The video touches on this but I think didn't make as good a job as possible I think. The problem isn't the town itself, but the mining companies who extract the quartz, and those are extremely secretive due to all the industrial secrets so it's impossible to tell how much their output was affected. The semiconductor foundries themselves (not chip companies, some have foundries and some don't, it's not the same thing. Apple or Nvidia for example don't manufacture most of their chips, TSMC in Taiwan does) haven't been affected yet because they have large stockpiles of reserves. So it *could* become an issue in about 5 years if those stockpiles deplete, or it could be all smooth sailing if the mining companies restore pre-hurracane outputs before that happens.
@@MicahScottPnD I think it's $10 per million, if I did that right. Which is more, but per MILLION.... that's like me having to give someone a nickel or something.
In fairness, if they had had flood insurance the insurance companies would still do their best not to pay out, and now that more areas are being hit by floods, insurance companies are just... pulling the option to even get insurance.
@@lithic2331 that is true, I have a friend who used to work for insurance companies. Apparently there is a type of job where you’re supposed to find every loophole in the request so that the insurance company doesn’t have to pay
This all applies to solar panels too. The silicon wafers in modern solar panels are made with virtually the same process that makes silicon wafers for chips, and also relies on high purity quartz crucibles.
Yes; however, there's already been lots of research into alternate solar tech; simply because silicon solar is already its efficiency limit (based on the physical and chemical properties of silicon). So there are viable alternatives to silicon solar... which probably uses waste silicon from microchip production anyway; the cones of a boule, cutting waste, any boule that wasn't up to spec for microchips.
I have lots of family in the area, they were relatively okay but so many small communities around them destroyed it just breaks my heart 💔 I’m so sorry and you guys continue to be in my thoughts daily
Quartz & Sibelco are both operational now, the area is still recovering and we're still working on getting our lives back in order....lol,Spruce Pine is the mineral city, but there are a lot of trees....
This video is a little late to the panic party, but the people whose livelihoods depend on this knee this all pretty much instantly. My boyfriend works in the semiconductor industry, he told me that as soon as the news about Spruce Pine got out prices started skyrocketing. Within 24 hours of the incident, prices for ultrapure Silicon was up by 500% within 48 hours it was up by 3000% and within 72 hours it was all gone and you started seeing solar panel companies who also need ultrapure Silicon to make solar panels start selling their stock because they could make more money selling it to microchip manufacturers than by actually producing their own product. Good news is that the smaller of the 2 mines is up and running again, but the bigger one might be down for 6-9 months, which will definitely have an impact. It's not the complete catastrophe that was initially predicted, but still not good. Its lovely that our civilization has like 30 different single points of failure, Homo Sapiens, wise men that's what we call ourselves, a grand joke.
Actually, there'd be little difference if the place didn't exist. Crucibles would be more expensive, so chips would be a tiny bit more expensive. No big deal. Of course, the issue is really the creation of bottlenecks because one knows one can get made whole by our "billionaires and corporations are the only people" style government when said bottlenecks fail.....
Keep Asheville and western NC in your thoughts/prayers. Thanks for this terrific video y’all. I don’t have a particular mutual aid org to promote, but please now and future, donate to local disaster relief and community organization during situation like this. History says do not donate to the Red Cross and other national orgs. They money is more-efficiently used by people based locally; orgs that are are in and of the community
Yeah right bcz it should be up to individuals to help, and not the state, the country, the insurance companies, the multinational making billions in the area... /s And then you also badmouth the Red Cross in the process. Amazing.
having lived in Mars Hill for two years and Morganton for one, gods is it wild to see what became of my old neighborhoods because of things like SciShow. My heart goes out to my old landlord and the landlady we had in Morganton specifically. Nicest landlady we ever had and deserved so much better.
For those, like me, devastated that there's no photo of a silica crucible, it's searchable (& not amazing looking, but still...) but I couldn't find footage of the white bowl-like objects being made which just might be amazing. If anyone knows of footage, it would be appreciated if it's shared here. Thanks!
My dad used to work in the plant that made that sand. We evacuated some 20 years early when dad was transferred to another plant in the same company. He might still have a sample of that sand somewhere. But then again, he doesn't seem to get sentimental over things.
