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Foxconn Will Drain 7 Million Gallons of Water Per Day From Lake Michigan to Make LCD Screens (gizmodo.com)
Earlier this week, the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources granted permission to Taiwanese tech manufacturer Foxconn, best known for assembling Apple's iPhones, to siphon off seven million gallons of water per day from Lake Michigan, despite protests from conservation groups. From a report: The massive diversion of water from the lake will be used to produce LCD screens at the company's planned $10 billion, 20 million square foot manufacturing plant set to be built in Mount Pleasant, Wisconsin. Nearly 2.7 million gallons of the water -- about 39 percent of the daily intake from the factory -- will be lost in the process, primarily from evaporation. The remaining water will be treated and returned to the lake basin.
Wisconsin's DNR noted in a statement that the requested withdrawal will "only amount to a 0.07 percent increase in the total surface water withdrawals from Lake Michigan." For environmentalists in the region, the issue is not so much the diversion for the Foxconn factory itself but rather the precedent it will set for how the lake water can be used. "If we allow this to happen, it's going to happen all over the basin, with other states and then it's going to be the thirsty states and nations to come," Jennifer Giegerich, the government affairs director for the Wisconsin League of Conservation Voters, warned during a public hearing about the diversion, according to the Wisconsin Gazette.
Wisconsin's DNR noted in a statement that the requested withdrawal will "only amount to a 0.07 percent increase in the total surface water withdrawals from Lake Michigan." For environmentalists in the region, the issue is not so much the diversion for the Foxconn factory itself but rather the precedent it will set for how the lake water can be used. "If we allow this to happen, it's going to happen all over the basin, with other states and then it's going to be the thirsty states and nations to come," Jennifer Giegerich, the government affairs director for the Wisconsin League of Conservation Voters, warned during a public hearing about the diversion, according to the Wisconsin Gazette.
If you want manufacturing jobs - then you have to let them do manufacturing here. Manufacturing takes water and power... no way around it.
I'm sure that the water is not so much "used" (as in it disappears)... I'm sure they have a method for returning most of it. I would be more interested in what their controls are for the re-release of that water.
Or once the factory uses the water, is it treated to a level so that it is cleaner than when it came from the lake and then is returned back into the lake?
Passionately Indifferent
7 million sounds scary but it is not that much, only about 11 Olympic sized pools.
I would be far more worried about the treated water they return not being treated well enough. Also, why not reuse your own treated water instead of pumping more out?
Oh, wait, it's not. Lake Michigan is somewhere around 4500 cubic km of water. And seven million gallons per day means that, even if all the water removed is pumped to Arizona for disposal, it'll be 500,000 years before the lake goes dry.
And the water taken out won't be pumped to Arizona. Eventually, it'll go right back into the lake....
Color me unimpressed with the Environmental Catastrophe In The Making....
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
According to this study, natural evaporative losses can be up to 0.6 inches per day. Assuming it's really just under half an inch (about 12mm), natural evaporation from Lake Michigan can reach 183 billion gallons per day. That 2.7 million gallons lost per day - and as the article says, most of it to evaporation - is about 0.0014% of the current evaporation. Is moving evaporation from the lake surface to a site right next to the lake surface an issue? In other words, relocating around 1 thousandth of 1 percent o the evaporation is the concern?
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
Even if no water ever enters the lake again it would take 1/2 million years to use it all up. I'm not exaggerating, the lake is that big. Go nuts use what you need.
If however the return effluent is toxic that now becomes an issue. Small amounts of toxins have dramatic impacts on environment.
Let them have treated sewage water.
The next petitioners will be the farmers in Kansas and Nebraska who have already depleted the enormous water tables under their farms. They'll demand a pipeline from Lake Michigan to the middle of the country so they can keep growing grain to sell to Russia and China. People who say this is a small amount of water should take a look at the Caspian Sea, which was killed by all the industry around it. It really pains me to see this start happening to the Great Lakes.
Typical right-wing idiocy. "Der her I don't care if I die of cancer as long as the libtards do too, der her."
The water is not lost.
The water is either returned to the lake
or the water goes into the air and then returns to the environment as rain, snow, etc.
