Spruce Pine just got hit by Helene. The consequences for the tech industry could be enormous: NPR

Hurricane Helene dropped more than two feet of rain on Spruce Pine North Carolina. The city is home to one of the world’s only sources of high-purity quartz, which is used to produce silicon chips and solar panels.

Spencer Bost

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Spencer Bost

A small town in North Carolina just devastated by Hurricane Helene could ultimately seriously disrupt the global supply chain for microchips and solar panels.

Nestled in the Appalachian Mountains, the community of Spruce Pine, population 2,194, is known for its hiking, local artists and as America’s only source of high-purity quartz. Helene dumped more than two feet of rain on the city, destroying roads and shops and cutting off power and water.

But its reach will likely be felt far beyond the small community.

Semiconductors are the brains of every computer chip device, and solar panels are an important part of the global fight against climate change. To make both semiconductors and solar panels, companies need crucibles and other equipment that can withstand extraordinarily high temperatures and be kept absolutely clean. There is one material that is suitable for this: quartz. Pure quartz.

Quartz that largely comes from Spruce Pine.

“As far as we know, there are only a few places in the world where ultra-high quality quartz can be found,” said Ed Conway, author of Material world: the six raw materials that shape modern civilization. Russia and Brazil also supply high-quality quartz, he says, but “Spruce Pine has by far the (largest quantity) and highest quality.”

Conway says that without super-pure quartz for the crucibles, which can often only be used once, it would be impossible to produce most semiconductors.

“Purity really matters,” he says. “You’re talking about a process to make silicon wafers that later become silicon chips, where a single atom is in the wrong place” and could derail production.

Companies have started looking for artificial alternatives, but so far these alternatives cannot meet the global demand for this pure quartz.

According to an annual report from TECHCET, a market research firm, quartz equipment is a $2.12 billion industry and grow.

Helene destroys the city

Received spruce wood 24.12 inches of rain from Helenethe National Weather Service said. The massive flood caused the North Toe River to overflow and destroy downtown, said Spencer Bost, the executive director of Spruce pine tree in the downtown areathe local business development association.

“It’s flooded up to the awnings, about three meters,” he says of the lower street of downtown. “The lower street has been destroyed.”

The town’s supermarket was also badly damaged by the floods. Power, water and cell service are all out, Bost said. Fallen trees and washed-out roads have left the community isolated from outside.

“We were there about three days before we got together enough chainsaws to cut a path out of our neighborhood,” Bost says. He and his fiancée worked nine hours to Greenville, NC, where they sought temporary shelter.

Conditions in the mines where the quartz is produced remain unclear. “We are in the process of assessing the situation, and it is far too early to comment on the impact on high-purity quartz production,” Mary Kristin Haugen of the Quartz Corporation told NPR in a statement.

A second major supplier, Sibelco, based in Antwerp, Netherlands, did not immediately respond to NPR’s email.

Images verified by NPR show that even if the mines are intact, obtaining quartz from the region could be a challenge. The main CSX rail line to and from Spruce Pine runs along the North Toe River and is heavily damaged. The railway was the main transportation point for quartz from the mines.

The consequences will depend on how long the disruption lasts

Conway says he believes chipmakers have stockpiles of ultrapure quartz that could prevent production from being disrupted in the short term by a supply chain disruption, but he adds that if Spruce Pine is cut off from the rest of the world for a long time, this can have a major impact. influence.

Previous disruptions to superconductor supply chains, from earthquakes to fires, have caused a ripple effect across the many industries that rely on chips for their products and operations. A 2008 fire at a quartz refinery in Spruce Pine influences the market.

Similarly, solar energy expert Johannes Bernreuter, head of Bernreuter Research, says that if a disruption were to last “more than a few weeks” it would “pose a serious problem for the production” of silicon rods needed in photovoltaics or PV industry. .

China is the largest producer of solar panelsand it relies heavily on imports of high-quality quartz from Spruce Pine, he says.

Lita Shon-Roy, the president and CEO of market research firm TECHCET, has been tracking the semiconductor supply chain for two decades. She says it’s surprising that the industry isn’t more concerned about the vulnerability that comes from relying on this one region of North Carolina for crucial materials.

“Every time I’ve asked over the past 20 years, the question always came back: ‘Where else are we going to get it?’ ‘ she says.

The United States and China are locked in a global competition to secure access to raw materials for semiconductors and green technology. There is a frantic search for new deposits and new methods for a whole range of minerals.

But when it comes to pure quartz?

“I haven’t heard of any useful resources that could replace North Carolina’s content,” Shon-Roy said.

NPR’s Michael Copley contributed to this report.