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Is the world really running out of sand?

practical.engineering

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Re: Is the world really running out of sand?

#141

Post by pfdietz »

FredPret wrote: post #99
lofaszvanitt wrote: post #94

Just like the US debt is about to collapse on pepl and kill the economy, but ... ... it never happens.

Public debt is more like a brake that gets worse and worse really slowly over time. And then it suddenly explodes - more and more of the budget goes to interest payments instead of procurement. At one point the government has to borrow to make payments on the debt, and then you’ve got a very bad spiral.

Because the debt is in US dollars, the government will inflate away the debt. So the end game is dollar devaluation, followed by enforced budget discipline because lenders will no longer accept treasury bills.

Re: Is the world really running out of sand?

#142

Post by pfdietz »

WillAdams wrote: post #50
justinator wrote: post #39

We're running out of most everything, in a very The Limits to Growth/World3 kinda of way.

Isaac Asimov was an early writer on this, noting that if the earth's crust was converted into biomass the limiting element was phosphorous --- look at USDA photos of food crops grown w/ and w/o fertilizer including that element for a very sobering view. Currently, we expend up to 10 calories of petro-chemical energy to get 1 calorie of food energy (depending on food) --- peak oil is still worrisome given how much of…

There is nothing special about petrochemical energy when it comes to growing food. We could run the agricultural system on other energy sources. In the US, the total fraction of energy used for agriculture is about 1%. We use more energy cooking food than growing it.

Re: Is the world really running out of sand?

#143

Post by throwup238 »

tonetegeatinst wrote: post #97

So I'm confused. How are we to differentiate sand for semiconductor from sand for fiber optics? Or say sand for windows?

The sand is first screened to separate out larger objects, then washed to eliminate clay/silt/fine particles. Then it goes through a couple more steps to separate out quartz, magnetic minerals, etc before finally batches are tested for silicon dioxide content and impurities using xray fluoroscopy and other spectroscopy methods. The purer a batch is, the higher end the customer.

Most localities can’t produce sand good enough for semiconductors or optics because they contain impurities that are too hard to remove so most of it is used for concrete or glass.

Re: Is the world really running out of sand?

#144

Post by rangerelf »

delichon wrote: post #139
adra wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the best meals I ever ate was a store bought can of chiii cooked over a tiny camp burner after a long hiking through the Grand Canyon. Sometimes it's the simple things during the most exceptional situations that can cement such a strong memory... It did for me anyways.

Yes, but. I had some of the most memorably bad sleeps on the same trip. Like wrapped around a tree trunk on a slope in a blizzard. Not magical one bit.

Magic can also be scary, so... the other kind of magical?

Re: Is the world really running out of sand?

#145

Post by jballanc »

smt88 wrote: post #137
snypher wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about eg air, wood? Used by mass or volume or?

It seems likely to me that both concrete and plastic are used in greater mass and greater volume than wood.

And concrete dates back to (at least) Roman times

Re: Is the world really running out of sand?

#147

Post by dyauspitr »

mcculley wrote: post #79

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.

Yeah but there is going to be a massive imbalance in the quantity of those two types of sand. I bet the sand required for aquariums is a rounding error on the amount of sand required for concrete.

Re: Is the world really running out of sand?

#148

Post by lazide »

WillAdams wrote: post #51
throw0101b wrote: post #7

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 environmenta…

Another book on this is: _Material World: The Six Raw Materials That Shape Modern Civilization_ by Ed Conway https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/112974899-material-world >Sand, salt, iron, copper, oil, and lithium. These fundamental materials have created empires, razed civilizations, and fed our ingenuity and greed for thousands of years. Without them, our modern world would not exist, and the battle to control them…

Lithium seems like a weird one to add to that list. It definitely hasn’t been important for thousands of years. Potassium or Nitrates are a more likely addition.

Re: Is the world really running out of sand?

#149

Post by eru »

mcculley wrote: post #79

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.

> A country can be both an exporter and importer of sand.

That's pretty normal in general. Eg Germany both imports and exports a lot of cars.

Re: Is the world really running out of sand?

#150

Post by eru »

dyauspitr wrote: post #147
mcculley wrote: post #79

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.

Yeah but there is going to be a massive imbalance in the quantity of those two types of sand. I bet the sand required for aquariums is a rounding error on the amount of sand required for concrete.

Yes, though the difference in value is probably not quite as stark as the difference in mass. (Ie aquarium sand is probably more expensive than concrete sand.)
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