So Spruce Pine has a bunch of high purity quartz, with a maximum of only 25 ppm of impurities. This is used in the process to take lower purity quartz and turn it into ultra high purity quartz, with only 1 ppb of impurities. With a shutdown of 1 of 2 mines in Spruce Pine, we have a limited supply of this crucible material. The simplest answer is screaming out here. You very briefly mentioned it, but we can produce even higher purity silicon than is found in this natural material, which could then be used as a crucible. It's actually very likely that the process necessary is already being done, even though you state it isn't. I'll explain. In order to produce a crucible from this natural high purity quartz, you have to melt it down to form it. In order to melt it down without introducing impurities, you need a silicon crucible with few impurities, basically the same setup used to grow the ultra pure quartz. There are already foundries producing silicon boules for chips, taking this to a foundry that produces crucibles, and you end up with more crucibles for producing more crucibles. Or more wafers. Basically, the crucible producers just need to buy some stock from the boule producers. This could even be the "waste" boule ends or even boules that just didn't make the wafer purity of 1 ppb. The boule producers and the crucible producers just need to work a bit closer together to ensure they can create their own sources from lower purities. To be clear, this would increase the price of high and ultra high purity silicon, but not as much as you might think. The vastly lower price of lower purity quartz would offset the cost a fair bit($5000/ton versus $100/ton, or 50x cheaper). Without a full cost breakdown, it is difficult to say how much it would increase, but surely it's cheaper than having an actual shortage. This is a no-brainer as far as I can see, and it assumes that boules and crucibles are produced separately. If the same foundries that produce crucibles also produce boules, this answer becomes even more obvious.
I almost skipped this video because it seemed so obvious from the thumbnail what would be talked about, namely, poor economic planning due to unregulated capitalism with a bit of science sprinkled in, but I thought no, check it out, this channel is pretty consistent with its output, and so I pressed, ‘play.’ Ha! One of the most interesting videos I’ve seen you upload, nicely done. I believe they’ll stumble across another pile of super pure quartz somewhere soon and we’ll have two places to rely on for the rare resource instead of just the one. Guessing they haven’t been looking for super pure quartz for very long. Thanks for making videos eh.
Okay, but if you can make silicon with a purity of 1 inclusion per 100B. Why not use that silicon to make the crucible instead of just using the mined stuff that was 13 per 1M?
Not a Pro or Con statement, but Elon has been purchasing chips at a rate that has stressed NVDA's ability to keep up. I wonder how this storm plays into their supply issues currently.
This is only kind of true, synthetic quartz is more pure than the stuff from Spruce Pine; it's just that it is more expensive (and so few use it) -not astronomically more expensive but certainly enough to affect the corporation's profit margins. So the prices would go up maybe 15% or so (guesstimation) and there would probably be a supply shortage as synthetic manufacturing scales up but yeah -no apocalypse.
The point is not that synthetic quartz is more expensive, it is that no cooperation will invest in infrastructure to produce more synthetic quartz when their know that the mine is back at some point. Depending on how much reserve their is and how adjustable the demand is, prices could increase way more then 15%, at least in the short term.
Oddly enough the infrastructure in Western NC was up until this past September in good shape. Certainly better than what South Carolina offers, Its just the conditions during the storm would have overtaken most any conventionally built roads. Were talking mudslides on the scale that hardly anyone alive now has seen before.
Except it's not a single point of failure, it's merely the cheapest place to get this very pure quartz. Just think for a minute, if the quartz crystals that they start with to make the base for the chips starts with "any old junky quartz" (6:15 timestamp) and they end up with a boules that are MORE pure than the stuff from Spruce Pine then it only stands to reason that they can then make crucibles from it - albeit at a much higher cost. So we don't have a limited resource, we have a limited CHEAP resource. This video is yet another false scarcity fallacy that will scare people into sharing it for extra views. PS: I love SciShow and have been watching for years and years (I probably miss only 5% of your videos), but this one seems like it needed more thought before putting it out. I could be wrong about using the same method to make new crucibles but someone at SciShow should have thought of this and looked into it and researched if my idea is valid or not, it just seems so basic and logical to my little brain. If I am correct then this video is just as much fear mongering, and if I am wrong then this issue needs even more discussion.
@@johnnydoh6756 They can. It would just be more expensive, so they didnt, so far. Also you cant just switch to a different process with the snap of a finger, it takes a lot of time and resources to build new factories from the ground up, or even just to build new factory lines.
'Someone should have read my mind and done the research for why my idea is good or not' If it was better to do it the way you suggested; they'd be doing it. Since it isn't then it IS a single point of failure because no one else is doing it that way.
@@xazz I didn't suggest my idea was better in any way, he explicitly even say it would be way more expensive. I merely suggest that there IS an alternative.
