alt Hacker NewsIs the world really running out of sand?
Comments
> I tried to track down the original source of this idea ... Beiser cites an article from the UN, which itself cites a 2006 paper about using two types of desert sand from China in concrete. But that paper doesn’t mention the roundness of the particles at all.
This seems to be a fairly common pattern where a citable source (Beiser's book and the UN article) makes a mistake, that then propagates everywhere as common knowledge even though it's incorrect. There are many well-researched blog articles like this out there, where the author has dug deep, done the hard research, and found mistakes at many levels, but because it's not in what academia or Wikipedia considers a "citable" source, the mistaken assertion continues to be propagated. Until someone manages to present it in an academically acceptable format, if that happens at all.
Solving the "what should be a citable source" problem is complicated, but in the interim, I hope we can at least find a way to transfer these well-researched findings and corrections from non-academic sources to citable forms regularly and easily.
Grady is a hero in engineering reporting and documentaries. I've learned so much about how the world works in other engineering disciplines from Practical Engineering, and often in neglected fields that are losing talent faster than it can be replaced.
It gives me hope that teenagers are watching his videos and becoming inspired to go into infrastructure. More than anything, I appreciate his calm and reasoned perspectives that are so lacking in video content in this modern day and age.
Ironically, we just hit an entirely different "sand catastrophe" - https://mastodon.social/@mimsical/113232531800424706
> the crucibles used to create ingots of silicon which become microchips are made from an ultra-pure quartz sand -- and 70% of the world's supply comes from just one place in North Carolina [Spruce Pine]
Really interesting video. This is the first time I have seen the (apparently entirely fabricated) idea that desert sand isn't suitable for construction challenged. I had definitely absorbed that idea into my consciousness without enough due diligence.
We fools here in Germany sometimes _pay_ to get rid of excess electricity when it's very sunny and windy. How about having some rock crushing machines that instead use that cheap electricity to make more sand?
Thanks for the puns, too.
The book mentioned, The World in a Grain: The Story of Sand and How It Transformed Civilization by Vince Beiser:
> The World in a Grain is the compelling true story of the hugely important and diminishing natural resource that grows more essential every day, and of the people who mine it, sell it, build with it--and sometimes, even kill for it. It's also a provocative examination of the serious human and environmental costs incurred by our dependence on sand, which has received little public attention. Not all sand is created equal: Some of the easiest sand to get to is the least useful. Award-winning journalist Vince Beiser delves deep into this world, taking readers on a journey across the globe, from the United States to remote corners of India, China, and Dubai to explain why sand is so crucial to modern life. Along the way, readers encounter world-changing innovators, island-building entrepreneurs, desert fighters, and murderous sand pirates. The result is an entertaining and eye-opening work, one that is both unexpected and involving, rippling with fascinating detail and filled with surprising characters.
* https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/36950075-the-world-in-a-...
If you found this article interesting, definitely give "Material World: A Substantial Story of Our Past and Future" a read. One of the most eye-opening books I've read in the past few years.
"Concrete blows most other materials out of the water."
In fact, according to Wikipedia, concrete is the "second-most-used substance in the world after water" - I was on the Concrete Wikipedia article while I read this as I realised it was a thing I have never thought about despite its ubiquity. Amazing how that can happen.
I was in Vietnam on holiday a few years ago and dredging sand out of the Mekong was obviously big business. You could see ships full of it going down the river. Apparently it was supposed to be protected, but that didn't seem to be stopping anyone (there seems to be a lot of corruption in Vietnam). We were told it was causing houses to fall into the river, due to erosion.
Every time I watch a practical engineering video I like Grady more and more. Great presenter, interesting videos, great value for the time spent watching. Gets right to the point in the first sentence, and the rest of the video is still worth watching.
Add me to the long list of people who heard the bit about desert sand not being suitable for concrete and believed it. I'm happy to be corrected.
