Disasters and the Supply Chain

One of the unexpected consequences of Hurricane Helene is that it disrupted and shut down the high-quality quartz mines near Spruce Pine, North Carolina. This will cause a temporary disruption for the semiconductor industry. One of the most important steps in making silicon chips and key components for solar panels is to melt down a highly purified substance called polysilicon. This can only be done in crucibles that don’t react with the polysilicon, and the best material for making the crucibles is the ultra-pure quartz that is mined at Spruce Pine. One of the key characteristics of supply chain disruptions is that they are most often a big surprise. There is nobody who could have imagined the disruption of mining for ultra-pure quartz in western North Carolina. I’m sure that the folks running that mine would have sworn that such an event was unthinkable. What we’ve learned in recent years is that almost nothing is unthinkable anymore.