I wouldn't get too concerned. As she said refined silicon can be made of needed. Also is one impacts silicon, semiconductors can be made from other materials like germanium it gallium and arsenic.
@@roberteltze4850 Silicon is by far the most used and useful metalloid for general purpose semiconductors tho. Other metalloids have different properties and are mostly used for more specific uses, germanium for example is mostly used for fibre optics, while GaAs is used for wireless communications.
You're not really supposed to "throw away" electronics in the first place. There are metals in them that can be recycled for use in new electronics and some things that you don't want contaminating your soil/water like cobalt and lead.
That math doesn't work. The video says that medium purity is no more than 0.1% impurities, or no more than 100 ppm impurities. And that the highest purity is no more than 0.003% impurities, or no more than 30 ppm impurities. But 0.1% / 0.003 % = 33.3333 And 100 / 30 = 3.3333 There's a factor of 10 error in one of these numbers.
0:37 I was listening, not watching, the video. There was a minute early in the video where I heard repeated innuendo: "taconic 'erogeny'...two converged...thrust sheets...friction...raised the temperature...." It's probably just me.
Pfff, silicon can be easily purified through distillation. It's just the cleanest input material, but literally any sand can replace it with a minimal increase in cost.
@@blahsomethingclever first it is not about the silicon it is about the quartz. And yes of course even quartz can be purifed. But you need to build infrastructure to do so and if the interruption is only temporary no compeny will invest in it.
Months to years to get things back in order? Yes many of the roads that go into the towns affected are the only one or two that snake into the mountains to service them, many sections will have to be rerouted as the land they were on is no longer there.
No, but there was such a hoarding anyway, which is why it was used as a fitting comparison. But I agree, not the best example, or at least poorly stated.
Use existing high purity silicon production to make high purity silicon sand, then use that to make new high purity crucibles. No natural high purity quartz needed
It's not needed. It just makes it far easier and more cost efficient to start with a purer product. That's with anything that needs to be absolutely pure in the end product.
@@BackYardScience2000 Yes it's needed, ofc, as this situation clearly demonstrates. Or then the slightest problem becomes a worldwide problem. Or you're at the mercy of the country providing that product, alternatively, and they can pressure you in any way they want. Independance always has a cost.
The chip shortage during the pandemic was less due to demand spiking and more due to a historic drought in Taiwan, where the world's largest chip fabs are
30 seconds in and... "Pretty much every silicon computer chip that exists in the world, exists thanks to one mineral deposit in a tiny town in the NC mountains".... I don't believe you.
@@justalonesoul5825 I did and I still don't cause that statement implies that location is the only location in the world that supplies silicon for computer chips, which is false. It takes one Google search to find this information out, but I guess you just listened to that statement that the video never went back onto. The video was talking about quartz, which isn't the only source of silica sand. As for useless statements, yours is incredibly so.
Also, if you're going to suggest that my comment is useless... You responded, therefore it wasn't useless. If you want to target a "useless" statement, or rather, in this case, an extremely counterproductive statement, then go after why they made her say that statement in the first place.
Just one more of those "we are only here a nd capable because of this" things. lol How many of those do you need to have before the chances of EVERYTHING happening that has let us live grow evolve and technolocize before the number becomes so vanishingly small over the lifetime of the universe for us to be like "yeah.. random chance pro;;y didnt cause this to happen." lol
Example how to exaggerating the production like the # 1 in the world that is just for insurance purposes to claim tha max of losted on production The reality is totally difrent lol Those that have more are those that build more those that sale more is those that have the control so basically in USA is not a big fan on production can you see is tha most mass buyer but not the productively lol so Half fact on this video as fact
9:30 By 2020, people can't live without a screen in their face. To those of us who grew up in the 90's and prior, at least we still know how to go on, jk. 😅 We're just as much glued to our phones. Kids additions to video games seems to have become accepted, as in folks now think it's ok for kids to just want to focus on gaming and drop out of school. That's what 2020 did when parents caved into buying new pc's for their kids. Our small pc tower we got in 2019, and an old monitor from the early 2000's, will work just fine, as long as it is used for online education, not gaming. Kids/teens do not "need" new tech for gaming. Parents can teach them to play board games, and see if they can create their own. It creates bonding time, where as kids that are addictes to video games, no longer care about spending time with their family, and will develope disrespectful behavior towards their parents.
