Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

posted by CoolHand on Saturday March 28 2015, @05:00PM   Printer-friendly
from the who-kicked-over-my-sand-castle dept.

Wired reports:

Apart from water and air, humble sand is the natural resource most consumed by human beings. People use more than 40 billion tons of sand and gravel every year. There’s so much demand that riverbeds and beaches around the world are being stripped bare. (Desert sand generally doesn’t work for construction; shaped by wind rather than water, desert grains are too round to bind together well.) And the amount of sand being mined is increasing exponentially.

Though the supply might seem endless, sand is a finite resource like any other. The worldwide construction boom of recent years—all those mushrooming megacities, from Lagos to Beijing—is devouring unprecedented quantities; extracting it is a $70 billion industry. In Dubai enormous land-reclamation projects and breakneck skyscraper-building have exhausted all the nearby sources. Exporters in Australia are literally selling sand to Arabs.

It's a crazy, crazy world.

This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
  • (Score: 2) by Gaaark on Saturday March 28 2015, @05:03PM

    by Gaaark (41) on Saturday March 28 2015, @05:03PM (#163583) Journal

    yes it is.

    --
    --- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 28 2015, @05:05PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 28 2015, @05:05PM (#163584)

    Pretty good salesmen, those Aussies

    • (Score: 2) by kaszz on Saturday March 28 2015, @05:39PM

      by kaszz (4211) on Saturday March 28 2015, @05:39PM (#163592) Journal

      What do you expect from a nation of crooks [wikipedia.org] directed by a machine bot Mr Smith Ab-bot [chzbgr.com] ..? :P

      The Ab-bot will probably export autonomic bread toasters that will conspire against their Arab overlords. ;)

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 29 2015, @07:32PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 29 2015, @07:32PM (#163914)

      They also export camels to the middle east.

  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by kaszz on Saturday March 28 2015, @05:20PM

    by kaszz (4211) on Saturday March 28 2015, @05:20PM (#163590) Journal

    Perhaps the question ought to be. Do we really need all those buildings? Guess those 1% need to devour our survival capacity for everybody to get the latest shiny gadget.

    • (Score: 2) by isostatic on Sunday March 29 2015, @07:54PM

      by isostatic (365) on Sunday March 29 2015, @07:54PM (#163923) Journal

      Where exactly are people going to live?

      Aside from the world popuation growing by about 400,000 people a day, people are living in larger places. You get fewer families living 8 to a house, especially as economies grow. You also have the urbanisation of the world, meaning that you need more and more complex buildings to house people.

      The growth of cities in the "developing" world is astronomical. It's been a long time since London and New York were the largest cities - there's the obvious far-east ones (Tokyo, Shanghai, Seoul), and traditionally large developing ones like Mexico City, Sao Paulo, but when did Istanbul become the largest city in Europe? Cairo is growing massively. You might think Boston is a big city - ever heard of Pune? Belo Horizonte is larger than Atlanta. People still live in these places, and they aren't building stuff for fun and profit -- people need somewhere to live.

      • (Score: 3, Insightful) by kaszz on Sunday March 29 2015, @08:02PM

        by kaszz (4211) on Sunday March 29 2015, @08:02PM (#163927) Journal

        Perhaps people should not make so many more people?

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 28 2015, @05:55PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 28 2015, @05:55PM (#163597)

    It is a big thing. Very fun to call it dirt and see how people in that field get salty. Top grade (pun intended) trolling material.

    Different types of sand is used for different purposes. I do not know the details and defer to experts on the subject, but suffice to say that not all sand is created equal. Having a place with huge amounts of homogenous sands buying other kinds from other places is not at all crazy. Studying the dust of terra firma for a career on the other hand...

  • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 28 2015, @06:08PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 28 2015, @06:08PM (#163600)
  • (Score: 5, Informative) by frojack on Saturday March 28 2015, @06:11PM

    by frojack (1554) on Saturday March 28 2015, @06:11PM (#163602) Journal

    Sand and gravel is one thing we can't run out of, because the earth is made of it, and nothing we could build would be bigger than the earth.

    Most construction is done with gravel, and sand itself, not so much.

    Virtually everything made from it is recyclable. The Seattle Kingdome statium was imploded in the year 2000, and being built of steel and concrete, 97% of it was recycled. Most of the concrete was used as foundation for the Century Link (Seahawks) stadium.

