Here is the article linked to by Slashdot: <a href="https://gizmodo.com/foxconn-will-drain-7-million-gallons-of-water-per-day-f-1825624659" rel="nofollow">https://gizmodo.com/foxconn-will-drain-7-million-gallons-of-...</a><p>The article by the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources: <a href="https://dnr.wi.gov/news/releases/article/?id=4513" rel="nofollow">https://dnr.wi.gov/news/releases/article/?id=4513</a><p>According to the DNR article, the non consumed water will be returned:<p>> As part of the diversion approval, the city of Racine must ensure that the diverted water is returned to Lake Michigan minus consumptive use such as evaporation. The water returned to Lake Michigan will be treated at the Racine Wastewater Treatment Plant to meet all applicable state and federal water quality discharge standards. Any industrial customers, such as Foxconn, will work with the City of Racine to meet pretreatment requirements for wastewater.<p>It's not immediately clear how much of that water will be returned, but at least it won't be consuming 7M gallons daily. I'm not sure what impacts this might have, and neither article really goes into it.
I (almost) always try to make positive/helpful comments in this forum. But reading (again) about these "complaints" the below comes to mind:<p>...<title of Lake Michigan article>, while at the same time, somewhere else on this planet (perhaps China?) many factories do the exact same thing, and since it hasn't caused noise, very few think about it. And at the same time people in the Americas, Europe, Africa, Oceania, rest-of-Asia (countries that don't host such factories), go on in their day looking at their smartphone screens, reading news about Lake Michigan.
Even if we assume the treated water wont return to the lake basin. Would still need 508,806 years to drain.<p>Are there any other dangerous side-effects or why is this a thing?
Enlighten me please.
Lake levels are near record high currently, and causing massive amounts of erosion all along the coastline. It's actually quite interesting to watch houses, dunes, roads and other structures fall into the lake as nature does what it does. [0]
Removing a few million gallons a day isn't going to hurt the the lake that much.<p>[0] <a href="http://www.nwitimes.com/news/local/porter/continued-erosion-causes-observation-deck-at-portage-lakefront-and-riverwalk/article_0acf75f7-ba22-5632-ac25-76a7222900de.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.nwitimes.com/news/local/porter/continued-erosion-...</a>
Better source that doesn't break the back button: <a href="https://gizmodo.com/foxconn-will-drain-7-million-gallons-of-water-per-day-f-1825624659" rel="nofollow">https://gizmodo.com/foxconn-will-drain-7-million-gallons-of-...</a>
Original article: <a href="https://gizmodo.com/foxconn-will-drain-7-million-gallons-of-water-per-day-f-1825624659" rel="nofollow">https://gizmodo.com/foxconn-will-drain-7-million-gallons-of-...</a>
Will they put it back?<p>I mean I can't imagine them holding 7 million gallons of water per day for very long before they run out of storage space.<p>My guess is that they will process stuff with the water, then filter and send the water back into the lake.
Does anyone know why so much water is used to manufacture LCDs ? And why can't it be in close circuit, like using an aero refrigerant tower like the ones of nuclear plants ?
This is .000018 inches off of the lake each day.<p>Per year, it is .0066 inches. That is about 1/6 of a millimeter.<p>At that rate, the lake contains 508198 years worth of water. Thinking in terms of human evolution here... that is a decent chunk of time.<p>This supposed problem is all FUD, based on big scary numbers. Somebody has a motive to spread this. For example, a country that wants the industry might encourage opposition in the USA.
This is a great example of why the US doesn't want manufacturing "back" even if they/we could have it. Both because <i>this</i> example isn't that big of a deal (but yet, has created controversy), and because if this <i>was</i> a big deal Americans simply would not tolerate the pollution, in exchange for the manufacturing jobs.