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North Carolina Maker of High-Purity Quartz Back Operating After Hurricane (apnews.com) 25

Posted by EditorDavid from the quartz-watch dept.
Thursday the Associated Press reported: One of the two companies that manufacture high-purity quartz used for making semiconductors and other high-tech products from mines in a western North Carolina community severely damaged by Hurricane Helene is operating again. Sibelco announced on Thursday that production has restarted at its mining and processing operations in Spruce Pine, located 50 miles (80 kilometers) northeast of Asheville. [Per Wikipedia, its pre-hurricane population was 2,175.] Production and shipments are progressively ramping up to full capacity, the company said in a news release.

"While the road to full recovery for our communities will be long, restarting our operations and resuming shipments to customers are important contributors to rebuilding the local economy," Sibelco CEO Hilmar Rode said... A Spruce Pine council member said recently that an estimated three-quarters of the town has a direct connection to the mines, whether through a job, a job that relies on the mines or a family member who works at the facilities.
An announcement last week from Sibelco attributed its resilience to their long-standing commitment to sustainability, "which includes measures to mitigate the impact of extreme weather events such as Hurricane Helene." Initial assessments indicated their operating facilities sustained only minor damage.

And "the company previously announced that all its employees are safe," Sibelco reaffirmed in its announcement Thursday: Sibelco, with support from its contractors, has been contributing to the local recovery efforts by clearing debris, repairing roads, providing road building materials to the North Carolina Department of Transportation, installing temporary power generators for emergency shelters and local businesses, and working with the town of Spruce Pine to restart water supply to residents.

Additionally, Sibelco has incorporated the Sibelco Spruce Pine Foundation to further support the community's recovery. The company previously announced that it is making an immediate $1 million donation as seed money for the foundation. Anyone interested in learning more or contributing to this initiative should contact the foundation by email or by visiting our website for additional information and donation opportunities.
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North Carolina Maker of High-Purity Quartz Back Operating After Hurricane More

North Carolina Maker of High-Purity Quartz Back Operating After Hurricane

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  • Interesting image (Score:3, Informative)

    by Okian Warrior ( 537106 ) on Saturday October 12, 2024 @09:15PM (#64860159) Homepage Journal

    At the risk of being informative. This image [365dm.com] is interesting.

    (From this [sky.com] news article.)

    • Good thing that isn't real, it is all a hoax.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Entrope ( 68843 )

      At the risk of being insightful, does that picture have anything to do with the company in question or with mining ultra-pure quartz, other than being taken in the same half of North Carolina?

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by PPH ( 736903 )

        Sibelco, with support from its contractors, has been contributing to the local recovery efforts by clearing debris, repairing roads, providing road building materials to the North Carolina Department of Transportation,

        Perhaps it is an illustration of the sort of debris clearing and repair that the area needs.

  • Bastards... (Score:2, Funny)

    by Shaitan ( 22585 )

    How dare these monsters look down from their Ivory capitalist towers and patronize these workers like this?

    "restarting our operations and resuming shipments to customers are important contributors to rebuilding the local economy," Sibelco CEO Hilmar Rode said... A Spruce Pine council member said recently that an estimated three-quarters of the town has a direct connection to the mines, whether through a job, a job that relies on the mines or a family member who works at the facilities." --------- CAN'T FOOL

    • Sibelco is a global company that extracts minerals. Maybe they just need to have all that stuff fixed up in order to mine and sell the quartz. Casting it as a community effort is good publicity.

      https://www.sibelco.com/en [sibelco.com]

      • Re:Bastards... (Score:4, Informative)

        by Shaitan ( 22585 ) on Sunday October 13, 2024 @06:52AM (#64860587)

        "Maybe they just need to have all that stuff fixed up in order to mine and sell the quartz. Casting it as a community effort is good publicity."

        Have you ever considered the possibility it can be good for the community, good publicity, AND fixing up stuff so they can get their operations back online and making money? That's exactly what is happening here.

        Giving money directly to rich people doesn't trickle down but people try to spin leaving money in corporations or giving money to corporations as being the same thing. It isn't. Corporations spend 90-95% of their money operating, leaving them 5-10% margin and when they see opportunities they'll take that 5-10% and invest it somehow to grow and churn yet more money. If a corporation churns $10B then taxes on at least $10B get paid even if the corporate tax rate is 0%.

        So yes, opening up will trickle down to help the people of this town.

