Brian Potter
Structural engineer and writer, author of the Construction Physics newsletter, where he takes apart how large physical things — buildings, ships, semiconductor fabs, aeroplanes — actually get made, and why the cost of making them moves the way it does.
Brian Potter did not write this page.
We collected these quotes from things they published elsewhere, and every quote links to where it was said. They have no account here and have not endorsed this site. Quotes are word for word; the short line under each one is our own restatement, not their wording. Their own site. Is this you? Claim it or ask us to remove it. Or tell us what is wrong here.
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Their wordsConstruction costs tend to rise at, or above, the level of overall inflation, and it rarely (if ever) gets cheaper to build houses, offices, or other buildings.
- 4 months earlier
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Their wordsSweden, for instance, is often praised for its high adoption of prefabricated construction, but since the 1990s Sweden has had roughly flat construction labor productivity, even as it has made more extensive use of prefabrication.
↗Stagnant Construction Productivity Is a Worldwide Problemconstruction-physics.com 1st of 3 in this piece
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Their wordsOverall, my take when looking at this data is that stagnant construction productivity is an extremely widespread problem.
↗Stagnant Construction Productivity Is a Worldwide Problemconstruction-physics.com 2nd of 3 in this piece
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Their wordsThe US has a lot to learn from other countries for how to catch up to the efficient frontier, especially for certain types of construction (ie: transit) and in certain places in the country (ie: expensive coastal metros).
↗Stagnant Construction Productivity Is a Worldwide Problemconstruction-physics.com 3rd of 3 in this piece
- 3 months earlier
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Their wordsHowever, the methods used to produce these estimates are debatable, and seem to have been chosen to give the maximum possible value for data center water consumption.
↗I Was Wrong About Data Center Water Consumptionconstruction-physics.com 2nd of 2 in this piece
- 3 months earlier
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Their wordsCities began to prefer subways to elevateds, despite the fact that they were two to four times as expensive to build as elevated trains.
↗Why we stopped building subways cheaplyworksinprogress.news 1st of 3 in this piece
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Their wordsCut and cover will sometimes be the best choice from a basic cost-benefit perspective, as will elevated rail, and both are useful to have in the tunnel construction toolbox for that reason.
↗Why we stopped building subways cheaplyworksinprogress.news 2nd of 3 in this piece
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Our reading
The binding constraint on building anything in America is permitting and litigation, not money.
Their wordsPolitical costs and civic opposition will often make a technology unviable regardless of how the dollars and cents add up.
↗Why we stopped building subways cheaplyworksinprogress.news 3rd of 3 in this piece
- 7 months earlier
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Their wordsSpruce Pine quartz isn’t quite an irreplaceable linchpin in semiconductor manufacturing.
↗Does All Semiconductor Manufacturing Depend on Spruce Pine Quartz?construction-physics.com 1st of 2 in this piece
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Their wordsThe downside is that synthetic quartz is much more expensive, perhaps on the order of 5–10 times the cost of natural high-purity quartz.
↗Does All Semiconductor Manufacturing Depend on Spruce Pine Quartz?construction-physics.com 2nd of 2 in this piece
- 2 months earlier
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Their wordsThe U.S. Navy estimates that China’s shipbuilding capacity is 232 times our own.
↗Why Can't the U.S. Build Ships?construction-physics.com 1st of 8 in this piece
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Their wordsThe situation we face today, with U.S. ships costing at least twice as much to build as ships built elsewhere, is not a recent development; it’s been the norm for at least the past 100 years.
↗Why Can't the U.S. Build Ships?construction-physics.com 2nd of 8 in this piece
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Their wordsBut the U.S. again failed to transform its enormous shipbuilding effort into a successful commercial shipbuilding industry.
↗Why Can't the U.S. Build Ships?construction-physics.com 3rd of 8 in this piece
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Their wordsBut in turning these innovations into competitive industries, America has come up short.
↗Why Can't the U.S. Build Ships?construction-physics.com 4th of 8 in this piece
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Their wordsThe first is the high cost of inputs, particularly labor and steel.