This is much hubaloo over nothing.
I was going to test that for you, but they didn't want their books getting wet.
Lake Michigan, according to satellite measurements and formulas, holds One Quadrillion gallons of water.
http://blog.livnfresh.com/how-...
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
13. Making two pounds of paper requires 793 gallons of water—so think before you print!
15. Making two pounds of beef requires 4068 gallons of water. Feed for the livestock accounts for 99 percent of that massive footprint.
Source
Pair of Jeans
.
.
.
It takes around 1,800 gallons of water to grow enough cotton to produce just one pair of regular ol' blue jeans. [2]
Cotton T-Shirt
Not as bad as jeans, it still takes a whopping 400 gallons of water to grow the cotton required for an ordinary cotton shirt.
Single Board of Lumber
5.4 gallons of water are used to grow enough wood for one lumber board. [3]
Barrel of Beer
In order to process a single barrel of beer (32 gallons of booze), 1,500 gallons of water are sucked down. [3]
To-Go Latte
It takes 53 gallons to make every latte, as I've noted before:
That sugar, doesn't that have to be grown as cane first? Hm. And then there's that plastic lid, which has to be created and distributed over hundreds of miles. And doesn't plastic require a pretty vast amount of water and oil to produce? Come to think of it, there's the sleeve and the cup itself too . .
Gallon of Paint
Takes 13 gallons of water to make.
Individual Bottled Water
This irony shouldn't be lost on anyone: it takes 1.85 gallons of water to manufacture the plastic for the bottle in the average commercial bottle of water.
One Ton of . .
Steel: 62,000 gallons of water
Cement: 1,360 gallons
One Pound of . .
Wool: 101 gallons of water
Cotton: 101 gallons
Plastic: 24 gallons
Synthetic Rubber: 55 gallons
Source
Surely there must be enough pig farming operations along the pipe pathway to pump liquid pig manure rather than water into the Facebook facility.
I worked at the Linwood water filtration plant, one of two in the City of Milwaukee. There was a North and a South side section of the plant and the slowest rate the plant could handle was 30 million gallons per day. That doesn't count how much the Howard Avenue plant was pulling. Lake Michigan has one quadrillion gallons of water, that's 1,000,000,000,000,000 gallons. http://blog.livnfresh.com/how-... If this group was truly concerned about Lake Michigan, they would be complaining about the untreated sewage that MMSD (Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewage District) discharges during heavy rainfalls. The city of Milwaukee has combined sewers (sanitary and storm) so that heavy rainfall overwhelms the treatment plants. The deep tunnel system can't always hold enough, thus the "diversions" The city of Milwaukee doesn't want to spent the money to separate their sewers like most everyone else has.
Just that.
Dennis Onstenk
no-DUH! That's why they're called Liquid-Computer-Display (screens).
Is this really news...
CAP === 'inject'
A typical large tanker truck hauls about 11,000 gallons of liquid. So you are proposing they use ~640 tanker trucks EVERY DAY as the environmentally friendly replacement for a single pipe 16" pipe running at ~10 PSI? Seriously? Assuming a 20 mile round trip, you're looking at using about 4,500 gallons - minimum - of diesel consumption every day, or about the equivalent emissions of about 10,000 cars. Every day.
Or we could have a one-time cost of a 16" pipe, and one that is run under essentially zero pressure (10 PSI, less than 1 ATM) so there is zero danger if it breaks - low pressure, and it's just water.
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
If you are opposed to this what would you want to happen instead?
As others here have said, it's not really that much water. Personally I would prefer my second item, but I am willing to pay more for a product whose manufacturing doesn't unreasonably pollute my drinking water. My assumption is that permitting and regulatory processes will have already required the company to meet the bar of not polluting the water too much.
They should have put it in Detroit (their water is already contaminated) or in New Orleans/Houston plenty of areas in both regions that would love less water around seeing as both groups of dumbasses built in active flood zones.
