Arizona Is Running Out of Cheap Water. Investors Saw It Coming

bloomberg.com

7 pointsmirthlessend4 comments

Saw it coming, yet we collectively decided that Arizona was the perfect place to build TSMC a massive fab facility? Putting such a facility in a place that is running out of the little water it already had? Brilliant.

Don't they reuse most of the water? I doubt they pull much from outside once the system is full.

When you put it that way, it sounds as if building and/or operating fab uses much more water than, say, an average factory or a golf course. Does it actually?

I've lived in AZ. The amount of golf courses in the PHX and Tucson areas is mindbogglingly dumb as there's hundreds of other uses for that water, most of which are exponentially better for society at large.

Granted, AZ does have a rainy season, and if the courses are collecting that water en masse and exclusively using that water to keep the courses looking green, I'm all for that.

You bring up a good point though, I wonder how much fresh or recycled water a given fab uses, versus the annual useage by a golf course or group of courses.

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