The ramifications of the federal government’s failures in disaster relief showcase a much larger issue than it appears on the surface. A natural disaster could wipe out key resources or, at best, reroute supply lines to sources that could significantly inflate prices for Americans.
Spruce Pine, North Carolina, has been the source of economic panic since it was revealed that a Sibelco North America Inc. facility where ultra-high-purity quartz is mined is in the flood zone of Hurricane Helene.
Quartz is used in semiconductors and to refine wafers, which are used in microchips. Semiconductors themselves are used in nearly all consumer electronics, such as computers, phones, and appliances.
Reports and X threads have popped up sounding the alarm that entire industries could grind to a halt as a result of closures at the North Carolina plant.
An alleged geologist wrote that he is “concerned about the potential future global economic disaster because Spruce Pine is the sole producer of ultra pure Quartz for crucibles that all global semiconductor production relies on.”
“All semiconductor production may grind to a halt in six months. The entire world’s economy depends on Spruce Pine,” he added.
This scare was the driving narrative until contradicting threads were written, revealing that there are other sources of purification as well as other mines and stockpiles. In fact, there is reportedly another mine in South Carolina.
A high-purity quartz mine was acquired by Ferroglobe in 2023.
As X account SemiAnalysis pointed out, the existing inventories and alternative methods can provide a “buffer” if the industry takes a hit due to the recent hurricane.
This does not mean the industry is in tip-top shape should a disaster like this happen. What it does reveal, however, is that if U.S. strategic infrastructure is not shored up, the consumer will take the hit in the marketplace.
This was glaringly obvious during COVID, when it became apparent that the U.S. was overly reliant on drug manufacturing from China. In fact, this was also an issue during the Trump administration in 2019.
Trump’s chief economic adviser, Gary Cohn, wrote at the time that 97% of all antibiotics in the United States came from China.
“If you’re the Chinese and you want to really just destroy us, just stop sending us antibiotics,” he said, per the Council on Foreign Relations.
For semiconductors, China has the second-highest share of sales in the world. When supply chains in the United States are disrupted, at best, the market turns to the Chinese. If that option is not available, competitors in Europe may be able to pick up the slack, but at nowhere near as low a price.
Nothing is scarier than the situation surrounding microchips from Taiwan; the smaller the chip, the more likely it came from the region. According to Forbes, Taiwan is responsible for 92% of the production of logic semiconductors when components are smaller than 10 nanometers.
As production has shifted overseas since the 1980s — when semiconductor power was within the U.S. and Europe — weak and overly-reliant supply chains could be one disaster or political move from collapse or, at best, an unaffordable state.
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