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this post was submitted on 06 Oct 2024
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They've identified it as a critical resource (as has a number of other countries - Australia has a few startups to commence mining it)
https://www.technologyreview.com/2023/09/13/1079377/china-clean-tech-supply-chain/
It is possible to refine lower quality quartz into higher quality quartz but it is very energy intensive.
The entire global market is only $1 billion so that's part of the reason why there hasn't been much competition.
Can't they make high quality quartz in a lab like diamonds and sapphires?
It's possible but difficult - I believe there's research underway on how to better synthesise extremely high purity silicon dioxide (99.9999%) for sub-3nm semiconductors. Nothing at the volume required.
Here is an existing purification method for high purity quartz (99.98%)
You can also see that some elements are particularly troublesome to remove - lithium, aluminium and titanium.
Thank you for the information! I have another question if you don't mind.
If the global market is only 1B why should anyone worry about this? I'm getting the impression that silicone chips aren't that important and might even have better substitutions. Am I wrong to think this way?
It would be an issue if someone nuked Spruce Pine as it would take a reasonable amount of time to survey and prepare mining infrastructure for other sites.
High purity quartz is very important but there's probably enough existing inventory for the mines to commence operating again (and there's still all the stuff in the refining and purification chain).
It's just concentrated in NC because it's relatively cheap and low volume - $5 a kg, similar to the price of zinc except that zinc mining and demand volumes are ~100 times higher. They have the biggest known deposit so there's no point to develop your own mining and refining industry unless you think your country will be cut off.
Or another example, most of the world's cobalt is mined in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and there would be huge supply chain disruptions if you nuked the DRC - but that doesn't mean that cobalt has little value. Of course in they scenario, other mines would open (or reopen, in the case of Australia which was the primary cobalt producer until the ~late 90s).