↗Why Can't the U.S. Build Ships?construction-physics.com 5th of 8 in this piece
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Their wordsShipbuilding is labor intensive, and we see a repeated pattern of it moving to countries with low-cost labor: from Britain to Japan, then to Korea, then to China.
↗Why Can't the U.S. Build Ships?construction-physics.com 6th of 8 in this piece
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Their wordsThe U.S., on the other hand, never appears to have been strongly motivated to make its shipbuilding industry an international success.
↗Why Can't the U.S. Build Ships?construction-physics.com 7th of 8 in this piece
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Their wordsShipbuilding policies have long been much more focused on sheltering the industry from competition rather than driving to make it successful.
↗Why Can't the U.S. Build Ships?construction-physics.com 8th of 8 in this piece
- 3 months earlier
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Our reading
Available power, not land or capital, is what now limits how many data centres get built.
Their wordsIn particular, operating a data center requires large amounts of electricity, and available power is fast becoming the binding constraint on data center construction.
↗How to Build an AI Data Centerconstruction-physics.com 1st of 5 in this piece
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data centersenergyinfrastructure
Their wordsUtility companies see major electrical infrastructure as a long-term investment to be built in response to sustained demand growth.
↗How to Build an AI Data Centerconstruction-physics.com 2nd of 5 in this piece
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Their wordsConventional air cooling is likely limited to around 20 to 30 kilowatt racks, perhaps 50 kilowatts if rear heat exchangers are used.
↗How to Build an AI Data Centerconstruction-physics.com 3rd of 5 in this piece
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Their wordsBut there's also reason to believe that data center power consumption will nevertheless rise substantially.
↗How to Build an AI Data Centerconstruction-physics.com 4th of 5 in this piece
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Their wordsBut many of these gains have already been achieved: the best data centers already use just 10% of their electricity for cooling and other non-IT equipment.
↗How to Build an AI Data Centerconstruction-physics.com 5th of 5 in this piece
- 5 weeks earlier
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Our reading
The same law that made chips cheaper made the factories that produce them enormously more expensive.
Their wordsThese enormous costs are ultimately due to the same factor that has steadily driven down the cost of semiconductors: Moore’s Law, the observation that the number of components on an integrated circuit tends to double every two years.
↗How to Build a $20 Billion Semiconductor Fabconstruction-physics.com 1st of 7 in this piece
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Americasemiconductorspermitting
Their wordsFab construction time in the US has increased from just over 650 days on average in the 1990s to over 900 days on average in the 2010s, compared to around 600-700 days in Asian countries, in part because of increasingly stringent environmental review processes.
↗How to Build a $20 Billion Semiconductor Fabconstruction-physics.com 2nd of 7 in this piece
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Their wordsRoughly 70-80% of the cost of a new fab will be the process tools that go in it.
↗How to Build a $20 Billion Semiconductor Fabconstruction-physics.com 3rd of 7 in this piece
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Our reading
Lithography machines alone cost about as much as the entire building put up to house them.
Their wordsThe cost of lithography machines is often estimated as 20% of the cost of a new fab, which means that lithography tools can cost as much as the entire fab facility itself.
↗How to Build a $20 Billion Semiconductor Fabconstruction-physics.com 4th of 7 in this piece
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Our reading
Every new process node makes a fab about 30 per cent more expensive to build than the one before it.
Their wordsFor modern semiconductor fabs, each new process node increases fab cost by about 30%.
↗How to Build a $20 Billion Semiconductor Fabconstruction-physics.com 5th of 7 in this piece
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Their wordsBut as fab costs increased, it became more and more burdensome for manufacturers to operate cutting edge manufacturing facilities due to the high costs, and fewer manufacturers had the production volume to spread those costs over.
↗How to Build a $20 Billion Semiconductor Fabconstruction-physics.com 6th of 7 in this piece
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Their wordsThe second is that producing semiconductors requires almost unfathomable levels of precision.
↗How to Build a $20 Billion Semiconductor Fabconstruction-physics.com 7th of 7 in this piece