@@Avendesora I have an old card game book. Only 2 can be played by 1 person alone. I wish there could be like a single player mystery game, or an escape room. Something to help pass time. I sit or lay down quite often when my hip joint issues flare up.
@@TiredMomma Ever heard of reading books? 😉 There are also countless games with very little material, a 52 card game, yathzee with 5 dices, etc, etc, etc. You just need a bit of research and minimum effort. GL, bcz I believe you are very right, those computer games (that I've played ad libitum at times) tend to make people withdraw into themselves A LOT.
just a thought ... why don't chip companies provide help for the town ? Oh, no that would impact their immediate and vulgar profits by 0.000001 %
yeah really
Because fema can’t condemn the land and buy it up from the people to sell to the mining companies. Land grab
The video touches on this but I think didn't make as good a job as possible I think. The problem isn't the town itself, but the mining companies who extract the quartz, and those are extremely secretive due to all the industrial secrets so it's impossible to tell how much their output was affected.
The semiconductor foundries themselves (not chip companies, some have foundries and some don't, it's not the same thing. Apple or Nvidia for example don't manufacture most of their chips, TSMC in Taiwan does) haven't been affected yet because they have large stockpiles of reserves. So it *could* become an issue in about 5 years if those stockpiles deplete, or it could be all smooth sailing if the mining companies restore pre-hurracane outputs before that happens.
@@davidtindell950 Is that cents per million, or dollars per million?
@@MicahScottPnD I think it's $10 per million, if I did that right. Which is more, but per MILLION.... that's like me having to give someone a nickel or something.
It’s really like Armageddon up there, people in the mountains that lost their homes never had flood insurance and nothing looks the same
In fairness, if they had had flood insurance the insurance companies would still do their best not to pay out, and now that more areas are being hit by floods, insurance companies are just... pulling the option to even get insurance.
@@lithic2331 that is true, I have a friend who used to work for insurance companies. Apparently there is a type of job where you’re supposed to find every loophole in the request so that the insurance company doesn’t have to pay
That’s brutal. I wish them well but sadly that’s all I can do
@@lithic2331 This is true. I live in New Orleans and there are fewer and fewer companies that will cover homes.
And yet, looking at how they voted, they seem to like to be victims of natural disasters…
Im from western NC, seeing my home circled in a scishow thumbnail is surreal
RIGHT!?? I'm here too and still recovering. Was it weird I was excited knowing the video was about Spruce Pine?
🎉
Hi from Morganton LOL we all congregated here it seems
This all applies to solar panels too. The silicon wafers in modern solar panels are made with virtually the same process that makes silicon wafers for chips, and also relies on high purity quartz crucibles.
Yes; however, there's already been lots of research into alternate solar tech; simply because silicon solar is already its efficiency limit (based on the physical and chemical properties of silicon).
So there are viable alternatives to silicon solar... which probably uses waste silicon from microchip production anyway; the cones of a boule, cutting waste, any boule that wasn't up to spec for microchips.
We made Sci Show! [Helene Victim]
My entire region was destroyed by natural disasters and all I got was featured on SciShow.
💙
Yeah it's shameful how little notice that got. I feel for you guys.
I have lots of family in the area, they were relatively okay but so many small communities around them destroyed it just breaks my heart 💔 I’m so sorry and you guys continue to be in my thoughts daily
I'm here with ya, we got this! ...Helene survivor.
Great reporting! Learned something. Much appreciated.
0.1% is 1,000 ppm.
I like this person as a host. You do a very good job presenting the information in a clear and concise manner while still keeping it fun.
Quartz & Sibelco are both operational now, the area is still recovering and we're still working on getting our lives back in order....lol,Spruce Pine is the mineral city, but there are a lot of trees....
This video is a little late to the panic party, but the people whose livelihoods depend on this knee this all pretty much instantly. My boyfriend works in the semiconductor industry, he told me that as soon as the news about Spruce Pine got out prices started skyrocketing. Within 24 hours of the incident, prices for ultrapure Silicon was up by 500% within 48 hours it was up by 3000% and within 72 hours it was all gone and you started seeing solar panel companies who also need ultrapure Silicon to make solar panels start selling their stock because they could make more money selling it to microchip manufacturers than by actually producing their own product. Good news is that the smaller of the 2 mines is up and running again, but the bigger one might be down for 6-9 months, which will definitely have an impact. It's not the complete catastrophe that was initially predicted, but still not good.
Its lovely that our civilization has like 30 different single points of failure, Homo Sapiens, wise men that's what we call ourselves, a grand joke.
