As climate change melts Greenland's glaciers and deposits more river sediment on its shores, an international group of researchers has identified one unforeseen economic opportunity for the Arctic nation: exporting excess sand and gravel abroad, where raw materials for infrastructure are in high demand.
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"The melting Greenland Ice Sheet delivers an enormous amount of sediments to the coast," said Mette Bendixen, a researcher at CU Boulder's Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research (INSTAAR) and a Carlsberg Foundation research fellow. "Eight percent of the annual sediment contribution delivered to the global oceans comes from the Greenland Ice Sheet and with continued global warming, this number is expected to increase."
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Simultaneously, global sand reserves have been rapidly depleted in recent decades while demand has only increased thanks to global urbanization and infrastructure investments. The study estimates that the amount of sand delivered to Greenland's coast each year has a market value equivalent to more than half of the Greenland gross domestic product ($2.22 billion in 2015) and this value is expected to double within the next 25 years if the global sand prices continue to increase.
Greenland's melting ice sheet might stall out the Gulf Stream, but the sand and sediment it's depositing at the coast could become a valuable export.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Snotnose on Tuesday February 12 2019, @01:26AM (2 children)
Its mind boggling how much sand is used to make modern buildings. Can't take it from beaches, and a lot of desert sand is unsuitable for concrete for reasons.
Of course I'm against DEI. Donald, Eric, and Ivanka.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 12 2019, @02:21AM (1 child)
Now what are the Saudis going to sell once their oil runs out?
(Score: 1) by redneckmother on Tuesday February 12 2019, @03:34AM
You!
Mas cerveza por favor.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Tuesday February 12 2019, @01:44AM (8 children)
"Oh no ! We are causing our pristine landscape and fresh water reserves to vanish, and might cause Europe to freeze in the process !"
"Wait a minute, I know how to make money !"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 12 2019, @02:23AM (2 children)
The melting is likely to happen no matter what so they might as well figure out how to adapt and 'make money' from the situation they have little to no control over...
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 12 2019, @03:05AM
You mean "adapting"? Only creationists believe in that.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 12 2019, @11:42PM
Why would they? What is the money for?
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday February 12 2019, @05:27AM (4 children)
Yes, those mean ole Greenlanders melting our fresh water!
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Tuesday February 12 2019, @05:14PM (3 children)
We're not invading them for their minerals and strategic position, because they are in charge of keeping the fresh water cubes for our cocktails.
Now they're obviously not preventing them from melting.
What do you think would happen to Switzerland if they stopped keeping good care of our money ?
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday February 12 2019, @09:02PM (2 children)
Not much of anything except, of course, people would stop using their banks.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Tuesday February 12 2019, @10:08PM (1 child)
Prime strategic real estate in the heart of Europe, with beautiful vacation spots for the elite ?
People have been invaded for way less than that.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday February 12 2019, @11:00PM
In what century? Ignoring that Switzerland is a really hard target for invasion, we still have that your sort of invasion is increasingly scarce.
(Score: 1) by redneckmother on Tuesday February 12 2019, @03:42AM (2 children)
So, the sand is going to be extremely valuable to... who?
Who will be around to have a hardon for sand?
Fresh water, food, environmental shelter, and cooling technology - there's the market of the future!
Mas cerveza por favor.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Tuesday February 12 2019, @03:43AM
What happened to seasteading?
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by arslan on Tuesday February 12 2019, @06:04AM
Didn't you watch waterworld, dirt is the new gold.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 12 2019, @05:46AM
totally buying stock in this:
transporting yuge amounts of heavy volume with the power of burning fossil fuel will
yield auto-mining of said yuge volume resource.
doesn't get any more WIN-WIN then this ^_^
on a more serious side note: for applications that require clean, washed and carbon free (leafs, wood, organic debris) sand and gravel, this source might be a triple A one.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 12 2019, @08:00AM
who has a job because of climate change.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 12 2019, @06:01PM
if climate change is melting their beloved glaciers and depositing sand everywhere and this process is supposed to be making sea levels rise then maybe it's a little short sighted to sell the freaking sand? i mean, you might need that one day.