Intel’s 916,000-pound shipment is a “cold box,” a self-standing air-processor structure that facilitates the cryogenic technology needed to fabricate semiconductors. The box is 23 feet tall, 20 feet wide, and 280 feet long, nearly the length of a football field. The immense scale of the cold box necessitates a transit process that moves at a “parade pace” of 5-10 miles per hour. Intel is taking over southern Ohio’s roads for the next several weeks and months as it builds its new Ohio One Campus, a $28 billion project to create a 1,000-acre campus with two chip factories and room for more. Calling it the new “Silicon Heartland,” the project will be the first leading-edge semiconductor fab in the American Midwest, and once operational, will get to work on the “Angstrom era” of Intel processes, 20A and beyond.
I don’t know why, but I’ve never thought of the transport logistics involved in building a semiconductor fabrication plant.
Looks like they put the oversized load on a boat for as long as they could, but have to do the last leg by road.
Yep, the fab plant is a little east of Columbus (just south of where I live actually). This is one of like 2 dozen “super loads” that has to make its way from the Ohio River up to the plant. I swear there is a website somewhere that keeps track of when the are coming, the routes they take, and the closures involved but my Google-fu is failing me now.
If it makes you feel any better it’s probably Google that’s failing, not you
Even before Google stopped working, I’m not sure the results of googling “super load” would have been what you are looking for.
Try “super loads AND when they are coming?”
Look at the bright side, once intel gets this new plant up and running cranking out next-gen chips, Google will be able to fail you even faster!
As excited as I am to see my home city actually growing and gaining national attention, I miss the chill cow-town vibes. Traffic is only gonna get worse from here.
Columbus will always be growth limited until it gets some goddamn light rail/subway in place.
WORLD’S. FASTEST. BULLETTRAIN. NETWORK.
I mean, everyone has been crying and whinging for years, decades even, that the USA needs to ramp up semiconductor fabrication in case shit goes south in Taiwan. We are finally getting some domestic production power and we’re getting outraged by the traffic delays? America will sink itself because of our people’s own addiction to comfort and complaining about any slight to that comfort.
Is this going to raise gas prices!!?!
Does anything NOT raise gas prices?
I don’t even think this is complaining about mild inconvenience, it’s just outrage addiction that has taken over most of the country.
But how many football fields does it weigh?
About 4,000 washing machines.
Metric or imperial?
Yes.
And not a single photo? The thing in the main photo aint it
Not sure if this image from the DOT is actually of this specific shipment because I found this image from April when they moved the eighth part and it’s less that half the weight. Here’s a two minute video of it.
I hope they’re paying huge fees to the local DOTs…
Have fun dealing with the damage to the infrastructure 👍
They did something similar with some transformers here in Australia, and unfortunately there were some possibly associated traffic incidents where people might have not been going the right speed and got rear-ended. One man died, even.
Please avoid the route, even when it is pulled over to “rest”, as your fellow motorists may not be able to resist rubbernecking.
Neat!
Wish they had a photo of the thing. That’s not a 280 ft trailer.
It was a 280 foot trailer but due to Moore’s law, it has undergone multiple shrink cycles while still maintaining 280 feet worth of storage inside.
Their stock is basically on sale right now. And the feds are throwing billions at them…
🤑
This is why ultrasized cargo airships need to be a thing. Just sling that bad boy underneath a kilometre long hydrogen dirigible and fly it to its destination.
if you look at the history of what happened to each Zeppelin airship you get a really good idea why it’s a bad idea.
LZ1: damaged during initial flight, repaired and flown two more times before investors backed out causing the ship to be sold for scrap.
LZ2: suffered double engine failure and crashed into a mountain. While anchored to the mountain awaiting repairs a storm destroyed it beyond repair.
LZ3: built from salvaged parts of LZ2. Severally damaged in storm. After LZ4’s destruction LZ3 was repaired and was accepted by the German military who eventually scrapped it.
LZ4: suffered from chronic engine failure. While repairing the engines a gust of wind blew the ship free of its mooring and struck a tree causing the ship to ignite and burn to the ground.
LZ5: destroyed in a storm.
LZ6: destroyed in its hanger by fire.
LZ7: destroyed after crashing in a thunderstorm.
LZ8: destroyed by wind.
LZ9: this one actually worked and survived for three years before being decommissioned.
LZ10: caught on fire and destroyed after a gust of wind blew its mooring line into itself.
LZ11: destroyed while attempting to move the ship into it’s hanger
LZ12 & LZ13: both flew successful careers before being decommissioned a few years later.
LZ14: destroyed in a thunderstorm.
