Hurricane Helene‘s destruction of a small town in North Carolina has put the global semiconductor industry at risk, as the town is home to one of the modern world’s most crucial mineral deposits. Spruce Pine, a hamlet of 2,600, provides a significant portion of the world’s supply of high-purity quartz, an essential material for semiconductor production.
More than a week after the hurricane’s remnants swept through the Blue Ridge Mountains, the mining operations in Spruce Pine remain shut down. Severe flooding caused by Helene has left townspeople without basic utilities like running water and electricity, while search and rescue efforts continue for hundreds of people still reported missing.
The high-purity quartz mined in Spruce Pine is indispensable to the semiconductor industry. Quartz’s unique properties—its purity, thermal stability, chemical resistance and optical clarity—are vital for producing reliable, efficient electronic devices. Without a steady supply of this material, the $600 billion global semiconductor industry could face significant disruptions.
Breitbart reports that with roads in and out of the area destroyed, the full impact on global production could be long-lasting if recovery efforts don’t proceed quickly:
Before Helene, companies like Sibelco and The Quartz Corp. extracted the high-quality quartz before refining it and shipping it to global manufacturing facilities, primarily in China and other Asian countries.
Those operations have all been placed on pause as the Appalachian community grapples with getting basic necessities such as food and water.
Neither of the major companies has released a timeline on when they could possibly resume mining.
“Hurricane Helene has significantly impacted North Carolina, USA, and the Spruce Pine community has been hit particularly hard,” Sibelco said in a September 30 statement, before saying that “many people,” including their own employees and families, are facing “displacement.”
“We have confirmed the safety of most employees and are working diligently to contact those still unreachable due to ongoing power outages and communication challenges,” the statement continued. “As of September 26th, we have temporarily halted operations at the Spruce Pine facilities in response to these challenges.”
The Quartz Corp issued a similar statement on October 1st.
As the foundation of nearly all electronic devices, semiconductors have become integral to everything from personal communication to global infrastructure in the digital age.
Without them, the technology that drives communication (smartphones, computers), health care (medical devices, telemedicine), transportation (modern cars, electric vehicles), energy (power grids, energy-efficient lighting, defense (defense systems, cybersecurity) and commerce (financial systems, e-commerce) would not exist, making them essential for the functioning of modern society.
As Spruce Pine battles to recover, the world watches closely, bracing for potential delays and shortages in the semiconductor supply chain.