Moore's Sin is, simply, the horrific pollution caused by chip manufacturing since the 1960s. (The picture is from a professor's page at the University of Lviv, in the Ukraine, a democratic republic.)

It has yet to be dealt with.

Reuters today discusses this in terms of New Mexico, home to two Intel plants outside Albuquerque that make Pentium chips. But the problem is industrywide and worldwide. It's baked into the system. The fact is that etching chips requires the use of caustic chemicals that pollute the air and water.

What can be done about it?

Based on the present system the answer is not much. New Mexico can't enforce regulations or impose taxes without risking loss of the plant, and there are plenty of places that will gladly trade their childrens' lives for the wealth a chip plant brings.

In fact, the untold story of the last two decades in the semiconductor business is how plants have moved specifically to avoid paying the cost of controlling or cleaning up pollution. America is now a net importer of finished silicon, from Taiwan, from Europe, but especially from China.

Back in the 1970s, when the U.S. faced unpayable bills from major chemical industry polluters it created a Superfund for cleanup. We can argue all day about the results, but Superfund did provide a mechanism for paying costs no company could pay on its own.

The basic problem with Superfund is illustrated by the Intel case. Polluters are mobile, and nations desperate for development will always come up with incentives to bring them in. (In the New Mexico case the state granted a $2 billion tax concession to keep the 5,300 jobs in-state last September.)

I don't want to paint Intel as a villain here. It's a proven fact that companies which try to act like charities are buried in the market by those which push the system harder. If costs aren't competitive companies go under, and pollution control is a cost of doing business.

The answer would be a worldwide Superfund. Let's call it Moore's Fund, and note that one of missions of the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation is to fight pollution.) It would be negotiated by treaty, with the industry in on the discussions. All companies would pay based on production, no matter where it was taking place. Funds would be paid out in a transparent way, subject to audit and public disclosure.

This won't solve all of New Mexico's problems. I haven't addressed the question of the outright tax subsidies used to lure plants. (One thing at a time.) But the fact remains that pollution costs won't be paid until they become inescapable. You can't put Intel at a disadvantage against its competitors and expect it to be "reasonable." Reasonable is a word that has no meaning in the marketplace.

But the time has come to address Moore's Sin before it kills any more of our kids.