LZ15: destroyed during an emergency landing.
LZ16: was stolen by the French. ***
LZ17: decommissioned after the war.
LZ18: exploded during its test flight.
LZ19: damaged beyond repair during an emergency landing.
LZ129: the Hindenburg.
LZ127: retired and scrapped after flying over a million miles.
LZ130: flew 30 flights before being dismantled for parts to aid in the war effort
The problem is with airships and aerostats in general is you need a massive balloon just to lift a small amount of weight but the larger you make it the more susceptible to weather it ends up being. With the amount of surface area a balloon that’s a 1km long has you would have to spend a considerable amount of energy just to stop it from blowing away in the wind, as inefficient as it is the truck may actually use less fuel because of this.
That said, the Zeppelin NT has, as far as I know, a perfect flight record.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeppelin_NT
We’ve made a lot of advances since the early 20th century, believe it or not. I don’t think using semirigid airships as both cargo transports and “satellites” needed for temporary communications purposes over a large area such as a disaster zone where cell communication has been lost would be out of the question now.
The biggest advancement they made was making it smaller. Zeppelin NTs are a fraction of the size of what Ferdinand von Zeppelin was designing in his day. Because of their smaller and the switch to helium Zeppelin NTs has a miniscule payload capacity at 4200 pounds. To put that into perspective that’s the same payload capacity as a Ford F250. Even with their reduced surface area and modern flight controllers controllers the Zeppelin NTs still haven’t solved the weather issue as they are restricted from flying in winds greater than 22MPH and when VFR is not available.
Because of their smaller and the switch to helium Zeppelin NTs has a miniscule payload capacity at 4200 pounds. To put that into perspective that’s the same payload capacity as a Ford F250.
And that’s only the bed capacity. An F250 can tow over 20,000 lbs depending on the trailer design. Most trucks and SUVs can tow >4200lbs.
Towing capacity isn’t really apples to apples which is why I used payload capacity which is more directly comparable. Don’t get me wrong though I’d love to see an airship towing a trailer.
You’re comparing a pickup truck to a zeppelin, there’s no way to make that apples to apples. If someone needs to move something big with a truck they’re probably going to tow it, not try to load it into the bed.
I am comparing payload weights because it’s directly comparable between all vehicles. I am not sure if you understand payload weight fully. This is the rating for everything you put in the vehicle (airship or not) and includes everything from people to the trailers tounge if you are towing. Just because your truck can tow 20Klb does not mean you can exceed the payload capacity. A lot of first time RV buyers learn this the hard way when they buy a 10Klb trailer to tow with their 2018 F150 only to find out there isn’t even enough payload capacity left over for the driver because the tounge weight is 1000lb. Air ships (and aircraft for that matter) use the same payload capacity calculations where again anything put inside the vehicle counts towards the payload including people. This is why we can directly compare the two vehicles payload capacity.
I want a 916,000 pound super load in my ass
Is Intel paying the state or country for this abuse of the logistics network? This feels like freeloading on a publicly funded piece of infrastructure.
Road closures for oversize loads always cost money, sometimes on a per minute basis
I’m assuming the transport accommodations are part of the perk package (for lack of a better way to put it)
I have no insight into this particular plant, but in most big investments like this, the company is usually in talks with several locations negotiating for the best tax breaks, permitting accommodations, etc under the promise that it will bring skilled jobs to the area.
Basically, it’s seen as an investment both from the company and the location’s points-of-view.
Intel will be paying people to build and work at the factory. Highly skilled labor that can’t be shipped overseas easily. It will also likely bring other companies to the area because of access to those highly skilled workers. The state will likely make more a lot more back in taxes and economic growth than the cost of the transports.
Intel also works with local community colleges to offer semiconductor specific training to be a manufacturing technician, and it’s not a huge jump to be a maintenance/repair tech or jump to IT within the fab and in my experience all those roles from technician to IT pay fairly good wages high 20’s to mid 30’s/hr and up depending on experience.
The state will likely make more a lot more back in taxes and economic growth than the cost of the transports.
That’s a nice thought but what we’ve seen throughout history is the polar opposite.
Yup.
Without checking, I’m betting that Ohio gave them incredibly tax breaks that are nearly without end, meaning none of the money goes back into the local economy whatsoever
My states done it so many times now, and we don’t have income tax, so none of the money goes back into the local economy on the executive side, only on the workers side, putting all the issues it causes on workers! Woo!
I hope truckers, pilot car drivers and dispatchers will be making crazy money off this parade as well. Ohio exists, might as well make the best of it. XD
