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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?

#151

Post by lazide »

pfdietz wrote: post #142
WillAdams wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Hydrocarbons contain massive quantities of easily liberated energy and large quantities of easily liberated hydrogen.

Which are then easily and economically converted to ammonia to power the largest single form of fertilizer used in the world - nitrogen fertilizer, in the form of ammonium nitrate and equivalents. [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haber_process]

10’s of millions of tons/year are produced right now.

That process alone is responsible for likely at least 50% of the human population increase since it was invented, literally billions of people.

It is much harder to get there with any other form of energy, albeit not impossible.

Re: Is the world really running out of sand?

#152

Post by max-ibel »

tourmalinetaco wrote: post #113
sundarurfriend wrote: post #108

> 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 k…

The problem is that what defines a “citable source” for Wikipedia is loose at best and malicious at worst. There are many examples where “improper” sources are accepted, especially in social matters, because they benefit a certain viewpoint. STEM is, for the most part, decent, but anything covering the life of people needs to be considered carefully due to the lack of several types of important sources and the biases…

If you're bilingual, it's often useful to read a wikipedia topic in more than one language, as the editorial slant may be different in different languages.

Can at least confirm for German/English.

Re: Is the world really running out of sand?

#153

Post by squigz »

tourmalinetaco wrote: post #113
sundarurfriend wrote: post #108

> 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 k…

The problem is that what defines a “citable source” for Wikipedia is loose at best and malicious at worst. There are many examples where “improper” sources are accepted, especially in social matters, because they benefit a certain viewpoint. STEM is, for the most part, decent, but anything covering the life of people needs to be considered carefully due to the lack of several types of important sources and the biases…

Could you give some examples?

Re: Is the world really running out of sand?

#154

Post by dyauspitr »

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?

Re: Is the world really running out of sand?

#155

Post by xbmcuser »

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.

Well not really Bermuda has population of 60000 only so the sand they import for construction might even be less than the sand US import from Bermuda for its aquariums

Re: Is the world really running out of sand?

#156

Post by amy-petrik-214 »

adra wrote: post #138
delichon wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The best night's sleep I ever had was on the sand of a turn in a dry creek bed, after a very long day's hike. It must have had a big rock underneath that caught the day's warmth and kept me toasty all night. And the sand itself felt like floating on a cloud. It was a magical place. And one of the stupidest I ever slept in due to the risk of flash floods.

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.

One of the most romantic dalliances I ever did have was on the soft sand on the beaches of Italy, moonlight, red wine, the sand felt like velvet and silk rolled into one. I just think back on it and think to myself "let me brag about how great it was on the internet" 10/10 you missed out.

Re: Is the world really running out of sand?

#157

Post by oe »

eru wrote: post #149
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.

My favorite example of this is trucks transporting Finnish bottled water to France and then bringing French bottled water back.

Re: Is the world really running out of sand?

#158

Post by dukeofdoom »

delichon wrote: post #124
lb1lf wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed! Then there is all kinds of specialty sands - say, when replacing the sand in our local athletics union long jump pits, I learned that one should use sand from river beds (as opposed to sand crushed at a plant) as the river sand is much less likely to cause abrasions, seeing as all the sharp edges have been worn away as the sand has been shifted back and forth by the river current... Sand is not just sand.

The best night's sleep I ever had was on the sand of a turn in a dry creek bed, after a very long day's hike. It must have had a big rock underneath that caught the day's warmth and kept me toasty all night. And the sand itself felt like floating on a cloud. It was a magical place. And one of the stupidest I ever slept in due to the risk of flash floods.

You should try sleeping on a fresh haystack. Most people will never experience this. But the haystack is made up of cut flowering meadow plants. So it's like sleeping in a bouquet of dried flowers. And the aromatic organic chemicals released all night can have a very calming effect. It's kind of wild to think about, but people used to get it on in haystack barns all the time.

Re: Is the world really running out of sand?

#159

Post by chithanh »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #76
eichin wrote: post #5

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]

I wrote this comment on an article that was on HN about 6 months ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39818778 Sadly, given the insane amount of devastation in western NC, I'll get a chance to test my hypothesis. That is, despite Spruce Pine going offline, the overall impact to the global semiconductor industry will be relatively unnoticeable.

Could also go the other way. Some of you may be old enough to remember the 1993 fire in the Sumitomo epoxy resin factory. Following that, DRAM chips became drastically more expensive (prices increased from $30 to $80 per megabyte) for much longer than the supply disruptions lasted, and interestingly also much longer than other ICs which saw only moderate price increases.

Re: Is the world really running out of sand?

#160

Post by orthoxerox »

dukeofdoom wrote: post #158
delichon wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The best night's sleep I ever had was on the sand of a turn in a dry creek bed, after a very long day's hike. It must have had a big rock underneath that caught the day's warmth and kept me toasty all night. And the sand itself felt like floating on a cloud. It was a magical place. And one of the stupidest I ever slept in due to the risk of flash floods.

You should try sleeping on a fresh haystack. Most people will never experience this. But the haystack is made up of cut flowering meadow plants. So it's like sleeping in a bouquet of dried flowers. And the aromatic organic chemicals released all night can have a very calming effect. It's kind of wild to think about, but people used to get it on in haystack barns all the time.

I tried that and it was made of cut grasses. You know how grasses have foxtails that cling to animals to help distribute the seeds over a wider area? I was that animal that night and I didn't like it one bit.
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