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Can Taiwan quench TSMC’s thirst for water?

Can Taiwan quench TSMC’s thirst for water?

Source:Pei-Yin Hsieh

TSMC is planning a 2nm wafer foundry complex that could substantially increase the demand for water in a part of Taiwan that frequently goes dry. Can enough water be found for the project, or will it be derailed by an environmental impact assessment?

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Can Taiwan quench TSMC’s thirst for water?

By Hannah Chang
web only

With much of Taiwan trapped in a serious drought, an environmental impact assessment (EIA) of TSMC’s planned 2-nanometer wafer foundry complex has emerged as a major challenge.

A third meeting to review the EIA for the complex, a key part of the Hsinchu Science Park Phase 2 Expansion Project in Baoshan, will soon be held, and the drought, which has hit the Hsinchu and Miaoli area particularly hard, has only highlighted a potential problem.

“The water issue will again be on the agenda,” said a member of the EIA committee who is participating in the review, speaking on the condition of anonymity. That the review coincides with the severe water shortage will only make water a more controversial and timely issue, the source said.

“The water situation is at its most sensitive right now,” said a senior official with the Hsinchu Science Park Bureau, referring to drought conditions in the area that have not been experienced in 56 years. Reserves of the main reservoir that supplies water to the science park – the Second Baoshan Reservoir – were down to below 10 percent of capacity as of April 5.

“It’s a tough time for the EIA to be submitted,” the official said. “We cannot give all the water to TSMC. There’s just no way. All we can do is try hard to overcome the problem.” 

(Source: Chien-Tong Wang)

The world’s largest contract chipmaker has yet to confirm when commercial production using its most advanced 2nm process will begin. But based on projections of a 2022 launch for 3nm mass production, chips using the 2nm process could be churned out in volume starting in 2024 or 2025, which is why the EIA under consideration is such a pressing matter. 

The Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) held the first meeting of the EIA Committee’s review of the EIA for the 2nm project on December 16, 2020. At the time, the report on the Hsinchu Science Park Phase 2 Expansion Project indicated that TSMC’s four 2nm wafer plants would use an additional 120,000 cubic meters of water per day. That was not only more than double the 57,000 cubic meters used per day by TSMC in the Hsinchu Science Park in 2019 but also nearly equal to the 140,000 cubic meters per day currently used by the park as a whole.

Representatives of the Environmental Rights Foundation (ERF), the Taiwan Clean Water Action Alliance and local residents, and Hsinchu County council members all raised questions about the project at the time. Among their concerns: “TSMC uses 85 percent of the Hsinchu Science Park’s daily water consumption”; “Industrial-use water crowding out other purposes!”; “Huge water volume exceeds the capacity of Hsinchu’s environment”; and “Don’t affect residential water supplies.”    

ERF researcher Hsu Po-jen (許博任) argued that the Baoshan Phase 2 project requires too much water and would cause an imbalance in supply and demand for water in the Greater Hsinchu area. He advocated having the expansion project undergo a phase 2 EIA; otherwise, he argues, as soon as a water shortage emerges, water for agricultural irrigation will be sacrificed for the local science park.

The mere mention of a phase 2 EIA has park authorities and TSMC worried.

According to Taiwan’s Environmental Impact Assessment Act, phase 2 EIAs are required for certain projects “due to concern of a significant impact on the environment.” They demand extremely detailed information and result in a lengthy review process. Organizations looking to push projects forward see them as daunting and to be avoided if at all possible. 

Chen Shu-chu, deputy director-general of the Hsinchu Science Park Bureau, admitted in a recent interview with CommonWealth Magazine that the situation would be “very hard to control” during a phase 2 EIA review. 

For that reason, she said, the park bureau and TSMC decided to reduce the park expansion’s water requirements from 120,000 to 98,000 cubic meters a day, with 68,000 cubic meters coming from the general water supply and 30,000 cubic meters coming from recycled wastewater. 

“The water consumption was too high. After taking into account its process and yield requirements, TSMC reviewed the situation again internally,” said Su Wen-ching, the section chief of the Hsinchu Science Park Bureau’s Construction Management Division.  

TSMC looked at whether it was possible to reduce water consumption and improve the wastewater recovery rate and the rate of production of recycled water, according to Su, with positive results. "TSMC took another inventory of those areas, and it was finally willing to commit to lowering the 120,000 cubic meter projection.” 

