[1] https://www.thequartzcorp.com/location/drag

[2] https://ultrahpq.com

I recently toured an MRI factory. They used 20 tons of quartz per week to mix in with the epoxy resin that encases the gradient coils. Its thermal stability makes it desirable.
That makes sense: so the alignment doesn't shift as the gradient coils operate and heat up, right? Those aren't the superconducting coils, they have Ohmic heating.
No, not superconducting.

Body and gradient coils I believe. They get a lot of current through them. 3x 200 amps at 2000 volts if I recall correctly. They have cooling pipes too.

If a cable wiggles loose it’s a big deal with that much power in use, they start to smoke. Running that that current is a large force on any connections.

Interesting, I wonder if this if this is the same geological source of quartz that makes a bunch of the gulf coast beaches really white.
Is there anywhere that explains how a semiconductor is made, from start to finish, which really goes into this topic at the level of “these are the critical raw materials, these are the specific types that are of sufficient quality given today’s manufacturing processes, etc.”?
Local mines also produce the materials used to make nuclear weapons, which on more than one occasion has led to anti-proliferation protests in Asheville.
If this is true, they should charge more.
Are they trying to give terrorists a target? What a reckless thing to tweet and publish
Sooo... What is that powder that would irreversibly contaminate those mines?
SCR - SIBELCO on euronext in case anyone wants to the follow the pump.
Is there a special name for this type of article yet? I guess the word FUD used to be thrown around everywhere and I got sick of it a while ago. So is this how chinese infiltrators are publicly broadcasting ideal targets? Or just how you induce fear in an entire population by reminding them of constant easy to take out bottlenecks?
Tangentially, this looks like a seriously unpleasant neighbor to live next to:

- "Dozens of dead fish have died and are washing up on the banks of the North Toe River after a reported hydrofluoric acid leak at a Spruce Pine quarry, state officials say."

https://wlos.com/news/local/dozens-of-fish-in-north-toe-rive...

- "Officials told people who live within four miles of the plant to evacuate their homes because of the fire."

https://www.blueridgenow.com/story/news/2008/11/30/spruce-pi...

It’s North Carolina. That’s not even a Tuesday. We routinely have spills that dump millions of a gallons of concentrated hog shit directly into our rivers. Most of those rivers are also downstream of one of the major producers of PFAS.
The global semiconductor manufacturing industry, and all of modern society, on the one hand...

Dozens of dead fish on the other. Dozens!

Goldman Sachs should buy them out.
> Goldman Sachs should buy them out.

And sell it to China for a tidy profit.

Nah. Morgan Stanley. Diversification. They're the ones that bought all the Chicago parking meters.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago_Parking_Meters

for those not in the know. Chicago basically sold all revenue from their parking meters to Saudi Arabia for the next 75 years. Not basically, that is exactly what happened.

Ideally it would be a private equity, so they would be immune from reporting obligations.