      • >> Casting it as a community effort is good publicity. That is part of it. My eperience with small mines in rural areas is they are very aware and supportive of local area. When coronacountry was in full swing, I went to a pit for a day of working on machines. When day the foreman mentioned they were having yearly fpig roast for workers and families and invited me. Old-fashioned BBQ was awesome, shoulder to shoulder, nobody scared and just living. It was glorious. USA mining regulator never suggested
    • Hold your horse commarad, pretty sure they'll help the community now. I mean, the US is not Russia. People matter there.... a bit.
      • Overall I thought a fairly good response by them. They did not make the workers stay at their jobs during the storm, they started a foundation to help the community rebuild and seeded it with 1M, which is a decent amount for a small company, and they are helping NC with cleanup efforts. I'd give them a B+. Way better job than a certain company's bait & switch tactics and another who kept workers at their jobs until just before the storm broke and they got stuck at work as just two examples of how to get

    • Obviously, if you really wanted to help the community, you'd do some of both.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Shaitan ( 22585 )

        Assuming you actually had enough money to do both. Which they did and so they did.

        I just get sick of hearing the trickle down economics strawman. It is absolutely true that putting more money into the operating capital [or taking less from] 'trickles down.' Cut corporate taxes and you stimulate the economy for everyone. Cut taxes on giant diamonds and that just makes rich ladies sparkle more, it doesn't trickle down.

        • Cut corporate taxes and you stimulate the economy for everyone.

          Cut corporate taxes and the wealthy move more of their wealth into bullshit corporations that don't actually employ anyone, and use them to avoid paying taxes themselves.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by Shaitan ( 22585 )

            Nah, just tax the growth in the form of freshly minted stock which you sell at market [probably to someone's 401k] over the course of the next year with no voting. Then you don't bankrupt the cash poor "rich" entrepreneur or slow the growth of the company.

            The only ones you piss off that way are venture capital firms and honestly, fuck those guys. Meanwhile this takes nothing from a fragile startup and improves their chances of success without getting eaten by VCs.

            • Sounds reasonable at first glance. I don't much care how it's done as long as it is done. Corporations cannot be permitted to write off expenses that humans cannot write off, it represents a theft from every human.

          • Re:Bastards... (Score:4, Insightful)

            by alvinrod ( 889928 ) on Sunday October 13, 2024 @09:10AM (#64860683)
            Corporations that don't make any money are a terrible investment because inflation will slowly eat away that money. You also seem to misunderstand how rich people structure their finances. None of them have loads of money just sitting around. It's almost all tied up in investments, land, and a variety of other securities for the aforementioned reason. If they wanted a lot of money for some reason, they're going to take out a loan from a bank. Fortunately for them they have a lot of collateral so the bank has no problems with giving them one. They could also sell some of their assets, but they rarely do this because the taxes they pay for doing so are worse than the interest on a bank loan, particularly if whatever they're going to use the loan for will itself be a profitable venture.

            Low corporate taxes also ensure that investors from other countries will put their money into the U.S. economy because they get a better return than elsewhere. As long as there's free labor or resources that can be put to work by that investment, the increases in economic output, payroll, and income taxes will outweigh any loss in tax revenue from corporate taxes and make the country more materially wealthy as a result. Quite frankly the corporate tax rate should just be 0% at which point no one is even going to try to hide things as business expenses that really aren't because there's nothing to deduct against. Any form of compensation (company car, insurance, etc.) should be taxed as income by the person receiving it. Solves your issue and makes corporate accounting less complicated freeing up more labor that could be doing something more useful instead.

            Besides, wealthy people have far better financial vehicles for avoiding taxes than corporations.

    • What if they ain't doing jack but press releases that make capitalists feel good about neoliberal lies? What if they recycled quartz instead of extracting new minerals?

  • So (Score:3)

    by Barny ( 103770 ) on Sunday October 13, 2024 @01:17AM (#64860345) Journal

    All the fearmongering was for naught but raising our stress levels?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by shilly ( 142940 )

      Yeh, I saw all sorts of chin-strokey articles about hidden single-points-of-failure in the globalised economy citing this as an example, and I did wonder if they were somewhat overdone, and it looks like they were

    • People here get stressy when something remotely threatens their gpu supply. The GPU shortage and accompanying detox caused a lot of nerds with PTSD. No worries, the flashbacks will wear off eventually. Now about the IVs...

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by mjwx ( 966435 )

      All the fearmongering was for naught but raising our stress levels?

      Welcome to the modern news media... you must be new here.

      Any major business will have a good business continuity plan in the event of a natural disaster...Any semi-competent mining operation will have a very, very detailed business continuity plan for any possible natural disaster that may befall their operating locations. If you're in a hurricane zone, you'll have a hurricane plan. This will include the defences you've got set up in the first place, a safe shut-down to operations and other things just t

  • I'm sorry, don't you mean "miner" of high-purity quartz?

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