A repost from last year
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18 September 2021
Zero-Trust for Semiconductor Industry 'Green-Washing' Pledges for Net-Zero Pledges to Reach Net Zero Emssions by 2050
Let's take a huge concept hyper-local: In the US, a single fab, Intel’s 700-acre campus in Ocotillo, Arizona, produced nearly 15,000 tons of waste in the first three months of this year, about 60% of it hazardous.
It
also consumed 927m gallons of fresh water, enough to fill about 1,400
Olympic swimming pools, and used 561m kilowatt-hours of energy.
ONE TAKE-AWAY: Chip companies make lots of money. So even though all these green carbon measures would have a cost, they can afford it.
The computer chip industry has a dirty climate secret
As demand for chips surges, the semicondutor industry is trying to grapple with its huge carbon foot print
"The
semiconductor industry has a problem. Demand is booming for silicon
chips, which are embedded in everything from smartphones and televisions
to wind turbines, but it comes at a big cost: a huge carbon footprint.
The
industry presents a paradox. Meeting global climate goals will, in
part, rely on semiconductors. They’re integral to electric vehicles,
solar arrays and wind turbines. But chip manufacturing also contributes
to the climate crisis.
> It requires huge amounts of energy and water – a chip fabrication plant, or fab, can use millions of gallons of water a day – and creates hazardous waste. As the semiconductor industry finds itself increasingly under the spotlight, it is starting to grapple with its climate impacts.
✓✓ Last week Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, the world’s largest chipmaker, which supplies chips to Apple, pledged to reach net zero emissions by 2050.
The company aims to “broaden our green influence and drive the industry
towards low-carbon sustainability”, said the TSMC chairman, Mark Lui.
But decarbonizing the industry will be a big challenge.
TSMC alone uses almost 5% of all Taiwan’s electricity, according to figures from Greenpeace, predicted to rise to 7.2% in 2022, and it used about 63m tons
of water in 2019. The company’s water use became a controversial topic
during Taiwan’s drought this year, the country’s worst in a half
century, which pitted chipmakers against farmers.
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>
Chip manufacturing, rather than energy consumption or hardware use,
“accounts for most of the carbon output” from electronics devices, the
Harvard researcher Udit Gupta and co-authors wrote in a 2020 paper. . .A global shortage of high-end chips,. .has increased focus on the industry.
CONSEQUENCES:
In a tight market, automakers found themselves at the back of the chip
queue, far behind much bigger-scale semiconductor customers such as
Apple, who use the chips to give computing power to their smartphones,
laptops and other devices.
> GM halted production in several of its North American factories this month, while Toyota said it would cut its carmaking by 40% in September.
>
. . ."Recently, I started seeing our effects on the environment
completely come to the forefront,” said Sohini Dasgupta, principal
design engineer at ON Semiconductors.
Two years ago, she said, the industry “was sitting on the fence, in the middle of the pack, saying: ‘Yes, sustainability is important, but we don’t know what to do with it’”. But
now she sees movement: “Every day it pops up in our emails, what our
company’s doing, what other companies are doing,” she said. . .
The
rise of ethical investing has helped, according to Mark Li, a
semiconductor analyst at the investment firm Bernstein. Fund managers
increasingly market “green funds” and investors are asking more
questions about companies’ environmental, social, and governance (ESG)
impact. “Over the last three years, the voice of ESG investment is much
louder than before,” Li said. Ultimately, this changes how companies behave, he added. . .
>
Greater availability of renewable energy is helping chipmakers reduce
their carbon footprint. Intel made a commitment to source 100% of its
energy from renewable sources by 2030, as did TSMC, but with a deadline of 2050.
>
Energy consumption accounts for 62% of TSMC’s emissions, said a company
spokesperson, Nina Kao. The company signed a 20-year deal last year
with the Danish energy firm Ørsted, buying all the energy from a
920-megawatt offshore windfarm Ørsted is building in the Taiwan Strait. . .
> As well as switching to renewables, chipmakers could also implement efficiencies in fabs. . .
> Fabs could be more efficient in regulating air and water temperature, humidity, and pressure
> There is also innovation aimed at tackling the
worst-polluting materials used in making semiconductors. The chip
industry uses different gases during the production process, many of
which have a significant climate impact . . ."
READ MORE >
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RELATED CONTENT ON THIS BLOG
1 Why Intel and TSMC are building water-dependent chip factories in one of the driest U.S. states
By Sam Shead | CNBC
The biggest semiconductor manufacturers in the world are quickly trying to build new factories as the global chip crisis continues to wreak havoc on a plethora of industries.
U.S. semiconductor giant Intel announced in March that it plans to spend $20 billion on two new chip plants in Arizona. Separately, TSMC (Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company) said it was going to build a $12 billion factory in Arizona, and chief executive C.C. Wei said Wednesday that construction had already begun.
The Grand Canyon State may not, however, seem like the most obvious place for a chip “foundry” or “fab” since the high-tech manufacturing plants guzzle millions of gallons of water every day.
At present, in the face of climate change, Arizona is facing a deepening water crisis and some of the state’s all-important aquifers have an uncertain future.
Arizona received just 13.6 inches of rainfall on average per year between 1970 and 2000, according to the NOAA National Climatic Data Center, making it the fourth driest state nationwide. Conversely, Hawaii and Louisiana recorded the highest levels of average yearly precipitation in the U.S. over the same time frame, reporting 63.7 inches and 60.1 inches, respectively.
Intel, TSMC are building water-dependent chip plants in Arizona
https://www.cnbc.com › 2021/06/04 › why-intel-tsmc-a...
https://www.cnbc.com › 2021/06/04 › why-intel-tsmc-a...
12 June 2021
SEMICONDUCTOR 'FABS' BUILT IN DRY-STATE ARIZONA CREATE MORE DEMANDS FOR WATER: THE MOST PRECIOUS COMMODITY HERE IN THE DESERT
Mainstream Reports: MAKING CHIPS TAKES LOTS OF WATER
1
TSMC To Build World’s First Exclusive Water Plant Following Taiwan Drought
Jun 4, 2021 — Why Intel and TSMC are building water-dependent chip factories in one of ... Arizona received just 13.6 inches of rainfall on average per year ...
Mainstream Reports: MAKING CHIPS TAKES LOTS OF WATER
19 August 2021
From The Verge: Water shortages loom over future semiconductor fabs in Arizona
By
now we all know that water is one of the most precious commodities here
in the desert. We can't live without this valuable natural resource
that is increasingly getting 'monetized in the marketplace - a scarce commodity that can be extracted, bought and sold and traded.
INSERT: Extreme Drought (D3) - across much of central, southern, and western Arizona, as well as Southeast California
In Arizona: Maricopa, northern Pinal, southern Gila, La Paz, and Yuma counties
In Arizona: Maricopa, northern Pinal, southern Gila, La Paz, and Yuma counties
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"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.
> A factory or “fab” for making semiconductors needs a lot of water to operate. It’ll guzzle between 2 to 4 million gallons of water a day by some estimates, using the water to cool down equipment and clean silicon wafers.
That’s about as much water as 13,698 to 27,397 Arizona residents might use in a day.
Fabs
are also pretty picky when it comes to water quality, they need to use
“ultra-pure” water to prevent any impurities from damaging the chips.
Water shortages loom over future semiconductor fabs in Arizona
Chipmakers are setting up shop in Arizona as drought worsens
Federal authorities officially declared a shortage
on the Colorado River for the first time ever this week, which will
trigger water cuts in several states and Mexico starting January 1st,
2022.
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