So many on the far left scream about the pollution and heavy resource use of manufacturing, and they absolutely should. BUT, many of these ppl are fine with offshoring. IOW, they are fine with driving their gas cars and using laptops, phones, etc. as long as the oil comes from Africa, middle east, with America oil companies that cut environmental laws, and resources that comes from Africa/South America, where Chinese companies ignore not just environmental laws, but also have no issue with using 7 y.o. labor.
Now, some of this manufacturing is coming to America and they fight it wanting it to go away. Do not like the amount of water that it uses? Then they should work towards cleaning it up and to use less water.
Just shipping this to other nations does not solve a thing.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
This has to be a troll post. Please tell me this is a troll post.. Slashdot? Hello?
This water isn't lost, it gets sent back to the sea unless it has to be treated first via brine lines. It evaporates, comes back as rain, and re-enters the water cycle again and again. You guys act like they are taking water out, and shooting it off to the sun, never to be seen again.
There are treaties between the US and Canada governing the removal of water from the Great Lakes. It helps prevent little things like ships going aground or having to carry lighter loads. No reason now that Canada can't start removing water as well. Let's drain those suckers.
http://engineeredenvironment.t...
"Ultra-pure water (UPW), which is defined as water of utmost purity and lacking in microorganisms, minerals, or trace organic or nonorganic chemicals, is essential to several purification steps (GWI 2009, PNPPRC 2000). One of the more UPW intensive steps occurs after a chemical-mechanical polish. This process leaves a fine grit/slurry residue which needs to be washed off with ultrapure water. Once the wash water is evaporated, it is essential that there remains no mineral residue, otherwise short-circuiting and other defects may occur.
The semiconductor industry spends around $1 billion every year on water and wastewater systems. Much of it goes into UPW production from influent city water. A fab may use between 2 to 4 million gallons of UPW every day, which is approximately equivalent to the water use of a city with a population of 40 to 50 thousand.
Producing UPW is an elaborate process. Typical processes/components include: filtration, micro flocculation, activated carbon, reverse osmosis, degasifies, electro-deionization, and ultraviolet radiation. Among many other standards, the total organic constituents must be less than 1 ppb and the resistivity must be under 18.2 microOhm-cm."
Vintage computer adverts: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads
7 million? really?
>> Nearly 2.7 million gallons of the waterâ"about 39 percent of the daily intake from the factoryâ"will be lost in the process, primarily from evaporation. The remaining water will be treated and returned to the lake basin.
>> Wisconsinâ(TM)s DNR noted in a statement that the requested withdrawal will âoeonly amount to a 0.07 percent increase in the total surface water withdrawals from Lake Michigan.â
0,07%! oh noes its the zombie apocalypse!
The real issue is whether or not chemical pollutants are being released in the waste water.
Assuming the wate water is pretreated at the plant to remove manufacturing chemicals, either with clarification or ultrafiltration, there is no issue with significant water "usage".
Evaporation gives me a minor cause for concern, as I assume the evaporation occurs in curing or drying ovens, which allows for the potential of VOC/SVOC releases, but I assume they will have the customary protections used in modern Western plants, such as wet scrubbers and after burners, along with real time participate monitoring and emissions sampling. Generally, permits for any reasonable sized heating operation in Wisconsin requires an extended evaluation and environmental safety plan.
Yes, I'm in the environmental industry in Wisconsin.
The problem is that the 7 States and 2 Provinces have an agreement not to remove any water from the drainage basin.
7 million gallons (is that American or Canadian gallons?) here and 7 million gallons there, repeated enough times and we're up to some big numbers that might have an affect.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
Lake Michigan contains 1.5x10^15 gallons. 7 million gallons equals 1/2 of one millionth of 1 percent of that water.
61% will be returned back to the lake, the rest will evaporate into the atmosphere, contributing to precipition somewhere downwind, sooner or later.
What's the problem, other than the Left's hatred of Capitalism?
Running with Linux for over 20 years!
They would stop manufacturing them. Simple solution.
Nearly 2.7 million gallons of the water -- about 39 percent of the daily intake from the factory -- will be lost in the process, primarily from evaporation. The remaining water will be treated and returned to the lake basin.
