Wednesday, February 17th 2021
Manufacturing: Samsung Semiconductor Fabs in Texas Shut Down Following State-wide Power Shortages
News just keep flowing that are bound to have impact on pricing for components users of this website know and love. The Austin-American Statesman reports that Samsung has been ordered to shutter its Texas factories in wake of recent power shortages that have impacted the state. The order, which came from Austin Energy, doesn't just affect Samsung: all industrial and semiconductor manufacturers in the state were ordered to idle or shut down their facilities, meaning that NXP Semiconductors and Infineon Semiconductors have also been affected. According to Austin Energy, all companies have complied with the order. A date for the lifting of these restrictions still hasn't been given.
As we know, semiconductor manufacturing is a drawn-out process, with some particular wafers taking several months in their journey from initial fabrication until they reach completion. This meas that it's a particularly sensitive business in regards to power outages or general service interruptions. The entire semiconductor manufacturing lines - and products therein, in various stages of production - can be rendered unusable due to these events, which will have a sizable impact in the final manufacturing output of a given factory. It remains to be seen the scale of this production impact, but a few percentage points difference in the overall global semiconductor manufacturing could have dire implications for availability and pricing, considering the already insufficient operational capacity in regards to demand. Considering the impact adverse temperatures are having on Texas residents, here's hoping for the quick resolution of these problems, which affect much more than just semiconductor manufacturing capabilities.
Sources:
Austin-American Statesman, via Tom's Hardware
As we know, semiconductor manufacturing is a drawn-out process, with some particular wafers taking several months in their journey from initial fabrication until they reach completion. This meas that it's a particularly sensitive business in regards to power outages or general service interruptions. The entire semiconductor manufacturing lines - and products therein, in various stages of production - can be rendered unusable due to these events, which will have a sizable impact in the final manufacturing output of a given factory. It remains to be seen the scale of this production impact, but a few percentage points difference in the overall global semiconductor manufacturing could have dire implications for availability and pricing, considering the already insufficient operational capacity in regards to demand. Considering the impact adverse temperatures are having on Texas residents, here's hoping for the quick resolution of these problems, which affect much more than just semiconductor manufacturing capabilities.
92 Comments on Manufacturing: Samsung Semiconductor Fabs in Texas Shut Down Following State-wide Power Shortages
Four days later, ERCOT is still experiencing a 15+ GW shortfall of operating generators. That's more than all of the renewable power sources combined. The 30 GW of natural gas, coal and nuclear power capacity that went off-line is a whole lot more significant than freezing up half of the windmills.
The charts here don't tell lies:
www.eia.gov/beta/electricity/gridmonitor/dashboard/electric_overview/US48/US48
ERCOT generation at midnight Sunday night:
43.0 GW Natural Gas
10.8 GW Coal
5.5 GW Wind
5.1 GW Nuclear
0.2 GW Hydro
0.03 GW Other
0.0 GW Solar
1.2 GW imported power from neighboring regions
===
65.8 GW total supplied to customers
ERCOT generation at midnight Wednesday night:
27.9 GW Natural Gas
7.2 GW Coal
2.9 GW Wind
3.8 GW Nuclear
0.1 GW Hydro
0.02 GW Other
0.0 GW Solar
0.8 GW imported power from neighboring regions
===
42.7 GW total supplied to customers
-58.0 GW projected demand
===
15.3 GW of customer demand blacked out.
This applies almost to every such accident in one way or another. People being people, hypocrites, spineless, or just not committed. Usually in the upper levels.Maybe this is how they're trying to reach their carbon emission reduction targets? :D
Its possibly not even a joke, that's the sad part.
It will be closer to 200%, not 500%.
As of Wednesday, 46,000 megawatts of generation were offline, with 185 generating plants tripped. ERCOT officials said 28,000 megawatts came from coal, gas and nuclear plants, and 18,000 megawatts were from solar and wind.
This is the part I'm calling bs on. Natural gas doesn't freeze in 25F temps ... not even close. Someone dropped the ball for whatever reason(s) and they're coming up with some excuses that nobody with an IQ north of a turnip is going to buy into.
Cohan also said some natural gas plants may not have been able to get adequate supply of gas to be converted into electricity, too.
