News TSMC Plans Up to $11 Billion German Chip Fab Investment: Report

[Admin]

TSMC has plans to establish a 28nm chip fab in Saxony, Germany, according to Bloomberg sources.

TSMC Plans Up to $11 Billion German Chip Fab Investment: Report : Read more

 

[ekio]

I hope they will have enough electricity for their factory, because in Germany, they really struggle.
The country is back to charcoal and gas more then ever...

 

[chs4000]

When France finishes maintenance on their nuclear power plants, they will likely be exporting a fair amount to Germany, but until that maintenance is finished, they only have enough to satisfy their own needs. Give it another year or so, and things should ease up.

 

[bit_user]

When France finishes maintenance on their nuclear power plants, they will likely be exporting a fair amount to Germany, but until that maintenance is finished, they only have enough to satisfy their own needs. Give it another year or so, and things should ease up.

I recently read that a lot of European nuclear plants still buy fuel from Russia. The fuel rods are mechanically incompatible with Western ones, plus there's not enough production capacity to replace Russian supplies. So, that's a point of vulnerability in European infrastructure. It'll take a few years for Western suppliers to ramp up enough production capacity.

 

[bit_user]

On the bright side, more 28 nm production capacity means the Raspberry Pi shortage can probably be resolved, at last!
; )

 

[KyaraM]

I hope they will have enough electricity for their factory, because in Germany, they really struggle.
The country is back to charcoal and gas more then ever...

We got enough to go around here. In case you missed it, nuclear power plants were shut down deliberately. The network was stable over the winter, too, and still is now; not something the US can claim. Electricity prices are starting to drop. Renewable energy sources are continuing to increase. Maybe inform yourself first?

 

[bit_user]

The network was stable over the winter, too, and still is now; not something the US can claim.

Texas had a major outage like 2 years ago, but that was during an uncharacteristically cold winter and hasn't been repeated. Texas has its own power grid, though. The rest of the US is segmented into an East grid and a West one. In general, the US grids have been very stable, if a bit insecure.

Another recent exception is California, but they had to institute some localized power cuts due to wildfires, not because of failures or undersupply.

Maybe inform yourself first?

Heh. Well, I can only guess what you're referring to, about the US grid, since you didn't bother to cite any references or spell out exactly what you were talking about.

 

[KyaraM]

Texas had a major outage like 2 years ago, but that was during an uncharacteristically cold winter and hasn't been repeated. Texas has its own power grid, though. The rest of the US is segmented into an East grid and a West one. In general, the US grids have been very stable, if a bit insecure.

Another recent exception is California, but they had to institute some localized power cuts due to wildfires, not because of failures or undersupply.


Heh. Well, I can only guess what you're referring to, about the US grid, since you didn't bother to cite any references or spell out exactly what you were talking about.

Friend of mine lives in NY State. Both electricity and internet are quite bad for them. I think last year there were at least three outages in their area. I would expect better from a rich US state, honestly. Other US friends told me about outages as well. Another one complained about weather-related power issues and brownouts not even two months ago, in the Great Lakes area. Even in this forum there are US people with issues. Those are my reference points.
The last one I had over here was about 10 years ago, unless we want to count a safety switch tripping in my parent's apartment with very old internal lines. And I lived everywhere from the big city to a small rural village in the middle of nowhere in that time period. Never any issues. There was a lot of dumb panic end of last year and nothing happened. Total overreaction.

EDIT:
There is also this:

Why the U.S. is struggling to modernize the electric grid

The overall duration of power interruptions in the U.S. more than doubled between 2015 and 2020.

www.cnbc.com

 

[Endymio]

In case you missed it, nuclear power plants were shut down deliberately....Electricity prices are starting to drop. Renewable energy sources are continuing to increase.

It doesn't matter why the nuclear plants were shut down; they're unavailable. And Germany's push for 'green' energy has taken it from the lowest electricity prices in Europe to one of the highest: 3X the rate we pay in the US. And Germany's wind and solar farms function only by using neighbors like Poland and Austria as giant batteries: importing convention power when output is low, and exporting when output is high -- a solution that works only so long as those neighbors don't themselves build the same wind and solar farms.

