Construction of Apple Supplier Plant in Arizona 'Well Under Way,' Will Manufacture Chips by 2024

[vailr]

With enough electrical power available, water can be condensed out of the thin air, even in a desert climate. Arizona has plenty of sunlight for the production of solar electricity. Plus the triple reactor Palos Verde nuclear power plant (largest in America) is located some 50 miles west of Phoenix. California gets a significant portion of that plant's power output, at present. California's Salton Sea is slowly disappearing from evaporation. Maybe California should consider opening a Pacific Ocean water pipeline and replenish the Salton Sea with ocean water. Then build a new nuclear power station on the lakeshore for desalination purposes, plus electrical power to San Diego, for the future California high speed rail project, etc.

 

[name99]

TSMC will begin fabbing 3nm chips by next year, so 5nm in 2024 seems…a bit behind the curve?

yes, yes - Apple will still have mainstream products being sold in 2024 on 5nm but the subtext of what is being printed would suggest the best node still remains in the Taiwan fab.

Also - I doubt that Apple would be the exclusive customer for chips from this fab. Let’s just hope this fab has a better outcome than Foxconn in Wisconsin.

You do realize that the world uses MANY chips made on MANY processes, right?
Your lightbulb, or TV, or car want chips inside them -- but don't need to be on the leading edge of 3nm or 5nm.

And the TSMC land and (very early) construction in Phoenix is real. I don't know how far the Foxconn/Wisconsin scam got, but you can visit the TSMC land in Phoenix and see a whole lot of construction equipment and the usual sort of early stage grading work. (There's a fence around it, of course, but I had no difficulty peering through.)
The Amazon warehouse facilities in Phoenix went up very fast. Presumably building a fab is somewhat more demanding (!), even so, we may be surprised at how fast it's completed.

 

[Apple_Robert]

Glad to see a new manufacturing plant in the U.S. I hope Apple builds more in other states. More jobs for Americans is a good thing, in my opinion.

 

[name99]

With enough electrical power available, water can be condensed out of the thin air, even in a desert climate. Arizona has plenty of sunlight for the production of solar electricity. Plus the triple reactor Palos Verde nuclear power plant (largest in America) is located some 50 miles west of Phoenix. California gets a significant portion of that plant's power output, at present. California's Salton Sea is slowly disappearing from evaporation. Maybe California should consider opening a Pacific Ocean water pipeline and replenish the Salton Sea with ocean water. Then build a new nuclear power station on the lakeshore for desalination purposes, plus electrical power to San Diego, for the future California high speed rail project, etc.

(a) The Salton Sea cannot be replenished with sea water, at least if the goal is to preserve the existing ecosystem. While the water is brackish, it's not sea-level salty, and sea salt will only make things worse. (The brackishness is because the water only evaporates out of the basin, it does not flow out, so salt concentration can only increase.)

(b) People lose their minds around the issue of water because they immediately analogize it to something else.
Water does not disappear. Obviously so, in the sense that no matter disappears; but for water this is a stronger claim.
What one cares about is "useful" water, and this is an EXCEEDINGLY slippery concept, especially when one considers the whole US Southwest, not just a locality.

Water that evaporates may be lost for practical purposes (though even that is dodgy, if it marginally encourages rainfall elsewhere in the Southwest) but consider water used by TSMC. What happens to that water? Well,
(i) presumably it is no longer potable, sure, so can't be *immediately* drunk BUT ALSO
(ii) presumably it is also not deadly poisonous in the sense of having to live in holding tanks till the end of time.
Probably it is tainted with some chemicals, but safe to release into the environment where it gets diluted, filtered through earth, etc, and at some point it becomes equivalent to all the other water in the earth nearby.

SO -- what actually happens? Water comes into TSMC. It gets used. Then it gets discarded into the ground.
At which point it is not "wasted"! Most of it replenishes the water table (which is, of course, constantly being reduced by wells). Some of it flows into rivers, and gets used downstream.
So what's the actual problem?

Almost everything you hear about water use (and water "wastage") in the Southwest is wrong and, frankly, insane as soon as you think it through. Water is usually not "wasted" (even if it just runs off watering a golf course) in the sense that spilling gasoline onto the ground is wasting it. Not in the Southwest, where water table level is so important.

If you want to read more about this, THE book is _Where the Water Goes_ by David Owen. (Be aware that this is a book for people who want to understand; it is not a book for people who are convinced they already know everything and just want to be told how great they are. It is no _Cadillac Desert_ or similar dumb hit jobs. The author is an environmentalist, but he is that rarest of creatures, an environmentalist with both a brain and a sense of what is reasonable. It takes time, but he explains what the *real* water issues are, and how they fit together.)

 

[citysnaps]

(a) The Salton Sea cannot be replenished with sea water, at least if the goal is to preserve the existing ecosystem. While the water is brackish, it's not sea-level salty, and sea salt will only make things worse. (The brackishness is because the water only evaporates out of the basin, it does not flow out, so salt concentration can only increase.)

(b) People lose their minds around the issue of water because they immediately analogize it to something else.
Water does not disappear. Obviously so, in the sense that no matter disappears; but for water this is a stronger claim.
What one cares about is "useful" water, and this is an EXCEEDINGLY slippery concept, especially when one considers the whole US Southwest, not just a locality.

Water that evaporates may be lost for practical purposes (though even that is dodgy, if it marginally encourages rainfall elsewhere in the Southwest) but consider water used by TSMC. What happens to that water? Well,
(i) presumably it is no longer potable, sure, so can't be *immediately* drunk BUT ALSO
(ii) presumably it is also not deadly poisonous in the sense of having to live in holding tanks till the end of time.
Probably it is tainted with some chemicals, but safe to release into the environment where it gets diluted, filtered through earth, etc, and at some point it becomes equivalent to all the other water in the earth nearby.

SO -- what actually happens? Water comes into TSMC. It gets used. Then it gets discarded into the ground.
At which point it is not "wasted"! Most of it replenishes the water table (which is, of course, constantly being reduced by wells). Some of it flows into rivers, and gets used downstream.
So what's the actual problem?

Almost everything you hear about water use (and water "wastage") in the Southwest is wrong and, frankly, insane as soon as you think it through. Water is usually not "wasted" (even if it just runs off watering a golf course) in the sense that spilling gasoline onto the ground is wasting it. Not in the Southwest, where water table level is so important.

If you want to read more about this, THE book is _Where the Water Goes_ by David Owen. (Be aware that this is a book for people who want to understand; it is not a book for people who are convinced they already know everything and just want to be told how great they are. It is no _Cadillac Desert_ or similar dumb hit jobs. The author is an environmentalist, but he is that rarest of creatures, an environmentalist with both a brain and a sense of what is reasonable. It takes time, but he explains what the *real* water issues are, and how they fit together.)

Outstanding post - thanks!