"This is far beyond what the power system operators expected, a far deeper freeze and a far worse performance from our natural gas power plants than anyone anticipated," Cohan said.
We have similar problems in NL, except not with power supply, but other basics like healthcare, where everything is managed so tightly that the pandemic showed us a glaring lack of, for example, IC beds. We can't handle anything before all signs turn red in that sense. In comparison, Germany had thousands of them ready to go. Its the same principle: do you have redundancy when things go really wrong.
Its really about how you manage a country and spend tax payers money. We need to have an opinion on this and we need to voice it. These are the most basic needs a government has to facilitate, and if they choose to use the tool 'market' for it, they damn well better make sure they regulate and inspect it proper.
Those custom forecasters also assist in mitigation as well. And also they work with insurance as well. So those companies can cover their asses..
Next: bio fuels made of trees. Soon youll be a desert entirely. The energy economy the US developed is going to backfire in a big way if it isnt already. The real question is if you can even turn all that corruption around, ever.
The rabbit hole is so deep a vast portion of the electorate has already effectively disconnected from future perspective over the last pres. term and the current opposition has no real backbone left to speak of. Good luck with that...
Texas's gas lines don't seem to be buried, or insulated, at all. Its clear that they're completely unprepared for any kind of cold weather. You can't just assume cold-weather competence from southerners like you do with fellow Alaskans.
EDIT: In my experience with southerners, they'll be driving around in their summer tire slicks, slipping and sliding on 2-degree inclines and getting stuck on the side of the road in these conditions. With "luck", you'll see a lot of them jamming their foots on the pedals as hard as possible, wondering why they have no friction as their tires spin. The very idea of freezing is alien to them, and many have no practical experience with freezing conditions (be it driving, living, or well... building power plants it seems). I'm not surprised to see that they've built their power plants in this manner.
If you look at power outage maps, one of the least effected areas of the state is the Texas panhandle. That's the coldest part of the state running a large number of wind turbines.
Texas uses more wind power than any other state in the USA think it was nearly 20%
The issue isn't "wind turbines". Its the comical lack of preparedness for cold conditions. Its not just ~15GWs of Wind that shut down, but 30GWs of nuclear, coal, and natural gas plants. Frozen pipes, preventing the flow of water into the nuclear plants shut them down. Frozen pipes preventing natural gas plants from operating. Etc. etc. It seems like huge swaths of the Texas power-grid is not weatherized at all.
Hint: Bury your gas / water lines that feed your power plants before the next storm hits.
They shut down about 30% gas and coal and put up windmills at about 30% power, but it turns out the windmills average power was much smaller than their max power production, so they ended up only replacing about 25% of the power they shut down and like we are seeing now in these very cold weeks the windmills just froze up completely!
Yeah water/ rain freezes on... metal pipes nothing new there lol
Water pipes that's when you run into problems especially cold water pipes.
The main issue I'm seeing is that water pipes froze. Without water, a nuclear-power plant cannot generate electricity and is thus forced to shut down. A frozen above-ground pipe absolutely could mean frozen water preventing the operation of a power plant. I'm seeing reports from ~5F to ~15F weather across Texas: low enough to freeze an uninsulated water pipe for sure.
Solar Power seems to be the most reliable in these winter circumstances, strangely enough.
Ethane for example, turns into liquid around merely -10 F at 200 psi, as opposed to -127 F in normal pressure. If you choose a heavy mix and a high pressure, of course it WILL freeze.
Second law of physics: If you decompress a gas at the receiving side, for every 100 psi you drop, the temperature will drop by 7 F and begin to freeze other stuff.
And: Don't assume everyone transport gas with absolute no traces of water vapor. The Fed may have regulations on vapor concentrations, but it's TEXAS!
Yes, even if the gas arrived in gaseous form, if you do not reserve enough heating power, your machines and pipes will experience an icestorm. Do you dare to turn on the valves?
El Paso had a hard freeze that affected their power generation plants in 2011. After that event, the local utility spent $4½ million to repair and winterize their facilities and they updated their design and maintenance guidelines to consider colder weather. Guess who's still got power this week when most of Texas is failing hard.