Even still, Germany has substantial periods where the overage is so critical they actually pay people to consume electricity at time. And with all this, German CO2 emissions were higher in 2021 and 2022 than they were in 2018, 2019, or 2020.

The effects on Germany's industrial sector have been rough:

"Oct 7, 2022: (CNN) Rocketing energy costs are savaging German industry...."

And German industry is set to see much higher energy prices in the near future:

"...FRANKFURT, Jan 30 (Reuters) - German industry is set to pay about 40% more for energy in 2023 than in 2021, before the energy crisis triggered by Russia's invasion of Ukraine, a study by Allianz Trade said on Monday, citing contract expiries and delayed wholesale pricing effects...."

Texas had a major outage like 2 years ago, but that was during an uncharacteristically cold winter

Texas lost 100% of their wind power and 96%+ of their solar for several days time. Their nuclear plants fared much better: they lost 25% of capacity (one plant), and that only for a few hours time.

The real story was the 75% capacity loss in the natural gas sector ... but the little-reported reason for that is actually quite interesting. Most of the plants were functional, but unable to receive gas through the pipeline network, as a few years earlier, ERCOT replaced the propane-powered pumps with "green" electric ones. When your backup generators are themselves powered by the grid they're supposed to backfill, it's a rather obvious design flaw.

 

[KyaraM]

It doesn't matter why the nuclear plants were shut down; they're unavailable. And Germany's push for 'green' energy has taken it from the lowest electricity prices in Europe to one of the highest: 3X the rate we pay in the US. And Germany's wind and solar farms function only by using neighbors like Poland and Austria as giant batteries: importing convention power when output is low, and exporting when output is high -- a solution that works only so long as those neighbors don't themselves build the same wind and solar farms.

Even still, Germany has substantial periods where the overage is so critical they actually pay people to consume electricity at time. And with all this, German CO2 emissions were higher in 2021 and 2022 than they were in 2018, 2019, or 2020.

The effects on Germany's industrial sector have been rough:

"Oct 7, 2022: (CNN) Rocketing energy costs are savaging German industry...."

And German industry is set to see much higher energy prices in the near future:

"...FRANKFURT, Jan 30 (Reuters) - German industry is set to pay about 40% more for energy in 2023 than in 2021, before the energy crisis triggered by Russia's invasion of Ukraine, a study by Allianz Trade said on Monday, citing contract expiries and delayed wholesale pricing effects...."


Texas lost 100% of their wind power and 96%+ of their solar for several days time. Their nuclear plants fared much better: they lost 25% of capacity (one plant), and that only for a few hours time.

The real story was the 75% capacity loss in the natural gas sector ... but the little-reported reason for that is actually quite interesting. Most of the plants were functional, but unable to receive gas through the pipeline network, as a few years earlier, ERCOT replaced the propane-powered pumps with "green" electric ones. When your backup generators are themselves powered by the grid they're supposed to backfill, it's a rather obvious design flaw.

lol...
Energy trade with neighboring countries has existed since before I was even born. I'm around since before the Berlin wall fell. Plus, "it won't work when they start using renewable energy sources, too" is an utter bs argument:

https://cdn.statcdn.com/Infographic/images/normal/24030.jpeg

They literally already do so, and more so than Germany!!! Green is renewable! Do you even understand how any of this works? Because, it really doesn't look like it...

Also, energy costs are capped for both industry and private households. Plus, again, energy prices are going down again right now. Else, those plants wouldn'thavebeentaken off the grid.

 

[Endymio]

They literally already do so, and more so than Germany!!! Do you even understand how any of this works?

Did you read your own graph? German's primary electricity trade neighbors Poland and Czech Republic aren't even on that list -- and Austria's large share of "renewables" exists because of hydropower, an energy source that, unlike wind and solar, can actually be controlled to match supply with demand. Two years ago, Poland was only producing about 4% from wind and solar. Last year they added capacity, and lo! what happened?

"April 23, 2023: Poland's grid operator disconnects wind, solar facilities after oversupply of renewable energy...Poland officials have acknowledged an upgrade to its power grid its necessary if the country is to cope with the transmission of energy from renewable and nuclear sources..."​

Also, energy costs are capped for both industry and private households.

