Over the last few weeks/months I have seen so many articles, analysis, and claims on how China has the US pinned down and how the trade war is over with the US taking a beating. Most of the arguments for this fall under the idea that the rare earths refining and permanent magnet manufacturing game is over. That the US, even with the billions it is pouring into the sector, cannot catch up and that alone decides the fate of the US. However, rare earths are good and all but only if you can use them particularly if you can leverage them for semiconductors. This is where the US has a stranglehold over the industry that most of the population does not have a clue about at all. 

After Hurricane Helene hammered North Carolina in 2024 I was reading about the damage and destruction that the storm caused. During this I ran across a small city called Spruce Pine and how the destruction in this town could result in semiconductor supply chain shortages world wide. Over the next few months it became clear that the critical mine in Spruce Pine was able to get back up and running quicker than many had feared so the town and its mine slowly faded away until I stumbled across a YouTube video linked here.

So what is the deal with Spruce Pine? Why is it so critical to the entire world? How is it possible that it is more important than rare earths that we constantly see being brought up?

Quartz. That is what makes Spruce Pine so special. 

Brief History Lesson

During WWII when Germany ran over France they were able to secure the Fontainebleau mine which at the time produced the worlds most pure quartz leading the Allies to scramble for new deposits to access. At the time the purity of the quartz was critical for lenses for rifles and all the other military equipment. In the US two inferior ones were used while in the UK they found Lochaline which while initially still inferior to Fontainebleau ended up producing more pure quartz than even Fontainebleau.

Two years after the end of WWII the US found the deposit of hyper pure quartz that now powers the world. In the 80+ years since no where in the world has a deposit like this been found. Your typical quartz you would find as sand is composed of silica and other minerals. The purity we are talking about here based on the silica. So how pure is this deposit of quartz? Well, Fontainebleau is 99.7% pure, Lochaline is 99.8% pure, Spruce Pine is 99.9999% pure blowing everyone else out of the water. 

Hyper Quartz Use

In order to create the silicon wafers that the entire chip industry relies on silica crucibles that come from Spruce Pine. The reason for this is that when they melt the silicon to create the rod, which wafers are cut off of, the "melt" mixes with whatever it is in contact with ie the crucible. Since you cannot afford any contaminate in your silicon rod the crucible has to be as pure as possible to try and blunt the deformities in the wafers. That is where hyper quartz plays it role for being so pure. 

The kicker is that each crucible only has a single use due to the process destroying it. Even crazier is that 20-30% of the silicon rod's created will be failures with everything being perfect. 

Geologic Phenomena

This quartz deposit was formed 380 to 400 million years ago when the African and North American continents collided pushing rocks miles below the surface where two key things happened. The rocks were melted and baked for about 100 million years where they slowly slowly cooled allowing for huge crystals to be created as well as there was no water contamination. Water brings with it contamination affecting the purity of the quartz so without it the quartz were able to develop almost impurity free.

Due to a combination of the African continent pulling away and hundreds of millions of years of erosion the deposit went from up to 15 miles underground to near the surface were it could be accessed. No where else in the world in decades of looking has anyone found any sort of thing like this. In the YouTube video the speaker compares it to the Vredefort Impact Structure in South Africa, the largest and oldest confirmed asteroid impact crater on Earth. This asteroid caused uplift (bringing the gold closer to the surface) in the Witwatersand Basin where roughly 1/4 of all gold mined in the history of the world has come from.

Baring nothing short of a miracle in the distant future there is no replacement no other location or alternative process. The circumstances for the Spruce Pine quartz creation was a crazy long shot but it happened. This is more rare than lightening striking twice in the same location so for now the US has a complete lock on the ability to develop cutting edge semiconductors. 

Geopolitical Ramifications 

China has made it clear they plan on taking over the semiconductor industry just like they have with so many other industries. Semiconductors are a huge part of why China has been ramping up talks and threats to invade Taiwan as they want access to the cutting edge machines that Taiwan has. Even if China is able to invade and secure all the machines from blowing up (they do have charges in them after all to blow them up in an invasion scenario to prevent China from accessing them and also serving as a deterrent). The US only has to halt the shipment of the quartz to stop the production of the highest quality chips. Factor in the growing plant operation within the US and suddenly China making a move on Taiwan makes less and less sense. 

People can talk about rare earths all they want however if you don't even have a foundation the rare earths are moot. The US building up its rare earths supply chain and partnering with others only further puts China in a bind that it can't get out of. For those who think the trade war is over..... Sure it is if you are saying the US won and China can't do anything. The US has spent the better part of a decade now building stockpiles of rare earths for military applications. Another reason why if China were to suddenly cut them off the US has stock piles aka room to run and two more manufacturing lines are being brought on now. 

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