Helene takes ultrapure quartz mines offline, threatens tech supply chains

Millions of people across the US South have gone without power or have been forced to evacuate following days of extreme downpours brought on by Hurricane Helene. North Carolina has borne the brunt of the devastation, with the state accounting for a third of all recorded fatalities to date. And as relief operations get underway, the eyes of the world are on a small town of about 2,000 in the western part of the state.

Spruce Pine sits about an hour northeast of Asheville, Mitchell County, and is home to the world’s biggest known source of ultrapure quartz—often referred to as high-purity quartz, or HPQ. This material is used for manufacturing crucibles, on which global semiconductor production relies, as well as to make components within semiconductors themselves.

Semiconductors are the fundamental building blocks of modern IT. Transistors, a type of semiconductor device, are the small electronic switches that perform computation functions in every tech gadget, from smartphones to electric scooters, data centers, and military aircraft. They make possible the processors that power most of the world’s smart gadgets.

HPQ is the raw material for the high-grade quartz products that sit at the heart of high-end consumer tech products. Its chemical and physical properties—including high temperature and corrosion resistance, low thermal expansion, high insulation, and light transmission—mean it can be used in optical communication and electronic light sources technology. HPQ drives a $500 billion microchip industry that is core to the $3 trillion global tech sector.

Spruce Pine supplies around 70 percent of the naturally occurring HPQ that is needed for computing devices and products. The site’s market position and significance were underlined in 2019 when a manager for Quartz Corp, one of the two main mining companies that works the deposit, told the BBC: “Inside nearly every cell phone and computer chip you’ll find quartz from Spruce Pine.”

Quartz is the second-most abundant mineral in the Earth’s crust, but while it can be found across the world, quartz reserve properties—including a deposit’s size and type—vary by region. It is rare to find economically viable deposits of HPQ. Aside from Spruce Pine, the largest are found in India and Brazil.

Another silicon material, so-called silicon metal—a lower-grade and more easily accessible material that is largely sourced in China—is also listed as a critical raw material for the silicon industry by the European Commission, the UK, India, and South Korea. But it is unclear what percentage of it is refined for use in computing. “HPQ from Spruce Pine is, in a way, more critical and valuable because of its purity,” says Jonnie Penn, an associate professor of AI ethics and society at the University of Cambridge.

“Its unique purity emerges out of processes that unfold over geological rather than human timescales,” Penn says. “This purity requirement matters most for advanced computing systems in areas like the military, health care, and quantum computing.”

The two main companies at the Spruce Pine pegmatite complex—roughly 40 kilometers long by 16 kilometers wide, according to a 1962 survey—are Quartz Corp and Unimim, a subsidiary of the global industrial minerals company SCR-Sibelco, based in Belgium.

A spokesperson for Sibelco said, “As of September 26, we have temporarily halted operations at the Spruce Pine facilities in response to these challenges.

“We are working closely with our local team to safely restart operations as soon as we can and are actively coordinating with local authorities and other partners to manage the situation. Our top priority remains the health, safety, and well-being of our employees, as well as ensuring the security of the Spruce Pine facility.”

Quartz Corp did not immediately reply to WIRED’s request for comment.

Viral social media posts have claimed that due to the flooding, global production of semiconductors could halt. This doomsday scenario is unlikely, but experts are gravely concerned about the impact the flooding could have on the tech industry and the economic ramifications of prolonged supply chain pressures caused by the shutdown of the site.

“The key thing will not be just the floods, as bad as they are,” says Chris Hackney, a researcher in human geography at Newcastle University in the UK. “The damage to infrastructure—roads, transport, power, and mining equipment—will stop production for a while. There’s potential for landslides.”

Hackney adds that “any disruption to supply chains will have an impact on prices and production of high-ended electronics and tech.”

Tom Bide, a senior scientist at the British Geological Survey, believes it’s possible the disaster will prove minimally disruptive due to stockpiling and other kinds of contingency work.

“The impact on the tech industry will very much depend on how long it takes them to get operations running again,” he says. “It is likely most manufacturers have some level of stockpiles so there will be some ‘slack’ in the system. If the issues are temporary this may have no discernible effect.”

Bide estimates it would take around a month for any serious impacts to be felt.

Other researchers, however, warned that serious costs are likely to be incurred as a result of the disaster. Penn says he “would be surprised if there were not a flinch felt, if not more.”