News Samsung's Chip Fabs in Texas Ordered to Shut Down Due to Power Shortage

[Arrion]

One thing that will mitigate the impact of this compared to an unplanned outage is that Samsung has some warning to stage wafers in safe steps. There's a lot of sections of the manufacturing process for modern chips where it's important the wafers do not sit for long. Typically this is when a material that can oxidize or corrode easily is exposed. One of the reasons even short power interruptions can be so expensive is that partially built wafers often have to be scrapped when they get stranded in one of these sections. Even a few hours warning should let Samsung stage most or all of the wafers at steps where the wafers are covered in corrosion proof materials like silicon oxide (glass).

 

[King_V]

Texas also has that whole bit where their grid is incompatible with the East and West us grids. Getting outside power is thus made extremely difficult by this.

https://www.theatlantic.com/politic...ees-short-circuited-grid-modernization/615433

The title is, of course, indicating that political considerations worked against improving things, but it also details out the issues gong on. The article is from late 2020, but seems a bit on the prophetic side, given what Texas has experienced.

This project would help mitigate situations like what Texas experienced. But, obviously, there was a pro-coal side that put the kibbosh on this.

The east-west divide of the power grids is a hindrance. Texas going its own way and having a third, incompatible grid absolutely exacerbates the problem for that state.

 

[InvalidError]

The east-west divide of the power grids is a hindrance.

Practically every place in the world that has to deal with power transmission between incompatible grids simply uses HVDC substations so each participant can operate independently. Relatively trivial problem to solve if there was a political will to actually do so.

 

[Sippincider]

In my opinion, we should explore newer nuclear technology with these miniature reactors to help solve climate change.

First we need a viable and permanent solution for our nuclear waste. Current and future.

The idea of burying it in the Nevada desert wasn't viable or permanent.

 

[gggplaya]

First we need a viable and permanent solution for our nuclear waste. Current and future.

The idea of burying it in the Nevada desert wasn't viable or permanent.

First we need to fix the atmosphere, then we can worry about nuclear waste. Which, to date, isn't that much. For all of the united states, the amount of nuclear waste produced since the first power plant built would fill a football field 10 feet high. That's it, so far.

When most people think of nuclear, they think of the old days where nuclear waste may remain dangerous for hundreds of years. But that's not the case anymore, 97% of modern spent fuel is only dangerous for about 50 years. They've improved efficiency of nuclear fuel significantly in several decades to get the most out of it.

Here's what a miniature reacture plant would look like.
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/201...nvent-nuclear-reactor-and-save-warming-planet
Officially signed agreement with Utah last month, they have progressed to the next stage before the full commitment, which may take place as a formal order in 2022 to finally produce the plant. Slowly but surely, this may happen in a few years.

 

[grape1829]

I doubt it but if that't correct (for large fabs) then it is an extremely huge amount of power. For comparison NY city has an energy (power actually) usage of 460 megawatts-hours per hour (or 11000 megawatt-hours per day). That's 1/5 the power draw of a very large city for a large semiconductor fab!

Wait, is that 460 Mw/h correct for NYC? Seoul uses 5 Gw/h and the two are roughly similar in pop. No way Koreans use 10x more power than Americans per capita, lol. Or maybe it's because there are still a lot of factories (multi-story apartment-style factories, not the sprawling ones) in Seoul while NYC factories are pretty much cleared out?
http://susa.or.kr/en/content/energy?ckattempt=1

 

[cryoburner]

Conversely, if they DID have enough backup power and kept running in this exceedingly rare event, they would have been roasted.
"How is it that Samsung gets to keep making chips for toys and phones, while 200,000 residents are sitting in the dark, freezing?"

Have these people not heard of blankets? : 3

I don't think many people are going to expect a company using their own backup power to give them a share of that power. They could just as easily have a backup generator of their own to supply their home with enough power to get by during outages. I imagine many of the outages were due to the icing causing damage to power lines as well, rather than just on the generation side of things.

 

[gggplaya]

Wait, is that 460 Mw/h correct for NYC? Seoul uses 5 Gw/h and the two are roughly similar in pop. No way Koreans use 10x more power than Americans per capita, lol. Or maybe it's because there are still a lot of factories (multi-story apartment-style factories, not the sprawling ones) in Seoul while NYC factories are pretty much cleared out?
http://susa.or.kr/en/content/energy?ckattempt=1

It says in your own link that Seoul uses 46 GWh yearly and according to statista.com NYC uses about 53GWh yearly in electricity, so they are about the same. https://www.statista.com/statistics/858006/annual-electric-energy-consumption-by-region-in-new-york/

 

[gggplaya]

Have these people not heard of blankets? : 3

I don't think many people are going to expect a company using their own backup power to give them a share of that power. They could just as easily have a backup generator of their own to supply their home with enough power to get by during outages. I imagine many of the outages were due to the icing causing damage to power lines as well, rather than just on the generation side of things.

Hard to do if you live in an apartment or a bad neighborhood where it could easily be stolen.

If rolling blackouts become a frequent thing, I'm probably going to get a wood stove installed in my house.