You understand how a price cap works? You're still paying those higher costs, just in the form of government taxes. If price caps were a good idea, the government would simply legislate the price of everything. According to your own press, the total price tag works out to over $200 billion, with nearly half being used to finance the price caps themselves.

"German parliament approves €200-billion energy relief plan....."

Energy trade with neighboring countries has existed since before I was even born. I'm around since before the Berlin wall fell.

That long, eh? I had my first graduate degree by. And energy trade in years past was primarily unidirectional -- from areas with perennial oversupply using their comparative advantage to sell surplus abroad. What's happening now is entirely different: nations like Germany exporting excess during one period of the day, then turning around and buying back the fossil-fuel variant when the wind doesn't blow and the sun doesn't shine. They're essentially using their foreign neighbor's grids as gigantic storage batteries.

 

[bit_user]

Even still, Germany has substantial periods where the overage is so critical they actually pay people to consume electricity at time.

Wow, that's actually the best case I've yet heard for carbon capture. During periods of such excess renewable power, you could just switch on the extractors and pull some CO2 out of the air. It wouldn't be a lot, but it's better than wasteful consumption.

 

[bit_user]

Friend of mine lives in NY State. Both electricity and internet are quite bad for them. I think last year there were at least three outages in their area. I would expect better from a rich US state, honestly.

It's a huge state, though. It's about 1/6th the size of Germany. Most of the state is agricultural, with urbanization and development concentrated in just a few areas.

Other US friends told me about outages as well. Another one complained about weather-related power issues and brownouts not even two months ago, in the Great Lakes area.

I wouldn't consider the reliability of residential power to have much relation to industrial power. Residential power lines routinely go through wooded areas, whereas high-voltage transmission lines have corridors cut and maintained, so that they can't be taken out by a falling tree.

It's hard to comment on the specifics of such cases, without more detail. For one thing, people mean different things by "brown outs". Was it organized load-shedding, or something else?

In any case, semiconductor fabs are of sufficient size and scale that they're going to locate near an adequate power generation facility and secure long-term contracts to ensure stable supply. I wouldn't worry about it. You might worry about the nature of power generation they're using, but that's another matter.

Also, energy costs are capped for both industry and private households. Plus, again, energy prices are going down again right now. Else, those plants wouldn'thavebeentaken off the grid.

Subsidies create market distortions. For every consumer who gets subsidized, somebody else has to pay more because you've lessened the disincentive of the former to reduce their consumption. Given limited supply, somebody is going to end up getting squeezed, not to mention the taxpayer.

For that reason, they shouldn't be seen as either a broad-based or long-term solution, and certainly not both! Not that I'm against narrowly-targeted subsidies. For instance, you don't want low-income people freezing to death or dying of heatstroke, but the real solution is to improve the energy-efficiency of their homes, while also trying to increase the energy supply.

Else, those plants wouldn'thavebeentaken off the grid.

Not true. There was plenty of opposition to removing nuclear power. The Green party was just pandering to popular misconceptions about the risks it posed. I even heard a moderated debate about this, among German politicians, on the BBC. One was a Green party member and the other was calling him hypocritical. I looked for a link to the program, but it was too long ago for me to find.

IMO, there shouldn't have been a single nuclear plant prematurely decomissioned, while there was any non-renewable power still being produced. That said, I'm aware that the US' own energy policy is even further from ideal.

 

[Endymio]

Wow, that's actually the best case I've yet heard for carbon capture. During periods of such excess renewable power, you could just switch on the extractors and pull some CO2 out of the air. It wouldn't be a lot, but it's better than wasteful consumption.

Except that carbon sequestration plants require much more than electricity: they have capital costs, labor costs, maintenance costs, consumables costs, etc.

Also, while lower consumption is generally preferred for the residential sector, many industrial processes have hard consumption caps driven by the laws of physics. Smelting aluminum, for instance, requires so much power, that the industry sometimes refers to it as "solid electricity". Currently, running industrial processes on an irregular duty-cycle isn't practical. But if Germany continues to have periods where it pays industry to consume power (more than 100 such incidents in the last year alone), it should incentivize these industries to evolve accordingly. Imagine a fully-automated smelter than operates only when grid overages exist. The widespread adoption of technologies like that would make wind and solar actually practical.