One incredibly wealthy firm, the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, dominates the global microchip market. To Taiwan, it’s much more than an economic engine. TSMC’s advanced microchips are to this century what petroleum was to the last, and that geopolitical asset gives embattled Taiwan what security experts call the ‘Silicon Shield’: The US won’t let TSMC’s chip fabrication plants fall to China, and Beijing won’t risk the economic devastation of a fab-destroying invasion.

Or so the logic goes.

The challenge is keeping this geopolitical forcefield powered up.

TSMC’s power consumption is nearly doubling every 5 yrs as it taps extreme-UV beams to etch silicon. And power quality matters as much as quantity. TSMC needs cleaner energy than Taiwan’s mostly coal and LNG-fired power plants supply. As buyers like Apple & Google seek to wring carbon out of their supply chains, Taiwan risks losing TSMC to greener pastures.

My latest feature, reported from Taiwan, captures a massive push to green the country’s energy with solar arrays and offshore wind plants. In a densely-populated land slightly larger than Maryland, that renewables push is inevitably ruffling feathers.

Read the full story @IEEE Spectrum