[PragmaticPulp]

Industry is a surprisingly small portion of water consumption in many places. In many states, household water use (including lawns) can handily exceed the water used by industry.

Using this water for domestic chip making is arguably a very reasonable use of water. If we’re going to start cutting water usage, let’s start with things like golf courses in the desert instead of critical chip-making infrastructure.

[throwaway894345]

I feel a bit of tension. I'm not a big fan of people using water to grow grass in the desert, but I'm also not a big fan of making tens or hundreds of thousands of people sacrifice so that one large corporation can profit.

Yeah, I know that chip manufacturing helps everyone by improving our economic independence, and that's not a small thing, but we're already writing Intel a big check and they obviously benefit from the profits of the chips they will manufacture (assuming they manage it correctly and it doesn't just get left behind for cheaper foreign manufacturing the moment the market economics change).

Maybe chip manufacture really benefits from being somewhere arid, and that's probably just pretty incompatible with water conservation?

[hosh]

I used to get so mad about people growing lawns here in Phoenix until I discovered that Burmuda grass will tenaciously grow with little irrigation, and that some kind of vegetation is better for water retention in soil than bare dirt.

As I mentioned in my longer comment elsewhere, Arizona is seismically stable, and fabs don’t need specialized structures when using advanced process nodes.

The biggest misuse of water resources and poor land management comes from our conventional, commercial farming practice. Healthy, living soil can do a lot ecologically including water conservation, but we farm in a way to continually deplete soil.

Changing how residential homeowners do landscaping can help as well.

[sumtechguy]

I switched out my whole yard to zoysia (which is one of those creeping vine grasses like Bermuda). I picked it over Bermuda because it grows in thicker. I went from watering at least once a week to maybe once or twice a year if at all. That is in a area with an ok amount of rain.

I liked this type of grass as it grows relatively slowly which means about half the amount of mowing needed to be done. Low water (less than Bermuda), kills most weeds (less pesticides and weed killers), less mowing, those are the upsides. Downsides are turns yellow in October and does not turn green until the end of april (not HOA friendly), and like most creeping vine grasses is invasive and hard to get rid of if you do not like it, it also grows very poorly in shaded areas. Aggressive trimming is also needed when it reaches walkways, streets, driveways, and the side of your house.

I also spent a good amount of time building up a decent bed for the grass to grow in with mulching and proper aeration. Another thing I did was to make sure I had a good mix of the correct type of insects, moss, worms, and transplanted from local areas potting soils for other bits in the soil, trying to keep area and the type of grass in mind. As the original builder had scraped off the good stuff, leaving me with clay and rocks and rye grass, then took it to another site before I bought the place. This helped tremendously with the soil. Though I could have done better on my homework with that.

Depending on where you live, what sort of rain you get, and the soil types, this can be a 1 year job or a 10 year job. It really takes time to do.

[bcrosby95]

It also helps with the heat island effect.

But yeah, there's lots of different types of grasses that are OK to have in arid climates. But most lawns in my region (socal) aren't these special grasses. Subterranean irrigation can help too.

[imajoredinecon]

Is it potentially a little narrow to frame "one large corporation... profit[ing]" as the main result of consuming the water?

They're also:

- producing useful things

- employing people to do said production (and design the production process, and the thing that's getting produced)

- paying suppliers for the parts that go into the useful things getting produced

[throwaway894345]

Yeah, I agree that my framing was narrow. Corporations of course benefit society.

> paying suppliers for the parts that go into the useful things getting produced

I suspect this is overstated considering how much of these parts likely come from abroad, especially from oppressive countries that subsidize their manufacturing via pollution and pseudo slave labor. But still there are certainly American wholesale and logistics jobs which are supported.

[selectodude]

Chip manufacturing benefits from somewhere that has very predictable weather and low/no seismic activity.

[NikolaeVarius]

Its fucking lawn grass. Its one of the most worthless things in the world and a complete waste of resources. At least chips do something other than sit there wasting water.

[throwaway894345]

I agree. But the idea of asking tens or hundreds of thousands to give up their frivolities so a single corporation can profit strikes a nerve in me, however irrational it may be. I'm not reflexively anti-corporation--corporations are economically necessary--but I guess I'm touchy about the question of whether people exist for corporations or corporations for people.

[ryan93]

They can keep their lawn. She’s should just have to pay more money since the water has more valuable uses elsewhere

[8note]

Itel can also move somewhere else. It's bad coming into a community and telling everyone their water costs more now because you want a lot of it.

If anything, Intel should pay them to get rid of their lawn

[ryan93]

The article didnt say water prices are increasing. They get most of their water from recycling what they use. Regardless filling a pot of water for pasta would go from a fraction of a penny to a fraction of a penny even if intel increased their water use ten fold

[BurningFrog]

The simple answer is to set the water price so supply matches demand, and let everyone sort out what they prioritize.

I don't expect this to happen.

[ryan93]

What sacrifice are people making when the water is recycled?

[throwaway894345]

I was responding to the implication that people should reduce their water consumption for this facility.