Thread

1. ocd · 1790861971 · focus · HN ↗

   I'm not a business guy, but I think I would be very worried if I created any opening (even on the very long term) for competition to justify itself being built up to meet demand (or national security requirements of other countries) on an industry I mostly control, because I prioritized extremely high prices for a few years that might have the effect of changing the arithmetic for potential competitors that wouldn't have done it before.

   It makes me consider whether there would be retaliation in later years against the US intellectual property system in countries other than China. While RAM is a tangible product, the areas it serves aren't really.

   1. ecshafer · 1790862934 · focus · HN ↗

      How much of this issue is self-inflicted? Micron is building a massive fab in Syracuse. They've spent like 4 years seeking approval, lobbying politicians, doing BS "environmental impact studies" (which are mostly just rent seeking and political handouts). They finally started building, but if they had just been able to put shovel in the ground we would already have this fab be producing memory.

      1. tzs · 1790876217 · focus · HN ↗

         It took just over 3 years to get approved, and the reason it took so long is that it is massive project (1400 acres) and has enormous infrastructure requirements that needed comprehensive study by reviewing agencies to make sure the area could handle them.

         The first two fabs there will require 17 million gallons per day of water and when fully operations in the early 2040s the facility will need 48 million gallons per day. That is more than existing infrastructure can handle so the project also includes a new pipeline extension to Lake Ontario.

         That water requires extensive treatment before it can be discharged. It will be pretreated on site, then go to a new $1 billion industrial wastewater treatment plant being for this project, and then finally discharged into the Oneida river.

         The energy requirements when fully operation are 1850 MW drawn continuously 24/7 every day of the year. That's 16 TWh a year.

         For comparison that is a little above the annual electricity use of Ft. Worth, TX or Charlotte, NC, and little below Indianapolis, IN. It is about 14% under San Francisco, CA. A little over half of Chicago, IL, about 1/3 of Los Angeles, CA, and about 30% of NYC.

         That's way beyond the existing grid capacity, so lots of infrastructure upgrades there are taking place.

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