Kkkristiankkkunt Amerikkka. Greed is god.
A tiny town in North Carolina is responsible for TikToks and space missions. I bet Spruce Pine never saw this coming when they named the place.
Yep, that's one tall pine, reaching into the depths of the universe.
Could be worse. Could be Lick Skillet (now called Leicester).
Actually, there'd be little difference if the place didn't exist. Crucibles would be more expensive, so chips would be a tiny bit more expensive. No big deal.
Of course, the issue is really the creation of bottlenecks because one knows one can get made whole by our "billionaires and corporations are the only people" style government when said bottlenecks fail.....
Keep Asheville and western NC in your thoughts/prayers. Thanks for this terrific video y’all. I don’t have a particular mutual aid org to promote, but please now and future, donate to local disaster relief and community organization during situation like this. History says do not donate to the Red Cross and other national orgs. They money is more-efficiently used by people based locally; orgs that are are in and of the community
Yeah right bcz it should be up to individuals to help, and not the state, the country, the insurance companies, the multinational making billions in the area... /s
And then you also badmouth the Red Cross in the process. Amazing.
The first truckload of prayers just showed up!!!
Happy Thanksgiving
oh wow! i had always wondered why microchip wafers were round!
Historically, a crucible is associated with foundries, not with blacksmith ships, although there is a degree of overlap.
I bet that town doesn’t see much of the profit from these mines
Round after round of microchip shortages... we need to fix up our supply lines. (And stop putting microchips in fridges and whatnot.)
Expect human greed to raise the price of ultra pure quartz from that region
Kkkristiankkkunt traitor Amerikkka! Praise!
That's pretty cool about the quartz
having lived in Mars Hill for two years and Morganton for one, gods is it wild to see what became of my old neighborhoods because of things like SciShow. My heart goes out to my old landlord and the landlady we had in Morganton specifically. Nicest landlady we ever had and deserved so much better.
03:30 0,1% is 1000ppm not 100ppm
For those, like me, devastated that there's no photo of a silica crucible, it's searchable (& not amazing looking, but still...) but I couldn't find footage of the white bowl-like objects being made which just might be amazing. If anyone knows of footage, it would be appreciated if it's shared here.
Thanks!
Great show, as always guys. Thanks for what you do, Savannah.
Frank
Grats on 8 million subscribers!
Really expected this video to yap on about lithium- but instead they wen5 with quartz- well done!
I enjoy learning this. (p.s. your cell phone screen is made of Gorilla glass)
Imagine a natural disaster like this, but in Bayan Obo or Phalabora.
Would have been nice to include help links for the area. Have a Happy Thanksgiving.
Thank you.
Germanium redemption arc?
My dad used to work in the plant that made that sand. We evacuated some 20 years early when dad was transferred to another plant in the same company. He might still have a sample of that sand somewhere. But then again, he doesn't seem to get sentimental over things.
So Spruce Pine has a bunch of high purity quartz, with a maximum of only 25 ppm of impurities. This is used in the process to take lower purity quartz and turn it into ultra high purity quartz, with only 1 ppb of impurities. With a shutdown of 1 of 2 mines in Spruce Pine, we have a limited supply of this crucible material. The simplest answer is screaming out here. You very briefly mentioned it, but we can produce even higher purity silicon than is found in this natural material, which could then be used as a crucible. It's actually very likely that the process necessary is already being done, even though you state it isn't. I'll explain. In order to produce a crucible from this natural high purity quartz, you have to melt it down to form it. In order to melt it down without introducing impurities, you need a silicon crucible with few impurities, basically the same setup used to grow the ultra pure quartz. There are already foundries producing silicon boules for chips, taking this to a foundry that produces crucibles, and you end up with more crucibles for producing more crucibles. Or more wafers. Basically, the crucible producers just need to buy some stock from the boule producers. This could even be the "waste" boule ends or even boules that just didn't make the wafer purity of 1 ppb. The boule producers and the crucible producers just need to work a bit closer together to ensure they can create their own sources from lower purities.
To be clear, this would increase the price of high and ultra high purity silicon, but not as much as you might think. The vastly lower price of lower purity quartz would offset the cost a fair bit($5000/ton versus $100/ton, or 50x cheaper). Without a full cost breakdown, it is difficult to say how much it would increase, but surely it's cheaper than having an actual shortage. This is a no-brainer as far as I can see, and it assumes that boules and crucibles are produced separately. If the same foundries that produce crucibles also produce boules, this answer becomes even more obvious.
oh hey it’s my state
Why not use the purified quartz that is purer than the natural one to create the crucibles first...
