“Here’s something scary,” says one veteran of the sector. “If you flew over the two mines in Spruce Pine with a crop duster loaded with a very particular powder, you could end the world’s production of semiconductors and solar panels within six months.” No high-purity quartz means no Czochralski crucibles, which means no monocrystalline silicon wafers, which means, well, the end of computer chip manufacture as we know it. We would adapt; find a new process or an alternative substance. But it would be a grisly few years. Perhaps this is why those who work in high-purity quartz are so jumpy.
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