Intel breaks ground on $20B Arizona plants as U.S. chip factory race heats up

Re:Intel breaks ground on $20B Arizona plants as U.S. chip f... by ethanbond on Tuesday September 28, 2021 @08:18AM (#28681907)

… what?

The US southwest is entering its first ever Tier 1 water shortage next year, meaning Arizona will have reduced supply equivalent to 1.2MM people’s annual consumption. No reason to believe we don’t go straight from here to Tier 2, onto Tier 3, and so on. Nature doesn’t provide enough water in a desert to be running sprawling metropolises and even more massive farms and graze land - especially water-intensive cotton farms.

https://www.nature.org/en-us/newsroom/drought-water-shortage...

> Already, water levels in Lake Powell and Lake Mead, the two major reservoirs that store the Colorado River’s water, are down to 34% of their capacity and may soon drop too low to spin the hydroelectric turbines in their dams. Some smaller reservoirs began emergency releases in summer 2021 to prop up water levels in these lakes.

https://westernresourceadvocates.org/projects/arizona-colora...

> The Tier 1 shortage will reduce water to the Central Arizona Project by 320,000 acre-feet (enough water to supply 1.2 million individuals for a year).

Maybe Arizona is losing this battle as gracefully as anyone could, but they are very much losing this battle.

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Re:Intel breaks ground on $20B Arizona plants as U.S. chip f... by thehappypm on Tuesday September 28, 2021 @09:51AM (#28682785)

Contrary to common belief, cities do not really need gigantic amounts of water. You take a shower, water goes down the drain, you can reclaim most of it if you want to. Don't allow irrigated lawns, reclaim gray water, urban water needs drop to a trickle. AZ is a leader in this space.

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Re:Intel breaks ground on $20B Arizona plants as U.S. chip f... by skybrian on Tuesday September 28, 2021 @11:29AM (#28683970)

Is gray water reuse happening at scale?

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Re:Intel breaks ground on $20B Arizona plants as U.S. chip f... by ethanbond on Tuesday September 28, 2021 @10:38AM (#28683321)

Oh good, cities can be more water-efficient than people commonly believe.

Guess it’s solved!

Pay no attention to the drying rivers, emptying reservoirs, and depleting aquifers. If cities are more efficient per capita than people commonly believe, we can probably just grow our cities arbitrarily and our cotton farms and golf courses even more so.

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Re:Intel breaks ground on $20B Arizona plants as U.S. chip f... by thehappypm on Tuesday September 28, 2021 @11:13AM (#28683759)

Industrial and urban use cases can be very water resource friendly. Sure, maybe we shouldn't grow almonds in the desert. But that's not what's being discussed here.

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Re:Intel breaks ground on $20B Arizona plants as U.S. chip f... by ethanbond on Tuesday September 28, 2021 @12:38PM (#28684733)

My point is that saying "Arizona is among the best at driving itself into water depletion" is not a satisfactory answer to "Arizona is driving itself into water depletion."

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Re:Intel breaks ground on $20B Arizona plants as U.S. chip f... by 1123581321 on Tuesday September 28, 2021 @09:25AM (#28682474)

I believe the user is saying that AZ planned ahead to end the necessity of using too much CAP water, which would mean that the Colorado River declaration won’t devastate their industry/ag. Reading some of the articles on its water authority website seems to bear this out, but certainly a lot depends on good management of their renewable sources and how strictly new construction like Intel’s is held to water reclamation standards (Intel is claiming to be a net positive contributor to the water supply.) https://new.azwater.gov/

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Re:Intel breaks ground on $20B Arizona plants as U.S. chip f... by adventured on Tuesday September 28, 2021 @09:36AM (#28682612)

> Nature doesn’t provide enough water in a desert to be running sprawling metropolises

It sure does. Nature created us. We build desalination plants and pipelines. Humans are amazing.

There's no reason Arizona can't work with California to fund a bunch of desalination plants along the coast near San Diego (which already has relevant expertise at it). It's something like 120 miles from the ocean to Arizona's border, a quite solvable problem if an arrangement can be made with California.

Alternatively the Gulf of California is 50 miles away. Arizona can do a deal with Mexico. Mexico would agree to that instantly. See:

May 2021 "ACCIONA will build and operate a desalination plant in the municipality of Los Cabos, in Baja California (Mexico). The project has an overall budget of €134.5 million."

https://www.acciona.com/updates/news/acciona-build-operate-c...

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Re:Intel breaks ground on $20B Arizona plants as U.S. chip f... by thehappypm on Tuesday September 28, 2021 @10:24AM (#28683139)

Nobody would ever pump water into Arizona from the coast. That's basically running hydro plants in reverse.

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