We just have to make it.
Haven't even watched the video yet, but some times I feel like headlines like these easily become excuses for megacorps to raise prices.
They don’t need excuses.
I don't think the headline was anything but straight forward. And watch the video first.
@@brilobox2 Yet they will abuse them anyway.
100 parts per million is 0.01% not 0.1% as it says at 3:23
I almost skipped this video because it seemed so obvious from the thumbnail what would be talked about, namely, poor economic planning due to unregulated capitalism with a bit of science sprinkled in, but I thought no, check it out, this channel is pretty consistent with its output, and so I pressed, ‘play.’ Ha! One of the most interesting videos I’ve seen you upload, nicely done.
I believe they’ll stumble across another pile of super pure quartz somewhere soon and we’ll have two places to rely on for the rare resource instead of just the one. Guessing they haven’t been looking for super pure quartz for very long.
Thanks for making videos eh.
Welcome to kkkristiankkkunt Amerikkka! Greed is god.
Well, if the threat is identified, all that America needs to do is to prepare for it.
Most or all of the worlds home dialysis filtration chemical also comes from that region
I haven’t watched this yet but I’m going to bet it’s about spruce pine. I used to live in nc and a good friend of mine had a second house up there
I thought Taconic Orogeny was a fetish for tacos.
Molten MAGMA ☝🙂
Okay but most of the granitic pegmatites are in the foothills. So why is it only mined in this one town?
Okay, but if you can make silicon with a purity of 1 inclusion per 100B. Why not use that silicon to make the crucible instead of just using the mined stuff that was 13 per 1M?
Not a Pro or Con statement, but Elon has been purchasing chips at a rate that has stressed NVDA's ability to keep up. I wonder how this storm plays into their supply issues currently.
Love your shirt Savannah!
at 3:31, 0.1% is 1000 parts per million. So is it 0.1% or 100 parts per million?
Reminds me of XKCD 2347
This is only kind of true, synthetic quartz is more pure than the stuff from Spruce Pine; it's just that it is more expensive (and so few use it) -not astronomically more expensive but certainly enough to affect the corporation's profit margins.
So the prices would go up maybe 15% or so (guesstimation) and there would probably be a supply shortage as synthetic manufacturing scales up but yeah -no apocalypse.
The point is not that synthetic quartz is more expensive, it is that no cooperation will invest in infrastructure to produce more synthetic quartz when their know that the mine is back at some point. Depending on how much reserve their is and how adjustable the demand is, prices could increase way more then 15%, at least in the short term.
(Jeff Dunham, Walter: what was your favorite toy when you were a kid? .. um, dirt! (dumba...
I, too, saw the viral tweet about this a while ago (also both mines are owned by an extremely secretive belgian company)
Like the video clearly mentions, it's the whole business that's extremely secretive, not just that particular company.
And who voted against infrastructure? Yep you guessed it.
Oddly enough the infrastructure in Western NC was up until this past September in good shape. Certainly better than what South Carolina offers, Its just the conditions during the storm would have overtaken most any conventionally built roads. Were talking mudslides on the scale that hardly anyone alive now has seen before.
Think lazy game reviews lives in that area 👀
Asheville area, his house had a tree fall on it.
Except it's not a single point of failure, it's merely the cheapest place to get this very pure quartz. Just think for a minute, if the quartz crystals that they start with to make the base for the chips starts with "any old junky quartz" (6:15 timestamp) and they end up with a boules that are MORE pure than the stuff from Spruce Pine then it only stands to reason that they can then make crucibles from it - albeit at a much higher cost. So we don't have a limited resource, we have a limited CHEAP resource.
This video is yet another false scarcity fallacy that will scare people into sharing it for extra views.
PS: I love SciShow and have been watching for years and years (I probably miss only 5% of your videos), but this one seems like it needed more thought before putting it out. I could be wrong about using the same method to make new crucibles but someone at SciShow should have thought of this and looked into it and researched if my idea is valid or not, it just seems so basic and logical to my little brain. If I am correct then this video is just as much fear mongering, and if I am wrong then this issue needs even more discussion.
That makes a lot of sense. I hope someone at SicShow reads your comment.
I wondered the same thing. Why can't they make pure crucibles if they can make quite large pure crystals?
@@johnnydoh6756 They can. It would just be more expensive, so they didnt, so far. Also you cant just switch to a different process with the snap of a finger, it takes a lot of time and resources to build new factories from the ground up, or even just to build new factory lines.
