> Chipmakers are setting up shop in Arizona as drought worsens
> Major semiconductor manufacturers looking to expand in Arizona will likely be spared from water cuts induced by an unprecedented water shortage in the Southwest, at least for now. As part of the scramble to end a shortage of another kind — the global dearth in semiconductor chips — both Intel and TSMC plan to open new facilities in Arizona. But they’re setting up shop just as one of the worst droughts in decades grows worse across the Western US.
> ...
> While Intel recycles much of its water, more fabs will mean it will need to send even more water through its systems. The company says that Arizona has been “vital” to Intel’s operations for more than four decades. The state is already home to its first “mega-factory network” and its newest semiconductor fab. Intel used more than 5.2 billion gallons of water in Arizona in 2020 — roughly 20 percent of which was reclaimed water, according to its most recent corporate responsibility report.
> ...
> TSMC said in an email to The Verge that for now it doesn’t expect the water shortage to have “any impact” on its plan to build a new fab in Arizona, although it says it will “continue to monitor the water supply situation closely.”
Thanks for sharing that. At the very least, Arizona has "water budget" in the form of severely curtailing water-intensive agriculture.
I am hopeful that the politicians there are smart enough to realize that semiconductor fabs are an industry whose water needs are worth prioritizing more than farming alfalfa in the desert.
The problem is that these agricultural water rights are old, and the folks who hold them are often disenfranchised. Using a ton of water in the desert to farm is their whole livlihood; we don't just pull people's generational careers out from under them any more, like we used to. Not without a chance at an alternative.
Farmers are selling their farmland to developers who then turn it into housing. Everyone wins: Residential water use is significantly lower than agricultural, the farmers get rich, and more housing is being built.
It feels like we have so many problems caused by people just not living in the locations in the USA where there is lots of rainfall and water. I have tons of water, my state just uses lakes filled by rainwater. We make electricity with it too.
I always find it interesting that people keep cramming into the western and specifically southwestern part of the USA. Like the original settlers just kept going that way due to the human natural urge to keep going further and hope things would be better over the horizon. I often wonder what America would be like if the western US was settled first. I imagine people would have noticed how awful and non-conducive to human life it is and kept on trucking to the promised land in the East.
The problem is less people living in areas with no water and more people growing water-intensive food in areas with no water. 80% of water usage in California, which has 40 million residents, is agricultural.
If you live on a 20' by 50' plot that gets six inches of rain per year, that's 500 cubic feet, or enough water for ten people to drink all year. And that's low rainfall even by Arizona standards (Phoenix gets 7 inches while Tucson and the plateaus are wetter), a small plot of land (1/43 acre), and ignoring any reuse or importation. The Southwest has plenty of water for people to live their lives, as long as it's utilized efficiently. It's agriculture that isn't suitable.
It's also worth recognizing that the western United States was settled first, as people came down the Pacific Coast after crossing the Beringia land bridge during the previous ice age. California in particular has always been quite densely populated, and the only (IIRC) indigenous irrigation systems were built by the Hohokam near the Colorado Plateau.
>The population [of California] cannot be tabulated by tribes, but there can be no question that it was several times larger than any other area north of Mexico and that the destruction has been correspondingly greater.
Should people live in an area that needs to burn fossil fuels for heating? Energy efficient heat pumps, which AC is, only work on a relatively narrow band of temperature differentials. You can't really use them in freezing conditions.
There's lots of hand wringing about living in hot, dry climates. It's just odd to me because where people live, in general, are not particularly amenable to the number of humans living there.
A more appropriate term would be disincentive, in your example about taxes. You are more or less telling them what to do by hitting them in a wallet. Sin taxes and enriching government to change behavior the government wants is practically synonymous and not appropriate in 99% of cases.
I was also wondering about the added energy needed to keep the fab cool enough to work in during the punishing summer months in phoenix. Seems like an odd choice.
> Chipmakers are setting up shop in Arizona as drought worsens
> Major semiconductor manufacturers looking to expand in Arizona will likely be spared from water cuts induced by an unprecedented water shortage in the Southwest, at least for now. As part of the scramble to end a shortage of another kind — the global dearth in semiconductor chips — both Intel and TSMC plan to open new facilities in Arizona. But they’re setting up shop just as one of the worst droughts in decades grows worse across the Western US.
> ...
> While Intel recycles much of its water, more fabs will mean it will need to send even more water through its systems. The company says that Arizona has been “vital” to Intel’s operations for more than four decades. The state is already home to its first “mega-factory network” and its newest semiconductor fab. Intel used more than 5.2 billion gallons of water in Arizona in 2020 — roughly 20 percent of which was reclaimed water, according to its most recent corporate responsibility report.
> ...
> TSMC said in an email to The Verge that for now it doesn’t expect the water shortage to have “any impact” on its plan to build a new fab in Arizona, although it says it will “continue to monitor the water supply situation closely.”