When the memory chip manufacturer Micron recently received $6.1 billion from the Biden administration to build a set of new factories in central New York state and Idaho, its plans included a unique commitment to use 100 percent renewable energy. The stipulation came from New York law — a first-in-the-nation statute passed in August 2022 that offers chipmakers tax breaks if they build major projects in the state and agree to adopt emissions-reducing measures. It remains to be seen whether Micron will follow through with its plans and claim the state benefits. But the public commitment — and the law itself — speak to evolving ideas about how a key part of the tech sector is, or at least could be, part of the bigger conversation about sustainable businesses. In one sense, the answer is obvious: Semiconductors are indispensable for a whole range of technologies powering the transition away from fossil fuels, like solar panels, electric vehicles and wind turbines. The more AI is becoming a motivator and enabler behind a big social shift like green energy, the more important microchips become to the conversation. But chip manufacturing is still an issue. For all the attention paid to the energy costs of servers and training AI models, it’s actually chipmaking, rather than hardware use, that accounts for most of the carbon output from electronics devices, a 2020 study found. With each generation of advanced chips demanding more electricity and water to produce, top chipmakers like Samsung and TSMC have a big carbon footprint. The new U.S. facilities they are building — encouraged by Pres. Joe Biden’s CHIPS and Science Act — are expected to further ramp up energy consumption, with estimates suggesting each megafactory could use as much electricity as a medium-sized town. This would appear to put two big Biden administration goals in conflict: a bigger microchip industry, and a more sustainable economy. Environmental groups like the Sierra Club are trying to get the White House to focus on the potential conflict, and commit to a strategy that keeps them more closely aligned. “By 2030, U.S. chip production is supposed to double in the amount of power it is using,” said Harry Manin, deputy legislative director of industrial policy at the Sierra Club. “If we don't get this right, it does put in jeopardy President Biden’s commitment to a clean power sector by 2035.” They point out that in global terms, the U.S. might be a more sustainable place to build new chip plants, at least compared to nations where chipmaking is currently concentrated like Taiwan and South Korea. Those two have higher dependence on fossil fuels for their electricity supply. Shifting more chip production to the U.S., with more renewables available, could help manufacturers reach net-zero targets faster. “Overall for the planet, it would be better to move as much production here,” said Neno Duplan, the founder of an environmental compliance software company. “Those environmental issues — I'm pretty confident are not addressed at the level they’re addressed in the U.S.” A new coalition of powerful unions and green groups, including the Sierra Club, is trying to push the White House to make these goals more explicitly tied to federal CHIPS Act payouts. In recent weeks, the Biden administration has doled out nearly $28 billion from the act to top chipmakers Intel, TSMC, Samsung, and Micron. The administration still needs to decide on the full suite of requirements for each awardee, which is expected to be finalized by the end of the year. So with every award, these groups have been publicly pressuring the Commerce Department to require that chipmakers meet certain labor and climate-minded milestones before receiving CHIPS funding in full. Their argument is driven not just by the future, but by history. Silicon Valley’s transformation into a high-tech industrial corridor during the 1960s and 1970s happened at a high cost to the environment and workers. As factories pumped out semiconductors in Northern California, toxic chemicals from the chipmaking process seeped into the ground and drinking water. Studies later confirmed higher-than-expected rates of cancer throughout the region and miscarriages among women who breathed in chemicals while working at the plants. Those problems followed chip production when it moved abroad to Asia, those problems persisted even as the U.S. industry reformed. A taxpayer-funded law like the CHIPS Act should not risk repeating them in new areas, said Manin. “This industry particularly has a long record of applying a race to the bottom, looking for where they can make these chips as cheap as possible with as terrible of an environmental and labor record as possible,” he said. “The CHIPS and Science law is a real historic opportunity to redress those past harms.” | 
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