A sand shortage? We are running out of a crucial and underappreciated commodity

A sand shortage? We are running out of a crucial and underappreciated commodity(cnbc.com)

5 points by gpresot 5 years ago | 8 comments

mrverify 5 years ago |

Where do I start on this one? Well, first of all, barrier islands naturally migrate south. Just go to any beach in NJ and you can see this happening, almost in real time. Its natural, and its combatted _solely_ to protect real estate on the islands and maintain navigation of waterways. The sand that is used for silicon chips is quarried further inland in NJ. Its shipped all over the world from Philly on bulk carriers to produce the raw silicon necessary to make chips. Neither of these have _anything_ to do with climate change. One is supply and demand, and the other, a natural process that has been happening here since the beginning of time: The Native Americans did _not_ take up permanent residence on the barrier islands for this very reason. There are very real ways you can show climate change without having to resort to sensationalism. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barrier_island https://www.ussilica.com/locations/mauricetown-nj

aurizon 5 years ago |

This is all economics. Ship carried sand is the cheapest freight and from one ocean spot to another (tidewater to tidewater) is the lowest cost. So these ocean based dredges suck up sediment and do some initial water/screen segregartion to get rid of the large lumps and dust(which are dumped and contribute to coral deaths in the dust plume -see Australia.) They then send the ships to where it is needed - usually by the next cheapest way = unit railcars. There is not real sand shortage, there is a shortage of cheap sand. Dictatorships willingly ruin sea coasts, deomcracies less so. There is a huge amount of sand on land = costs you extra to dig sort and move. There needs to be as legally restricted way to do this, so assorted sea shores and sand banks are not sucked up = which BTW, leads to further shore losses as these protective barriers are removes. The USA/Canada and most countries do have these restrictions - varies by country. So pay more for sand by law. Silicon sand for the chip industry is a millionth or less than what is needed for construction - who would never use chip sand anyway = costs a lot more.

foolmeonce 5 years ago | |

Yes, though the relatively small amount of sand that companies suck up with permission from i.e. EU countries in the mediterranean acts as a fig leaf for cheap ocean sand.

There's no real justification for letting all the ocean resource projects continue given the long standing tragedy of the commons and how it aggravates naval turf wars. If we outlaw all of it we will be better off. We can move towards manufacturing sand-like construction filler from our normal glass system, which is able to consume land sand, and such a filler would be visually distinct from raw ocean sand.

aurizon 5 years ago | | |

Sand varies a lot - it depends on the rock it weathered from originally. As detailed here, sand dunes create rounded grains that do not interlock in the cement hydrate matrix = weak concrete. Lots more about it here. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sand

And a curious side note, sand collectors... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arenophile