From what I remember from 6th grade Earth Science classes, water evaporating simply cycles back into the ecosystem, being redeposited on earth as rain, entering creeks and streams which feed int rivers that feed lakes like Lake Michigan...
The rest of the water is used and returned to the lake, so the issue is what, exactly?
Ken
WTF is a "Canadian Gallon"?
Do you mean liters?
Ken
Its a Mexicaine quarf. Proves to you that half of SD commenters are idiots.
4.54 litres, properly called the Imperial Gallon
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
WTF is a "Canadian Gallon"?
Canada uses ("used" really, as most volume stuff is metric since at least the 80s) the "Imperial gallon" which is a touch more than 1.20 times the size of a US gallon (the US is about 83% of the Imperial).
I recall the advertised MPG ratings "back in the day" being a source of confusion depending if one was watching a US TV channel or a Canadian one.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
The US gallon is defined as 231 cubic inches (8 US liquid pints) or about 3.785 L
The Imperial gallon defined as 4.54609 litres (8 imperial pints)
The pint is not a pound, the world around - unless "the world" is just the USA.
Water doesn't just disappear. I mean, they'll put it back when they're done with it, right?
Right?
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
The Panel factory by itself is not the main concern, it is the precedent to allow others similar access, eventually could(x years, decades, minutes ?) reach detrimental extraction levels. So put in place supply / demand cost factors. Surrounding states agree to their levels. Can address the issue without delaying the factory.
Silly troll AC, yes it was! That's the point - it was investigated, and the evidence points to no need with regards to drinking water. That's the data, that's the result of the evidence. Now, does silly troll AC have some data saying otherwise? No? Then it's conclusive - not an issue!
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
At 7 million gallons a day, Lake Michigan will be empty in only 500,000 years!
TFA says they're putting back 61% of the water they take, so, really, you've got more like 1.28 million years.
There we go - troll AC admits their defeat, resorts to simple verbal assault with nothing to back up their indefensible position.
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
"Earlier this week, the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources granted permission to Taiwanese tech manufacturer Foxconn, best known for assembling Apple's iPhones"
..
And also manufacturer for Amazon, Cisco, Hewlett-Packard, Intel and Microsoft
Both environmentalists and Paul Ryan's pro-Chinese corporate shills are missing the point. This isn't about the total amount of Lake Michigan water used or even the significant percentage of treated water used. As the article points out, Paul Ryan's pet project sets a precedent of diverting water out of the Great Lakes basin. Only a few kilometers and a few meters of elevation divide the Great Lakes water from the Mississippi river system. Where the plant is located, wastewater would flow away from the Great Lakes but they applied for permits a few miles away n Racine on the Lake Michigan shore.
To put things into perspective, the city of Racine (pop 77,571) consumes 16.9 million gallons per day. So this plant would increase the city's consumption of treated water by 41%. But under the Great Lakes Compact (2008) nearly all of Racine's water and water from other cities bordering the Great Lakes must return to the Great Lakes. With this, 40% of Racine's consumption would diverted outside the Great Lake's basin. This sets a precedent so that Milwaukee, Chicago, Toronto, Detroit, Gary and other large cities with reason to sell or divert Great Lakes water can point to Racine and say, "They did it, so why not us?"
Hand-waving arguments about man's insignificant effect on the Great Lakes system fall flat. As one who grew up in Racine I've watched Lake Michigan's eco-system change several times with algae, lamprey eels, alewives, lake perch, salmon trout, zebra-mussels and the Asian Carp (coming soon). The latest threats come from a 100-year old project to divert Great Lakes water to prevent Typhoid fever in Chicago. The damage and/or cleanup from this may cost billions.
The administration and politicians owned by Foxconn have lost all credibility when it comes to the use of scientific principles to assess the wide-ranging and long-term economic, social and ecological effects of short-term business misadventures such as the Foxconn con job.
It looks like the "dry Lake Michigan" movie trope (I, Robot; Johnny Mnemonic, etc) is actually going to come true.
Kriston
One of our competitors trademarked the term "hypothesis". From now on, we will call them "boneheaded ideas".
Any chance someone in site-planning misunderstood what a Liquid Crystal Display is?
Bob Stein, http://bobste.in