Helene takes ultrapure quartz mines offline

[littlemissmartypants]

Helene takes ultrapure quartz mines offline, threatens tech supply chains
Spruce Pine, NC contains largest known deposit of high-purity quartz.

Tommy Greene, wired.com – Oct 2, 2024 9:12 AM
Millions of people across the US South have gone without power or have been forced to evacuate following days of extreme downpours brought on by Hurricane Helene. North Carolina has borne the brunt of the devastation, with the state accounting for a third of all recorded fatalities to date. And as relief operations get underway, the eyes of the world are on a small town of about 2,000 in the western part of the state.

Spruce Pine sits about an hour northeast of Asheville, Mitchell County, and is home to the world’s biggest known source of ultrapure quartz—often referred to as high-purity quartz, or HPQ. This material is used for manufacturing crucibles, on which global semiconductor production relies, as well as to make components within semiconductors themselves.

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.

HPQ is the raw material for the high-grade quartz products that sit at the heart of high-end consumer tech products. Its chemical and physical properties—including high temperature and corrosion resistance, low thermal expansion, high insulation, and light transmission—mean it can be used in optical communication and electronic light sources technology. HPQ drives a $500 billion microchip industry that is core to the $3 trillion global tech sector.
More...
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/10/helene-takes-ultrapure-quartz-mines-offline-threatens-tech-supply-chains/

❤️ pants

[Clouds Passing]

1. I smell a price increase!

[DFW]

2. I think Hot Springs, Arkansas is going to get some out-of-town visitors soon. n(t

[OneGrassRoot]

3. Big Tech needs to help A LOT n/t

[maxsolomon]

4. Story doesn't say whether the mines are seriously impacted.

“The key thing will not be just the floods, as bad as they are,” says Chris Hackney, a researcher in human geography at Newcastle University in the UK. “The damage to infrastructure—roads, transport, power, and mining equipment—will stop production for a while. There’s potential for landslides.”

Tom Bide, a senior scientist at the British Geological Survey, believes it’s possible the disaster will prove minimally disruptive due to stockpiling and other kinds of contingency work.

“The impact on the tech industry will very much depend on how long it takes them to get operations running again,” he says. “It is likely most manufacturers have some level of stockpiles so there will be some ‘slack’ in the system. If the issues are temporary this may have no discernible effect.”

Bide estimates it would take around a month for any serious impacts to be felt.

[AwakeAtLast]

5. Already had a right wing friend

Share a conspiracy video that the hurricane was made to do this by seeding the clouds.

[LeftInTX]

6. OMG!

As someone who lives where there is cloud seeding, this is hilarious.

Clouds are seeded while potential storm clouds are building up. It's a very short lived thing.

I doubt they would seed "tropical storm" clouds.