In a statement given to CommonWealth, TSMC said it was confident it could overcome water issues related to the Baoshan development.

“TSMC’s command of new technologies and new water-saving measures will gradually improve over time, and we are confident that the originally planned additional water use of 120,000 cubic meters per day can be reduced to 98,000 cubic meters per day,” the company said.

It has already moved in that direction, it said, by taking several tangible measures to reduce water consumption, including applying new water-saving measures to existing equipment, using water-saving designs for new machines and equipment, and developing advanced water-saving and recycling technologies.  

It also confirmed that a water recycling plant will be built within the new TSMC factory complex as part of the overall Baoshan facility’s construction schedule, and that TSMC and the park bureau will team up on the design and planning of the water recycling plant and wastewater treatment plant.

Su said TSMC has indeed committed to building a water recycling plant. Under the plan, wastewater from its manufacturing processes will be treated first by TSMC and then channeled to the water recycling plant to turn into recycled water, before being channeled to the park bureau’s wastewater plant to be treated.


(Source: Ming-Tang Huang)

“The process will generate about 30,000 cubic meters of recycled water a day. TSMC expects to increase its water recovery rate from the current 75 percent to 85 percent,” said Su, who praised TSMC for the efforts it has already made, resulting in its use of each drop of water in its factory an average of 3.5 times. 

In the future, TSMC hopes to add the step of recovering thick solvents from wastewater sent to its water recycling plant and then refining, recycling and reusing them in the manufacturing process, Su said, though acknowledging that “this will have a very high degree of difficulty.” 

Desalination plants in Taiwan’s future

In the face of a potentially serious water crisis, the Hsinchu Science Park Bureau’s emergency desalination facility – the Hsinchu Nanliao Desalination Plant – was completed in February and is expected to provide up to 13,000 cubic meters of water a day.

But Economic Affairs Minister Wang Mei-hua offered a new solution at a hearing at the Legislative Yuan. She said the ministry was planning to build desalination plants in Hsinchu, Taoyuan, Chiayi, Tainan and Kaohsiung that would generate an estimated 1 billion cubic meters of water per year by 2031. The ministry expressed hope that the water could be supplied exclusively to factories in science parks and that the users would pay for all of the water generated. 

Gloria Shen (沈麗娟), vice president of Kenmec Mechanical Engineering Co., one of the contractors of the Hsinchu Nanliao Desalination Plant, said that the Nanliao facility is for emergency use at present but could be turned into a long-term desalination plant in the future.

With Taiwan increasingly facing regular water shortages in the summer months, and semiconductors emerging as the linchpin of Taiwan’s economic development and U.S.-China trade friction, desalination plants that exclusively supply factories could be the best way forward, she said.

Su agreed. “Desalination plants are one option among a range of water supply solutions,” he said, pointing to the government’s frequent mention of recycled water and desalination plants as possible solutions amid Taiwan’s current water drought.

“Companies that are members of industrial park associations are generally in favor of desalination plants and would like to see this move forward. It would give the industrial parks a new source of water and end the constant criticism that they are taking away water for residential use,” Su said.

TSMC is clearly open to the idea. “As long as the water meets the standards for use, TSMC will be happy to cooperate to make using multiple water sources more efficient,” the company said.

Water use in the spotlight in the EIA review

Still, even as TSMC, the Hsinchu Science Park Bureau, and the Ministry of Economic Affairs scramble to find solutions, the second review meeting of the science park expansion plan’s EIA on February 26 raised questions about the Baoshan project’s water and power requirements as well as potential earthquakes. The committee asked TSMC to provide additional documentation by April 30 before it makes a decision.  

The EIA committee member who spoke to CommonWealth said that, at a time when much of Taiwan is running short of water, the committee hoped for more from TSMC. It wanted to see if TSMC could propose a higher water recovery rate, increase its planned recycled water consumption, and show flexibility on whether the project’s overall water and power consumption could be further reduced.

The answers to those questions could very well determine whether the EIA stalls again and delays the 2nm foundry’s progress, which could have a major effect on the global semiconductor industry. 


Have you read?

TSMC Helps Water-Starved Taiwan Develop Smart Irrigation
♦ As Taiwan faces its worst-ever water shortage, what more can be done?

Translated by Luke Sabatier
Edited by TC Lin
Uploaded by Penny Chiang

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