I noticed that the two bars were breaking differently under the hydraulic press. One was crumbling and the other (manufactured) was exploding. There was no mention of this effect in the video. It couldn't be the due to force because in the 2nd half the manufactured bar broke at a lower force. Could this factor has consequences on how manufactured sand concrete behaves with natural phenomenon (hurricanes, earthquakes, fires, etc.)
This issue has been discussed here in the past.
One example:
Learned so much about sand in 20 minutes! He mentions nebula.tv at the end. Does anyone have feedback on the content over there?
I didn’t exactly understand the take away from this video. In the first test he does, the river sand concrete is three times stronger than the desert sand concrete, but in the second test, the desert sand concrete is 10% stronger than the river sand concrete. What exactly is going on?
Reminds me of the Onion:
https://theonion.com/geologists-we-may-be-slowly-running-out...
So… this is really about costs? If costs increase for more environmentally destructive sand production, then other sand production gets relatively cheaper… and as he says, industry starts to use more appropriate materials that suddenly become relatively comparable in terms of costs to concrete?
I’m not an engineer or an economist, does this sound like a fair summary?
Just like the US debt is about to collapse on pepl and kill the economy, but ... ... it never happens.
Bonus points for articles that start with a tldr and don't try to bury the lead
The transcript is a pleasure to read. A familiar style to hear but not read. I can’t think of reading something written in the style of a YouTuber before but it is a animated read.
I just got back from the beach and my car is full of it if anyone needs some.
FTA
> And we have engineered machines that can transform big rocks into small ones.
OK, so you solve a problem of decreasing resources by using additional energy, so more CO2 emissions...
So I'm confused. How are we to differentiate sand for semiconductor from sand for fiber optics? Or say sand for windows?
Didn't know artisanal sand is a thing.
Frackers bought the Kermit Sand Dunes in Texas 7 or 8 years ago cause the sand there was ideal for fracking.
great new yorker piece on this
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/05/29/the-world-is-r...
there are lots of types of sand for specific purposes just like say different kinds of wood. unfortunately while we can essentially 'farm' certain kinds of wood that really isn't possible for sand.
I recently bought his book. It's as great as you'd expect it to be.
The first time I heard about this, I wondered why we didn't just blast desert sand at itself to rough it up to give it better properties. Sure it takes some energy but the sand mafia probably isn't getting cheaper.
tl;dw/dr - no, but not all sand are made equal, nor costs the same to procure.
Betteridge's law never fails! (At least in this case the author immediately answers the question.)
no
[dead]
the world is running out of sand if some crooked politician and his cronies can profit off of it. notice the pattern.
We're running out of most everything, in a very The Limits to Growth/World3 kinda of way.
> If we use the US Department of Agriculture’s soil textural triangle, sand is any granular material that is at least 85% sand…
Cool, I just added a single grain of sand to a tonne of snow, now I have a tonne of sand. How convenient.
I wonder if the desert kind of sand that isn’t suitable for construction can be used for those thermal mass sand batteries.
Seems like an obvious solution for storage to me but haven’t heard anything on that front
The whole idea of making your own sand is not sound. It will cost more, perhaps many times more. Seems clear when you think about it: hard to beat the cost of 'natural' sand because you just drive over and load it up. Add any more to that process, it's gonna go up in price. Including crushing rock etc - energy-intensive, then sieving. All add cost over and above, well, just hauling.
And vague comments about 'couldn't find the science behind river sand being less useful' (because it's rounded not jagged). That's no kind of science.
This guy is lauded but I"m not so sure he's someone to listen to. "I hit some rocks in my garage and made my own sand!" isn't any kind of interesting. At what cost? At what scale? It's all about money, baby. Anything that doesn't add up cost is just storytelling.
One thing that surprised me when I started running a tugboat business: A country can be both an exporter and importer of sand. Sand of one type goes from the U.S. to The Bahamas to be used in concrete. Sand of another type goes from The Bahamas to the U.S. to be used in aquariums. Specialty sands go to make regulation volleyball courts.