    Desert sand (or any beach sand) is perfect for glass making, and even for non-structural cement (paving), but it doesn't work well for adobe.
    On the other hand, it pumps really well in a water slurry, and you can fill huge acreages, with just a big pump, water, and pipe, but round sand grains act like liquid in earthquakes.
    Adding 10-15% of non-polished sand (angular grains) is all it take to make sand perfectly fine for building.

    --
    No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
    • (Score: 3, Touché) by Dunbal on Saturday March 28 2015, @07:06PM

      by Dunbal (3515) on Saturday March 28 2015, @07:06PM (#163617)

      Most construction is done with gravel, and sand itself, not so much.

      I guess you've never mixed concrete.

      • (Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 28 2015, @07:17PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 28 2015, @07:17PM (#163621)
      • (Score: 2) by frojack on Sunday March 29 2015, @05:54AM

        by frojack (1554) on Sunday March 29 2015, @05:54AM (#163721) Journal

        Yup, I have. Both manually, and in a portable, and had it delivered by the truck load. Its gravel, not sand.

        --
        No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 05 2015, @12:40PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 05 2015, @12:40PM (#166642)

          "Aggregate" consists of large chunks of material in a concrete mix, generally a coarse gravel or crushed rocks such as limestone, or granite, along with finer materials such as sand.

          From Wikipedia

          As the reactions proceed, the products of the cement hydration process gradually bond together the individual sand and gravel particles and other components of the concrete to form a solid mass.[34]

          If you're not using sand in your concrete you're the only one.

    • (Score: 5, Insightful) by darkfeline on Saturday March 28 2015, @07:41PM

      by darkfeline (1030) on Saturday March 28 2015, @07:41PM (#163630) Homepage

      No, we can very well run out of sand. It's a natural resource just like oil, there's a rate of creation, and currently our rate of consumption far outstrips it.

      The planet is made of ROCK, not SAND. They're not even chemically equivalent; sand is created from rock through natural CHEMICAL processes. Of course, we can "create" more sand, but then, we can "create" more of anything that we have atoms for and thus we can never run out of anything by that logic so long as we have enough matter. The reality is, modern "alchemy" (chemistry) is nowhere near efficient enough to satisfy our industrial needs.

      About recyclability: It's all a matter of relative cost. Currently, mining sand costs less than recycling sand, so that's why it is still done. Recycling is EXPENSIVE. I'm not too familiar with the industrial usage of sand nor their recyclability in those capacities, but I'm suspicious of any industry which produces easily recyclable anything; most industrial processes are dirty as fuck. There's also the matter of collection, sorting, and transport on top of of the cost of the processing itself and you might be better off doing the "alchemy" mentioned earlier.

      On a side note, anyone who has played Minecraft with mods is all too familiar with the ridiculous amount of resources industry requires; quarrying out entire mountains and deserts to get the requisite amounts of sand and stone is common.

      --
      Join the SDF Public Access UNIX System today!
      • (Score: 2) by aristarchus on Saturday March 28 2015, @08:24PM

        by aristarchus (2645) on Saturday March 28 2015, @08:24PM (#163635) Journal

        You had me going for a while, there! Almost sounded like you knew what you were talking about, until this:

        On a side note, anyone who has played Minecraft with mods is all too familiar with the ridiculous amount of resources industry requires;

        • (Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 28 2015, @09:05PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 28 2015, @09:05PM (#163646)

          OMG he used a simulator to learn about the real world.
          Is it really all that different from reading a book?
          Minecraft ain't precise or comprehensive, but its not completely arbitrary either.

          • (Score: 2) by aristarchus on Sunday March 29 2015, @08:07AM

            by aristarchus (2645) on Sunday March 29 2015, @08:07AM (#163746) Journal

            OMG he used a simulator to learn about the real world.

            Seriously? Minecraft is a "simulator"? Maybe of eight-bit graphics, but physical reality? This is why "gameification" of education is a very bad idea.

            But it was more this that made me doubt the veracity of the post:

            The planet is made of ROCK, not SAND. They're not even chemically equivalent; sand is created from rock through natural CHEMICAL processes. Of course, we can "create" more sand, but then, we can "create" more of anything that we have atoms for and thus we can never run out of anything by that logic so long as we have enough matter. The reality is, modern "alchemy" (chemistry) is nowhere near efficient enough to satisfy our industrial needs.

            Chemical, huh? Yeah, right. And now that the Large Hadron Collider is back on line, our sand shortages will soon be a thing of the past.

