Intel's $20B Ohio factory could become world's largest chip plant

Re:Intel's $20B Ohio factory could become world's largest ch... by llbeansandrice on Friday January 21, 2022 @03:19PM (#30029412)

I think this is due to a lot of money in the region coming from things like coal and natural gas. There's a _lot_ of money to be had for folks that just happen to own land that sits above valuable minerals.

I've only ever seen billboards for "clean coal" in SE Ohio, SW PA, and West Virginia.

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Re:Intel's $20B Ohio factory could become world's largest ch... by onlyrealcuzzo on Friday January 21, 2022 @03:26PM (#30029514)

Except there really isn't that much money in Coal - and Ohio doesn't has little of it anyway.

Ohio produces 1/20th the coal of WV - which is a much more economically poor state - and coal isn't even really that important to WV's economy. Ohio's economy is much more similar to PA - and PA produces 10x more coal: https://www.eia.gov/coal/production/weekly/

Coal is all politics.

I mean, it is still used for a lot of energy production - almost everywhere in the US - Ohio definitely: https://www.eia.gov/state/?sid=OH.

I'm sure power plants don't want to shut down overnight because someone bans coal completely - and they shouldn't. But it's just not economical in most places - the plants are phasing out naturally almost everywhere.

The less scale there is with coal - the less viable it becomes. It's a vicious cycle.

Power plants naturally phasing out because coal isn't economical will have almost 0 impact on Ohio.

Places like WV - that's a different story. WV sells coal! Ohio doesn't.

Coal also doesn't employ people like it used to. It employs 3,000 people in Ohio: https://www.ohiocoal.com/information-library/history-coal-mi.... That's out of a ~5.4M labor force: https://www.bls.gov/eag/eag.oh.htm. That's ~0.05% of the workforce... Even WV is only ~0.15%...

It's really only important to a few barons who want coal to stick around long after it's economically viable (the governor of WV).

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Re:Intel's $20B Ohio factory could become world's largest ch... by ct0 on Friday January 21, 2022 @03:00PM (#30029152)

Sounds more like they are anti turbine. Where does someone put a turbine when it's at the end of its life?

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Re:Intel's $20B Ohio factory could become world's largest ch... by penneyd on Friday January 21, 2022 @03:12PM (#30029324)

Where does someone put a coal fired power plant when it's at the end of its life?

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Re:Intel's $20B Ohio factory could become world's largest ch... by ummonk on Friday January 21, 2022 @03:49PM (#30029803)

Aren't coal power plants made from recyclable materials like metal and concrete rather than unrecyclable composite materials?

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Re:Intel's $20B Ohio factory could become world's largest ch... by bigbillheck on Friday January 21, 2022 @03:16PM (#30029373)

https://www.eenews.net/articles/volatile-place-new-laws-thwa...

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Re:Intel's $20B Ohio factory could become world's largest ch... by hguant on Friday January 21, 2022 @03:13PM (#30029332)

I don't want to say so, but...so? At Intel scale, they're able to buy carbon offsets or - gasp! - install their own solar/wind in their properties. The municipal and state governments are I'm sure bending over backwards to get the plants and infrastructure investment, a permit to run whatever solar/wind/renewable they want is probably chump change for them.

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Re:Intel's $20B Ohio factory could become world's largest ch... by llbeansandrice on Friday January 21, 2022 @03:22PM (#30029462)

I'll eat a sock if they bother with solar in Ohio. I guess it's better than nothing but large parts of Ohio just don't get that much sun. Wind is much more likely.

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Re:Intel's $20B Ohio factory could become world's largest ch... by reportingsjr on Friday January 21, 2022 @04:33PM (#30030285)

Cincinnati (where I live) is about half a year away from completing the largest city financed solar array in the US [0,1]. Ohio gets plenty of sun, in fact it averages more sun than _anywhere_ in Germany which is known for it's solar [2,3].

In Ohio for residential, which is a good bit more expensive than commercial/utility scale solar, the payback period is about 12 years[4], well within the margin of getting your money back and then some.

0: https://www.cincinnati-oh.gov/mayor/news/cincinnati-to-const... 1: https://newmarketsolar.com/ 2: https://www.nrel.gov/gis/assets/images/solar-annual-ghi-2018... 3: https://solargis.com/file?url=download/Germany/Germany_PVOUT... 4: https://www.energysage.com/local-data/solar-panel-cost/oh/

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Re:Intel's $20B Ohio factory could become world's largest ch... by tick_tock_tick on Friday January 21, 2022 @05:27PM (#30030777)

> in Germany which is known for it's solar

Pretty sure Germany is more know for poor green energy planning, burning more coal, and instance on non optimal strategies for power generation (killing nuclear).

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Re:Intel's $20B Ohio factory could become world's largest ch... by Torifyme12 on Friday January 21, 2022 @05:52PM (#30030992)

Also for managing to be so dependent on Russian gas it torpedoes a lot of measures to contain them

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Re:Intel's $20B Ohio factory could become world's largest ch... by adamcstephens on Friday January 21, 2022 @04:07PM (#30030016)

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/amazon-behind-another-ohio...

I doubt socks are tasty, but please let us know.

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Re:Intel's $20B Ohio factory could become world's largest ch... by Melatonic on Friday January 21, 2022 @06:03PM (#30031098)

Germany has TONS of solar and I would bet Ohio gets more sun

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Re:Intel's $20B Ohio factory could become world's largest ch... by onepointsixC on Friday January 21, 2022 @09:40PM (#30032742)

Well objectively yes Ohio gets more sun per m^2, but neither Germany nor Ohio are particularly good places to build solar[0]. They would be much better try something else like Nuclear or wind.

[0]: https://globalsolaratlas.info/map?c=20.797201,-46.494141,3&s...

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