Time is running out for sand

They talk about the three main uses of sand being concrete, glass and electronics (the third one is actually wrong, only 15 % of silicon produced ends up in the semiconductor industry, the rest is used in metallurgy). I can imagine that one could use desert sand for the last two purposes but don't know how much of an impact that would make.

So I've come around to the belief that we're on the verge of another massive civilization-level change that will be transformative. Think flight, electricity, motorized transport, plastic, writing, agriculture, domestication, firearms, etc (and no I'm not just listing techs from Civ).

That change will be when we have cheaper mass power generation than fossil fuels.

The reason this will be transformative is that a lot of problems basically go away when this happens.

Take burning hydrocarbons for energy. We can make hydrocarbons from the atmosphere. It's simple chemistry. It just makes no sense to spend hydrocarbons to make hydrocarbons from air. That's a net loss of power. If wind or solar (both of which have problems with inconsistent power generation, which is an issue of using them for the power grid). Batteries are of course one solution to this. Another is making fuel from air and using it when it's calm or at night or cloudy (respectively) to smooth out power output.

Bringing this back to sand, we can make sand. It's really just ground up stone and we have plenty of stone. Current sand is made from millions of years of erosion by water. But we can make more sand. It's just cost-prohibitive to do so now because energy is too expensive.

On a side note, I honestly don't think humanity can pull back on carbon emissions. Trying to change behaviour is largely going to be fruitless. What will change behaviour is other power sources being cheaper so that's what we need to strive towards.

Yeah, but nearly every other HN comment is either

1) wringing its hands about a problem that probably has less of an impact on construction prices than a single NIMBY catching a cold and missing the next zoning meeting

2) suggesting an alternative that would charitably be 1000x the current market clearing price, ignoring the fact that there are probably alternatives at 1.2x, 1.3x, and 1.8x the current price that will kick in long before the 1000x solution would become relevant

.

There are many things that markets handle poorly, but this is not one of them, and the stupidity on display in this comments section is a stark reminder why markets are a good default choice for coordinating human activity.

If you are wealthy and educated, adopt. The greatest act of humanism one can make.

In most glass production, and in all silicon production you need sand of high chemical purity, desert sand is heavily contaminated with things that are not silicon dioxide.