            • (Score: 2) by darkfeline on Sunday March 29 2015, @07:35PM

              by darkfeline (1030) on Sunday March 29 2015, @07:35PM (#163917) Homepage

              > Chemical, huh? Yeah, right.
              Sand is almost entirely silicon, whereas the element present in the greatest amount in "rock" (of course, there are many types of rock, but I'm generalizing) is oxygen, followed by silicon (25% the amount of oxygen), and the rest are various elements that distinguish mineral and rock types (potassium, sodium, iron, calcium, magnesium, aluminum, and every other element in trace amounts).

              So yes, chemically different.

              --
              Join the SDF Public Access UNIX System today!
        • (Score: 3, Informative) by darkfeline on Sunday March 29 2015, @07:22PM

          by darkfeline (1030) on Sunday March 29 2015, @07:22PM (#163904) Homepage

          The first paragraph was based on my knowledge of geology, and the second was based on my general knowledge of industry and recycling (experience I gained in my participation in a sustainability club). You're free to dismiss my entire post based on a single comment I made in an effort to promote the concept of tangential learning, but that closed-mindedness will really get in your way of being able to see things from a new perspective.

          --
          Join the SDF Public Access UNIX System today!
          • (Score: 2) by aristarchus on Sunday March 29 2015, @08:59PM

            by aristarchus (2645) on Sunday March 29 2015, @08:59PM (#163938) Journal

            You are not helping yourself. Go back to your chemistry textbooks. And then pound some sand! There is a reason for the turn of phrase. Sand is not defined by chemical composition, but by dimensions, and is the result of mechanical processes. Open your mind enough to see that you are in error, and then be a big enough of a Soylentil to admit it. It will end better for all of us.

            • (Score: 2) by darkfeline on Monday March 30 2015, @08:31AM

              by darkfeline (1030) on Monday March 30 2015, @08:31AM (#164115) Homepage

              I don't know why you are so stubborn, what do you have to lose from learning something new?

              >Sand is not defined by chemical composition, but by dimensions
              Okay, so grains of gold that are the right size is also sand. Sand being used by industry, or present on our planet, have no defining chemical characteristics, they can be salt, or gold, or iron grains, but they all abide by your magically defined dimensions, which makes them sand. They are all created by mechanical processes, though God knows where the planet buys its industrial-scale mechanical pulverizers for producing all this pulverized material.

              Since you have absolutely no geology knowledge, you'll probably go with the "Wind erodes the sides of mountains, making sand, that's what I was taught in high school!" which is false. Sand is produced (again, since you seem so stubborn) by the chemical erosion of rock, which removes all of the other junk leaving the silicon which becomes sand.

              --
              Join the SDF Public Access UNIX System today!
              • (Score: 2) by aristarchus on Monday March 30 2015, @10:33AM

                by aristarchus (2645) on Monday March 30 2015, @10:33AM (#164161) Journal

                Sand is not silicon. You are an ignoramous. Why do you persist? Sandstone is make of sand, so I guess you are right, or not. So how do we make sand again? Beach sand in major parts of the world is calcium carbonate. Black sand beaches are made of lava rock. Green sand beaches are made of jade! And of course, the beaches of Europa are make of carbon, pure, crystalline carbon, or diamonds. (I made that last part up.) But your original post was so far off the mark as to expose you as an idiot. How old are you? Being few in years is oft an excuse for lack of knowledge. We might let it go, if you fess up. This is the question, the question that bothers you like a splinter in your mind: "What is Sand?"

                • (Score: 2) by darkfeline on Monday March 30 2015, @02:19PM

                  by darkfeline (1030) on Monday March 30 2015, @02:19PM (#164245) Homepage

                  >the most common constituent of sand in inland continental settings and non-tropical coastal settings is silica (silicon dioxide, or SiO2), usually in the form of quartz.
                  From Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sand [wikipedia.org]

                  Following up on your point
                  >The second most common type of sand is calcium carbonate

                  But it doesn't matter, since calcium carbonate is, again, chemically distinct from the planet, and most rocks, which are predominately SiO4.

                  >The silicate minerals are rock-forming minerals, constituting approximately 90 percent of the crust of the Earth.
                  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silicate_minerals [wikipedia.org]

                  --
                  Join the SDF Public Access UNIX System today!
                  • (Score: 2) by aristarchus on Monday March 30 2015, @07:58PM

                    by aristarchus (2645) on Monday March 30 2015, @07:58PM (#164452) Journal

                    So, to summarize, we agree that sand is rock, just reduced in size to granules. Thus, we will not run out of sand, since we can always crush rock. However, chemical composition and physical properties of types of sand useful for, say, construction are a limited resource and might cost a lot to manufacture.

