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.
Is the world really running out of sand?
81–90 of 218 posts
Re: Is the world really running out of sand?
#82Earlier quoted context omitted.
> and 70% of the world's supply comes from just one place in North Carolina A quick search seems to say there are more places available for getting that than North Carolina. Is it possible that this specific mine just happens to be the cheapest available right now, but in case they for some reason disappear, there are alternatives everyone would switch to? Or is the situation that if that mine disappears, there is no…
Yeah, this is being overblown. It may very well be that there will be a short term constriction as competitors ramp, but to argue that this is some kind of fundamental bottleneck in semiconductor production is ridiculous. It's quartz : literally the single most common crystal on the surface of the planet. Now, sure, I'm sure this particular mine had great stuff, but it's not like it's hard to find. No, surely what we…
You're right, but I wouldn't be surprised if this becomes a bottleneck at least for a few months, generating a lot of headaches for some companies.
Re: Is the world really running out of sand?
#83We 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.
It's quite likely that the cost of idle capital is much higher than the cost of paying others to accept electricity. Depending on the price swings, a battery may be a much better investment.
Re: Is the world really running out of sand?
#84I 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.
Re: Is the world really running out of sand?
#85> 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 don’t understand how you got that conclusion — 1 grain of sand is not 85% of the [ton of snow + 1 grain sand]
I think OP wanted to construct “sand by induction”, but I also think you need more than one grain. If you have 9 grains of sand and add one snowflake, you now have something that’s 90% sand and is therefore 10 grains of sand. Take your 10 grains of sand and add another snowflake to create 11 grains of sand. Continue with each snowflake one by one, and you’ve inductively created a sand pile.
Re: Is the world really running out of sand?
#86So… 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?
Re: Is the world really running out of sand?
#87Earlier quoted context omitted.
The word "lede" was introduced in the 1970s as an alternative spelling for the word "lead" to resolve ambiguity between the leading paragraph of an article and the metal "lead" which was used in typesetting. It didn't even become popular until the 1980s. In fact, prior to the 1980s, it was indeed spelled "bury the lead". Here for example is an excerpt from a book about newswriting from the 1970s which uses "lead" as…
Meanwhile, the group "Led Zeppelin" also avoided the ambiguous spelling to prevent people from pronouncing their name "leed zeppelin". You can't win with lead.
Huh, didn't know that! Via https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Led_Zeppelin#Formation:_1966%E... :
> One account of how the new band's name was chosen held that Moon and Entwistle had suggested that a supergroup with Page and Beck would go down like a "lead balloon", an idiom for being very unsuccessful or unpopular.[21] The group dropped the 'a' in lead at the suggestion of [manager] Peter Grant, so that those unfamiliar with the term would not pronounce it "leed".[22] The word "balloon" was replaced by "zeppelin", a word which, according to music journalist Keith Shadwick, brought "the perfect combination of heavy and light, combustibility and grace" to Page's mind.[21]
It certainly doesn't help that in a rock context, "lead guitar" is very much pronounced with a long e! And one could be forgiven for thinking that a formation of flying things would necessarily have one member in the lead position. I'm glad they had the foresight to keep us from being led astray!
Re: Is the world really running out of sand?
#88Every 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.
He's got a great book as well. I got it because my 4 yo is a Grady fan but I enjoy it and learn a lot as well. "Engineering in Plain Sight: An Illustrated Field Guide to the Constructed Environment"
Re: Is the world really running out of sand?
#89The 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.
Re: Is the world really running out of sand?
#90Ironically, 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]
> and 70% of the world's supply comes from just one place in North Carolina A quick search seems to say there are more places available for getting that than North Carolina. Is it possible that this specific mine just happens to be the cheapest available right now, but in case they for some reason disappear, there are alternatives everyone would switch to? Or is the situation that if that mine disappears, there is no…
>> and 70% of the world's supply comes from just one place in North Carolina
> A quick search seems to say there are more places available for getting that than North Carolina.
I mean, I deduced it straight from “70%”.