'Someone should have read my mind and done the research for why my idea is good or not'
If it was better to do it the way you suggested; they'd be doing it. Since it isn't then it IS a single point of failure because no one else is doing it that way.
@@xazz I didn't suggest my idea was better in any way, he explicitly even say it would be way more expensive. I merely suggest that there IS an alternative.
So part of what I'm hearing is not to carelessly throw/give away old electronics, even if they're non functional, lol?
I wouldn't get too concerned. As she said refined silicon can be made of needed. Also is one impacts silicon, semiconductors can be made from other materials like germanium it gallium and arsenic.
@@roberteltze4850 Silicon is by far the most used and useful metalloid for general purpose semiconductors tho. Other metalloids have different properties and are mostly used for more specific uses, germanium for example is mostly used for fibre optics, while GaAs is used for wireless communications.
You're not really supposed to "throw away" electronics in the first place. There are metals in them that can be recycled for use in new electronics and some things that you don't want contaminating your soil/water like cobalt and lead.
@@roberteltze4850their name is Savannah btw.
AT&T (Bell) used to synthesize its own high-purity quartz crystals. I hope someone has preserved the method as a back up for this kind of situation.
Taconic orogeny? Sounds like Earth's plates getting busy!
"Taconic Orogeny" Sounds like an x-rated film title.
first comment says that this video is very insightful and quite informative in the emerging world of technology relating to natural phenomena
One Weird Quirk of Geology Makes Tech Possible
Technology companies hate it!
Not "possible", just cheaper.
rather that use of the 'C' word than the 'J' version of the 'C' word. (no religious offense intended)
That math doesn't work.
The video says that medium purity is no more than 0.1% impurities, or no more than 100 ppm impurities.
And that the highest purity is no more than 0.003% impurities, or no more than 30 ppm impurities.
But 0.1% / 0.003 % = 33.3333
And 100 / 30 = 3.3333
There's a factor of 10 error in one of these numbers.
Someone said that 0.1% was a 1000 ppm so that’s probably the problem
ppm is parts per million. 0.1% is 1 in 1000, which is 1000 ppm
0:37 I was listening, not watching, the video. There was a minute early in the video where I heard repeated innuendo: "taconic 'erogeny'...two converged...thrust sheets...friction...raised the temperature...." It's probably just me.
The Spruce Pine mine has silicon so fine...
That whatever they charge, you can't decline.
0.1% is 1000 part per million. Is it not?
Taconic orogeny... wow now let's keep it PG13....
Pfff, silicon can be easily purified through distillation. It's just the cleanest input material, but literally any sand can replace it with a minimal increase in cost.
Except not really.
@@brilobox2 "I just wanted to contradict without bringing any factual information".
@@blahsomethingclever first it is not about the silicon it is about the quartz. And yes of course even quartz can be purifed. But you need to build infrastructure to do so and if the interruption is only temporary no compeny will invest in it.
13.4-25.9 parts per million would be the better way to say it...
That and the blunder just a few seconds earlier when they say 100ppm = 0.1%, they really need to pay someone more competent to proofread their stuff.
I can't wait to see prices ramp up again.
How about Sci Show doing a fund raiser for the victims of Helene from Spruce Pine and surrounding area in WNC? ...'Crickets'
Not their job, not their mission, not their expertise. Why would you even bring up such a ridiculous thing?
Did she seriously say "months?"
Months to years to get things back in order? Yes many of the roads that go into the towns affected are the only one or two that snake into the mountains to service them, many sections will have to be rerouted as the land they were on is no longer there.
9:07 bad example. there was no real reason to hoard toilet paper.
No, but there was such a hoarding anyway, which is why it was used as a fitting comparison. But I agree, not the best example, or at least poorly stated.
Could a conscious computer like Data be considered a silicon based life form
Early comments are almost always about being first comments. Wasted opportunity.
Human stupidity and vacuity at its finest indeed.
More illustrations.
View #14000
This is how the US holds the world by the short and curlies.
Use existing high purity silicon production to make high purity silicon sand, then use that to make new high purity crucibles. No natural high purity quartz needed
It's always a cost problem. Almost anything that can be imagined can be done, but convincing people to pay for it is another issue.
It's not needed. It just makes it far easier and more cost efficient to start with a purer product. That's with anything that needs to be absolutely pure in the end product.