                    And we didn't even get into the iron sands! Oh, well, later!

      • (Score: 3, Informative) by frojack on Sunday March 29 2015, @06:02AM

        by frojack (1554) on Sunday March 29 2015, @06:02AM (#163723) Journal

        Regardless of The title to TFS the article is about sand and gravel.

        People use more than 40 billion tons of sand and gravel every year.

        --
        No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
        • (Score: 2) by darkfeline on Sunday March 29 2015, @07:27PM

          by darkfeline (1030) on Sunday March 29 2015, @07:27PM (#163907) Homepage

          Yes, and I was talking about sand, was I not?

          Let me talk about gravel too. Gravel is also a limited natural resource, but it's not as relevant in this discussion because it is much less valuable/useful as a industrial resource than sand, and it is more readily available. The rate of creation for gravel is much higher than for sand; it takes orders of magnitudes less time to create. Furthermore, gravel is chemically identical to rock, as gravel is created from rock through physical processes, not chemical.

          Still, if our usage of gravel begins to outpace its natural generation, we will also have problems. Breaking down rock into small, evenly sized, rounded chunks is also difficult (and again, by difficult I don't mean that it can't be done, but that it might not be possible to do in an industrially viable way given our current infrastructure and technology).

          --
          Join the SDF Public Access UNIX System today!
    • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 28 2015, @07:51PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 28 2015, @07:51PM (#163631)

      Beach sand shouldn't be used (but is) in concrete because of the salt from seawater. It shortens the life of concrete, and any rebar will rust earlier.

      • (Score: 2) by frojack on Sunday March 29 2015, @06:04AM

        by frojack (1554) on Sunday March 29 2015, @06:04AM (#163724) Journal

        Beach sand shouldn't be used (but is) in concrete because of the salt from seawater. It shortens the life of concrete, and any rebar will rust earlier.

        Not all beaches are salt water beaches.

        --
        No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
    • (Score: 3, Funny) by maxwell demon on Saturday March 28 2015, @08:47PM

      by maxwell demon (1608) on Saturday March 28 2015, @08:47PM (#163641) Journal

      Desert sand (or any beach sand) is perfect for glass making, and even for non-structural cement (paving), but it doesn't work well for adobe.

      Well, given that computers are essentially made of sand (more exactly, out of one of the components of sand, silicon), I'd say it works very well for Adobe. [wikipedia.org] ;-)

      --
      The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 29 2015, @03:22AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 29 2015, @03:22AM (#163703)

    And how much of that building currently being done is needed ? Very little indeed.

    Look at the ghost cities China has been building and see if any of that was needed. With the enormous sums to be made from construction, it is not unthinkable that the people getting rich in the building process, and people getting rich in the process of getting sand would not play dirty to keep other materials from being used in place of sand.

    If there is money to be made (good or bad money), many people will do it.

    And when you hear people say "our current usage of (sand, water, oil) cannot be sustained", and then ask yourself if you are one of them stripping the planet dry, polluting natural resources, and generally wasting the planet in order to get filthy rich. You know the answer well. You are not getting rich. That is another group of people that isn't you. And they made you think that "our" includes you, and you are responsible. It is just like a manager saying to employees "our strategy is not paying off. We need to do more" etc. And the employees thinking that they have a duty to make their bosses extremely rich. This is quite common, and its sick. They think you are peons who can be kicked around.

  • (Score: 1) by Noble713 on Sunday March 29 2015, @09:54AM

    by Noble713 (4895) on Sunday March 29 2015, @09:54AM (#163753)

    TFS implies that water-eroded sand from rivers and beaches is needed. Ummm....what about the ocean floor? Is dredging the shallow areas near beaches, but not the beaches themselves, really that costly?

    • (Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Sunday March 29 2015, @10:22AM

      by maxwell demon (1608) on Sunday March 29 2015, @10:22AM (#163759) Journal

      To get sand from a beach, you need no more than a truck and unskilled workers with shovels. What do you need to get sand from the ocean floor?

      --
      The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 29 2015, @12:48PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 29 2015, @12:48PM (#163795)

        What do you need to get sand from the ocean floor?

        A long pipe and a powerful pump.