26 Comments
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Andy's avatar

I’m still waiting for a solar-powered solar panel factory. And a solar-powered tractor for quartz crystal mining.

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Tuco's Child's avatar

🤣 🌞

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SmithFS's avatar

They've been putting solar panels on the roofs of Solar Factories in China and Greenie dimwits are always showing me photos saying: "you see, you see, they're powered by solar".

My estimate is those solar panels would only supply at most 10% of the factory's electricity consumption (not energy consumption) when the sun is shining.

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Andy's avatar

Never mind what it cost in fossil fuels to make them, how long they will last (I read they lost 20% efficiency after a year), and how they are disposed of when they’re no longer viable.

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Andy Fately's avatar

Excellent write-up, thanks. alas, those in the climate religion believe what they want to believe even as they use the products that require fossil fuels to be created.

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Tuco's Child's avatar

Thanks Andy, appreciated. Yes, the kookoo climate types are also big consumers of 1s and 0s!

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SmithFS's avatar

It's nice how they get to export all those emissions to China. Australia is the biggest hypocrite on the planet. Pushing their solar religion with imported solar & batteries from China while exporting massive amounts of coal to China to produce their solar & batteries. They don't count that in their electricity grid emissions.

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JF's avatar

Chips are certainly a better way to use silicon than solar panels.. chips we can't live without.. solar panels.. well ...nuff said!!! They have a few good uses... just not utility scale!

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EK MtnTime's avatar

Fascinating information and staggering energy consumption data! Wow! Just think how well these “fabs” will run with just wind and solar power. Oh the horrors of all the entropy😆

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Tuco's Child's avatar

Thanks for stopping by and truth teller comment!

Intel has some solar panels in the parking lot mostly for show and to shade the cars.

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EK MtnTime's avatar

😆😂

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Katie Singer's avatar

THANKS for this educational piece. I'd welcome learning how manufacturing electronic-grade silicon (for chips) differs from manufacturing solar-grade silicon (for solar panel wafers). Also, could you report about the water involved in making transistors electronically conductive? Last, could you edit your subtitle and replace "Mankind" with "Humankind?" Thanks again.

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Tuco's Child's avatar

Thanks for stopping by Katie and the comments! Yes, there can be significant differences between the grades of silicon, actually there are multiple grades depending on the application. Ultra high purity single crystal is typically used for microprocessors that cannot tolerate defects or impurities. Poly and lower grade single and thin film are used in other applications. As far as water, it is probably a good practice to keep it away from any fabricated electronics, but water based materials are commonly used in fabrication steps.

With regards to Mankind vs. Humankind, I don't do woke, or DEI, or ESG. However, out of respect for your request, I will change.

My Best,

TC

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Katie Singer's avatar

I'm wondering about the fossil fuel use, extractions, wood and water used to make solar-grade and other-grade silicons. I understand that microprocessors are the most energy, extraction and water-intensive; but solar and other grades are not that far behind. Is that true? Then, as I understand, to make chips electronically conductive, ultra-pure water is applied to them after every application of (100+??) chemicals; and this adds up to a LOT of water. See Asianometry's "The Big Semiconductor Water Problem." His new piece, "The Big Data Center Water Problem," is also good.

And THANKS for your edit. --from a member of humankind

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Tuco's Child's avatar

Hello Katie, yes, generally enormous amounts of fossil fuels and carbon are used to refine and reduce any metal or semi-metal such as Si. Per article with Thomas Trozak, it holds true for all grades of Si. Ultra puré water without ions is used to clean wafers, but I am unfamiliar with what you are referring to.

Enormous amounts of waste water effluent is created by semiconductor manufacturing. I worked on this very issue for some years. Intel and others have become more efficient in water recycling and have made deals with AZ government regarding this.

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Gene Nelson, Ph.D.'s avatar

Thank you TC for an informative article! However, your article neglects to mention the incredible energy savings that modern integrated circuits enable. This increased efficiency more than compensates for the energy utilized in building an integrated circuit. Modern integrated circuits tend to become technically obsolete in a decade or so, long before the integrated circuits wear out.

I recently watched the third movie (1990) in the "Back to the Future" trilogy. The writers proposed using vacuum tubes in an assembly on the hood of the DeLorean after the microchips for the time circuits were destroyed in an accident. The actual requirement would be a room full of vacuum tubes and relays to replace just one microchip!

I'm old enough to remember when Harvey Mudd College's main computer (IBM 1620) was still cutting-edge in 1969 after being introduced a decade earlier as a general-purpose scientific computer by International Business Machines. I was one of the Machine Operators - and Senior Operator in academic year 1972-1973. This machine used discrete transistors and diodes to perform its logic functions. (Individual logic cards duplicated the capabilities of integrated circuit logic chips I used as a graduate student.) Our machine used punched cards for programming the machine. When I turned the IBM 1620 on there was a loud "thunk." I could observe the room lights flicker a bit. Today's modern battery-operated cell phones have on the order of a million to a billion times the computing power (with a usual retail cost between $100 and $1,000) that the IBM 1620 had 55 years ago.

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Tuco's Child's avatar

Thanks for sharing that Gene, great point about how chips increase efficiency in our modern world.

Best,

TC

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Gene Nelson, Ph.D.'s avatar

You are welcome! Happy Holidays! - Gene

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Pablo Hill's avatar

Great as always, it pays to repeat the truth.

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Kilovar 1959's avatar

The new Intel Fabs being built here in Ohio tapped a gas transmission line. There is a 12 inch 250 psi gas line running directly to the campus. Try that in Berkeley.

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Tuco's Child's avatar

People's Republic of Beserkely?

😂

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The Radical Individualist's avatar

Fossil fuels are burned for nearly all refining of minerals. To obtain iron, copper, aluminum and silicon, the rocks that contain them must be melted. By the hundreds of tons. Every day.

I'm not sure what the point of this article is.

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Tuco's Child's avatar

Thanks for your comment. I am a chemist and having worked in both the mining industry and as a semiconductor process engineer, I agree with your comment.

However, please read the article further and note the extremes in energy consumption and processing needed to create a low entropy semiconductor chip made from ultra high purity silicon.

Thanks for stopping by.

Regards,

TC

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The Radical Individualist's avatar

Could you relate those extremes to the extremes of steel, aluminum and copper production? I'd be the first to admit I don't know if we're talking factors of ten, or what?

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Tuco's Child's avatar

Hello RadInd,

The article relates to the energy needs to produce Si devices.

Si is a dopable semiconductor material for making integrated circuits; while Fe, Cu, Al are not semiconductors, and microprocessors are not made from these metals, except for Cu and Al conductive pathways.

Semiconductor grade Si requires ultra low impurity levels vs Fe, Al, Cu.

-To produce 1 kg of high purity Si it takes about 1500 Megajoules.

-To produce 1 kg of Al it takes about 200 Megajoules.

Further reading regarding Si production by Dr. Troszak:

Burning Coal and Trees to Make Computer Chips and Solar Panels ​

https://tucoschild.substack.com/p/burning-coal-and-trees-to-make-computer

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Shane's avatar

Stop calling them fossil Fuels this is a nonsense narrative made up to push scarcity.

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