A Sibelco spokesperson said: “From September 26, we have temporarily suspended operations at the Spruce Pine facilities to respond to these challenges.
“We are working closely with our local team to safely resume operations as soon as possible and are working fully with local authorities and other partners to manage the situation. Our top priority remains the health, safety, and well-being of our employees, and ensuring the safety of the Spruce Pine facility. “
Quartz Corp did not respond to an immediate request for comment from WIRED.
A viral social media post said that due to the floods, the production of semiconductors around the world could come to a standstill. This doomsday scenario is unlikely, but experts are more concerned about the impact flooding could have on the tech industry and the economic consequences of prolonged supply chain pressure caused by the shutdown.
“The main thing won’t just be the floods, as bad as they are,” said Chris Hackney, a human geography researcher at the University of Newcastle in the UK. “Damage to infrastructure—roads, transportation, electricity and mining equipment—will temporarily halt production. The possibility of a landslide.”
Hackney added that “any disruption to supply chains will impact prices and production of high-end electronics and technology.”
Tom Bide, a senior scientist at the British Geological Survey, believes that the disaster will likely be less disruptive due to stockpiling and other types of emergency operations.
“The impact on the technology industry will depend a lot on how long it takes for them to get back to work,” he said. “It is possible that many manufacturers have a certain level of reserves so there will be a ‘slack’ in the system. If the problems are temporary this may not have a noticeable effect.”
Bide estimates that it will take about a month for any negative effects to be felt.
However, some researchers have warned that there may be huge costs as a result of this disaster. Penn says he would be “surprised if there is no sound, if not at all.”
“Any negative impact on the global technology sector will depend on the scale of the damage. There is little publicly available data on HPQ reserves around the world. The physical products produced by Spruce Pine do not stay there. They are sent to other countries—usually to Norway—to be processed and refined before being distributed around the world.”
Penn, who co-wrote a forthcoming paper on Spruce Pine with independent researcher Fran Baker Kurdi, tells WIRED that this episode is likely to trigger interactive climate effects.
“I can imagine that the industry would turn to the use of unclean materials if there really is a big shortage,” he said. “This is a shame as the industrial processes required to purify silicon are very energy intensive and environmentally damaging. In other words, this unfortunate association with climate instability in North Carolina can have a negative effect that exacerbates climate instability elsewhere. It’s a vicious cycle.”
Penn also cites a number of serious chemical contamination incidents that Quartz Corp has been involved in in recent decades.
Between 1981 and 2018, he notes, Quartz Corp faced six pollution violations, including leaking toxic chemicals. In 2018, the company leaked hundreds of liters of hydrofluoric acid into a nearby river basin. The release caused a fish kill and was one of a number of water violations Quartz Corp has committed over the past decade, some of which have resulted in fines.
“One lesson we can take from this is that the future of ‘AI’ is inevitable,” added Penn. “Even if Spruce Pine persists, the damage it has done to local communities is a stark reminder of the need to make infrastructure commitments that adapt to the environment rather than work against it.
“I fear that AI investments and climate instability are at risk. This may be the first domino to fall. “