Micron mega-fab mildly endangered by definitely endangered American bats Micron is reportedly facing a new hitch to starting work on its proposed fabrication center in New York State: Endangered bats. In 2022 the memory maker announced plans to spend $100 billion over the next 20 years to build the "mega fab," claiming it will be the largest in the history of the United States, to be sited near the …
No. Just no. America has plenty of underused and brownfield industrial land. Micron does NOT need to rip-up wild bat-bearing land and dump into wetlands for a commodity chip factory.
> Acres I can just about remember
An acre is one chain by one furlong, or 10 square chains. (I have bought land legally described in chains and furlongs, only the surveyor was a notorious drunk and it all had to be done-over.) (Furlong is of course the sum of the left feet of the first 16 men to come out of church on Sunday.)
"Micron intends to cut down nearly 500 acres (more than two square kilometers) of forest"
There must be somewhere else they could build their factory that does not mean killing a whole lot of trees and other plants and animals. I feel really sad that when the natural environment is in such a bad way and needs all the help it can get companies can still act as if it is 'someone else's problem'.
(OK, so I am a bit of a 'tree-hugger' and like the natural environment away from the pollution and mechanical noise of towns and cities, but even so, loads of other people like trees too.)
* A rather good short novel by the great writer Ursula K Le Guin, takes a while to get going but has a superb ending.
Eclectic Man (and PRR),
I tend to agree in principle with you, but 500 acres is a pretty large site.
Finding a single brownfield site big enough might be tricky, and even if you find a couple of adjacent plots that together provide the necessary area, if they have different owners, then land acquisition can be tricky and potentially expensive (if one of the potential vendors realises that you need all the sites for your project to work, they could potentially push up the sale price).
Also, brownfield site remediation is typically not cheap, depending on what's in the soil and groundwater and what level of remediation you need to reach: in this case, logically it would be to 'industry use' standard, not 'residential with garden' standard, but that doesn't mean that you can (necessarily) leave contaminants in the ground.
Then you have to consider the operational requirements of the site - where do supplies come from, where does finished product go to? Closeness to both is good. And hence connectivity into the major road network.
Then chuck in issues like power supply, labour supply / where your workers live/want to live, taxes and other regulations, etc.
Also, there is at least the possibility that if the proposal was not here but somewhere else, then the complaints would be about sand lizards, or destroying "vital and irreplaceable heritage" (i.e. derelict industrial buildings), or whatever.
So not taking a greenfield site - yup, agree, that would definitely be preferable.
But if they are going to build this plant, they have to do so somewhere where it can actually operate without making a loss.
Though given that they have received a wadge of federal funding (i.e. US tax-payers' money), one might have hoped that the US authorities would have taken a more upfront interest, and stepped in to make the brownfield redevelopment option more appealing.
Hi, DrSmith, thanks for the reply, but:
By definition Brownfield sites will already be close to communications, transport and mains services. Yes, they do need to be made safe, but we cannot build on Greenfield sites indefinitely. At some time we will have to protect all green space, so why not start now?
"At some time we will have to protect all green space, so why not start now"
I agree.
However, your assumption about brown field sites is not necessarily correct. It might be, but it's not a given.
A lot of heavy industry relied on rail for transport of materials inwards and finished product outwards, rail links which may well have since been torn up, and the site possibly had very poor road access.
Power supply might have been on-site coal fired power plants, or via power lines that have since been disconnected.
Alternatively, power supply / water supply may be inadequate for the needs of the proposed development.
Urban spawl might have engulfed the brownfield site, meaning there are no major roads to and from the site, meaning truck access to the site is through residential areas (though you do at least have a local work force).
Conversely, the closure of 'the plant' may have devastating the local community, causing the whole surrounding area to be a semi-derelict ghost town
(Note - I'm in the UK, so am viewing this from a European perspective, US industrial changes will of course followed their own distinct path)
So yes - absolutely, clean up the brown field sites and re-use (I would say this... it's part of my day job).
Be aware though, that there will likely be problems a plenty. It seems to work best when the authorities (whoever they happen to be) identify a brownfield area to be redeveloped, and provide the necessary regime (planning, tax breaks, etc) coupled with revitalizing utilities and transport links, to draw in private developers to tackle individual plots. I've seen this done at various scales on several sites in the UK plus a couple in Europe, so far (seemingly) successfully.
"I tend to agree in principle with you, but 500 acres is a pretty large site.
Finding a single brownfield site big enough might be tricky,"
Detroit? Washington DC? both appear to be suitable sites for re-development. although cleaning up the toxic waste from the site before starting would swallow most of the budget...
And in 20 years this will be a superfund toxic cleanup site just like the ones the Pataki admin "bought" from IBM.
And decided would be used as-is for government staff, heavy metal contamination be damned.
Chip fabbing is dirty. That is why we let other countries do it and buy from them.
Luckily this one will be situated somewhere the pollution won't be noticed for a bit.
I'll be dead before the crocodile tears start flowing.
There's a grassy patch along the road in my neck of the woods - someone wanted to build housing on it. It immediately turned out that there are vernal pools there and that the place shouldn't be touched.
The proof was a few pictures of regular puddles that formed in spring thaw.
Once that was cleared out, it turned out that the place has seen the presence of eastern box turtles. An expert ecologist testified in front of the wetlands commission about said amazing discovery, and it turned out that said turtle was not seen there per se, and that the place is not turtle habitat, but was "a place the turtles would use, should there be any in the area".
But were there eastern box turtles in the area ? Per the ecologist - unlikely, as turtles (any turtles) had last been seen in there in 2009, at which time the area was larger and less fragmented.
The noble defenders of vernal p-turtles then angrily required an explanation on WHY does the report not include the close-by river area, but just the plot ?!?
It turned out that the river was hundreds of feet away, across a road with a nice amount of traffic, and an area not under the commission's jurisdiction.
I'll pass on the non-turtle related details, such as questions like "But how can you guarantee that no cigarette butt or candy wrapper will end up on the ground ???"
I expect that spreading out wide is easier, and therefore cheaper. You don't need such effective (and deep) foundations, you don't need to build lots of floors up and can finish one part of the building before the rest is even started. OK so you will need lots more roofing material.
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