@@BackYardScience2000 Yes it's needed, ofc, as this situation clearly demonstrates. Or then the slightest problem becomes a worldwide problem. Or you're at the mercy of the country providing that product, alternatively, and they can pressure you in any way they want. Independance always has a cost.
Where does the rain go when there is no rainforest?
What happens when the energy stays in the atmosphere?
The chip shortage during the pandemic was less due to demand spiking and more due to a historic drought in Taiwan, where the world's largest chip fabs are
Fact... But it just doesnt play as nicely into the covid crisis narrative, crisis that would be responsible for everything and then some...
I hope that Savannah is doing ok, they seemed less upbeat than normal, but maybe its just the way the presentation came out. Be well Savannah
Hmmm, another reason for nvidia, Intel and Apple to price gouge.
Perhaps this will be the motivation to make our tech last longer.
And reduce the profits and ROI for investors?! I seriously doubt that, as much as I would like to see planned obsolescence dead in its tracks.
@@justalonesoul5825 Absolutely but WE can choose not to upgrade so frequently, and game publishers can set their requirements lower.
Well, how much is this crucial quartz ? I think the owner is veeery wealthy .)))
30 seconds in and... "Pretty much every silicon computer chip that exists in the world, exists thanks to one mineral deposit in a tiny town in the NC mountains".... I don't believe you.
well just watch the rest before making such useless comments.
@@justalonesoul5825 I did and I still don't cause that statement implies that location is the only location in the world that supplies silicon for computer chips, which is false. It takes one Google search to find this information out, but I guess you just listened to that statement that the video never went back onto. The video was talking about quartz, which isn't the only source of silica sand. As for useless statements, yours is incredibly so.
Also, if you're going to suggest that my comment is useless... You responded, therefore it wasn't useless. If you want to target a "useless" statement, or rather, in this case, an extremely counterproductive statement, then go after why they made her say that statement in the first place.
3:24-3:34
The math ain't math-in'.
So this is why Intel 13th and 14th gen started to blow up
3:27 woah there is quite a big mistake there. 0.1% = 1000 ppm. You messed up your decimals.
o goody.
another reason that tech companies can use to jack up prices.
yay capitalism
Just one more of those "we are only here a nd capable because of this" things. lol How many of those do you need to have before the chances of EVERYTHING happening that has let us live grow evolve and technolocize before the number becomes so vanishingly small over the lifetime of the universe for us to be like "yeah.. random chance pro;;y didnt cause this to happen." lol
Example how to exaggerating the production like the # 1 in the world that is just for insurance purposes to claim tha max of losted on production
The reality is totally difrent lol
Those that have more are those that build more those that sale more is those that have the control so basically in USA is not a big fan on production can you see is tha most mass buyer but not the productively lol so
Half fact on this video as fact
9:30 By 2020, people can't live without a screen in their face.
To those of us who grew up in the 90's and prior, at least we still know how to go on, jk. 😅 We're just as much glued to our phones.
Kids additions to video games seems to have become accepted, as in folks now think it's ok for kids to just want to focus on gaming and drop out of school. That's what 2020 did when parents caved into buying new pc's for their kids. Our small pc tower we got in 2019, and an old monitor from the early 2000's, will work just fine, as long as it is used for online education, not gaming. Kids/teens do not "need" new tech for gaming.
Parents can teach them to play board games, and see if they can create their own. It creates bonding time, where as kids that are addictes to video games, no longer care about spending time with their family, and will develope disrespectful behavior towards their parents.
Branch out into card games! There are all sorts of fun variations of solitaire.
@@Avendesora I have an old card game book. Only 2 can be played by 1 person alone.
I wish there could be like a single player mystery game, or an escape room. Something to help pass time. I sit or lay down quite often when my hip joint issues flare up.
@ You have the entire internet. Searching for "single player games" will get you a lot of awesome results full of things to try or buy :)
@@TiredMomma Ever heard of reading books? 😉
There are also countless games with very little material, a 52 card game, yathzee with 5 dices, etc, etc, etc. You just need a bit of research and minimum effort. GL, bcz I believe you are very right, those computer games (that I've played ad libitum at times) tend to make people withdraw into themselves A LOT.
Here for the chaos
Yoo 1 minute
PLEASE
I love cats, but that's a terrible sweater...
Hater
I find it cute
if it's warm it's a great sweater
You have bad taste in sweaters @perf1960
First 😅
First? Woahhh
Damn, the monkey got me
Wow early how?!?
My fellow Americans just elected something exponentially worse than this hurricane. 🫤