How a tiny town hit by Helene could upend the global semiconductor chip industry

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Nearly all the world’s supply of high-purity quartz, which is required to produce semiconductors, comes from a town that was devastated by Hurricane…

Virtually all of the world's supply of high-purity quartz, a mineral required to produce semiconductors, comes from a tiny North Carolina town that was devastated by Hurricane Helene.

The natural disaster unfolding in Spruce Pine also highlights the continued instability of global supply chains, more than four years after Covid-19 drove home to Americans how dependent they had become on imported goods. States affected by Hurricane Helene warn of price gouging and other scams. Here's how to avoid being a victim of post-storm schemes

For the semiconductor industry, the challenges that any long-term disruption to the Spruce Pine mines would present cannot be overstated, experts say. TECHCET estimates it could be four to six weeks before the companies' operations are running at full throttle again. But that forecast, Shon-Roy says, is dependent on roads opening back up, given that both companies rely primarily on trucking to move their minerals."Roads are gone," said Spencer Bost, the executive director of Downtown Spruce Pine, a nonprofit that partners with the city. In some areas, he said,"The roads just don't exist anymore.

 

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