
The World Is Running Out of Sand - laktak
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/world-facing-global-sand-crisis-180964815/?no-ist
======
beat
I've had a weird front row seat to sand in Minnesota. We have a popular local
renaissance festival southwest of the Twin Cities. Its location is typical for
such things - a plot of otherwise unused land near a riverbed, too sandy for
typical Minnesota farming, thanks to the meanderings of the nearby Minnesota
River.

The sandy soil, it turns out, is like a hundred feet deep, and _perfect_ for
fracking operations in the kinda-nearby North Dakota gas fields. A few years
back, the owners started aggressively strip-mining it, leaving gaping holes
where the festival parking lots once were. Eventually, they ended the lease
with the festival, in order to strip-mine the land it sits on.

Imagine that... mere "sand", so valuable that it's worth giving up a
substantial commercial lease that has run for decades and should have been
able to run for decades into the future (and provides hundreds of local jobs),
just for the one-time use.

~~~
cal5k
It makes sense if you think about it... let’s say that sand sells for $10 per
cubic yard. If there’s a substantial area with sand down to 100ft you’re
talking millions upon millions of dollars worth of sand!

~~~
beat
Yeah, I assume the value of the sand is on par with at least a decade or two
of the lease value, for the land owners. It still strikes me as a poor
decision for the city, though. The renaissance festival employs hundreds of
locals every summer, has for decades, would for decades. It also supports a
caste of roaming professional performers who live there for a few months every
year, spending money in town. That's a lot of economic activity! Instead,
it'll be exchanged for money to go to a probably out-of-town mining operation,
and the land will be permanently worthless after that - just a big hole in the
ground, filling up with water.

~~~
burger_moon
People also have to work at the sand mine too. Unlike festival jobs these
aren't seasonal and the pay is actually livable and something you can raise a
family on.

I understand losing your festival isn't fun, in fact I remember you writing
this on hn previously when there were articles about sand mining but you have
to understand that this happens in all cities. Some old theatre gets torn down
to make way for a new high rise condo, or a tech company decides to move in
and tears down a factory to make way for a shiny new office building.

Additionally, if the festival promotors really cared for the festival and the
long tradition of it, wouldn't they just ya know move to a different field to
host it?

~~~
beat
Moving a large festival with hundreds of workers and thousands of attendees to
a new, stable location isn't as easy as it sounds. And yes, they are doing
that, but it took a couple of years of looking for a viable new location.

As for sand mining as a "not seasonal" job - that mine will be played out in a
year or two. The fest jobs are more long-term viable, by far. There are a
number of local small businesses that make much of their annual income in the
couple of months that the festival is open every summer/fall.

~~~
ensignavenger
It sounds like those local businesses should be pooling together to find the
festival permanent home. I realize that it may not be easy to find a spot- all
the more reason to try to find something the festival can own... maybe the
businesses could pool their money and buy some land, put it in a trust to be
used for the festival grounds. The grounds could be used for other events when
the festival isn't happening.

------
thaumaturgy
I learned about the importance of sand (and other media) this year when
setting up a saltwater tank for my s.o.; I really had no idea beforehand.

Sand provides a huge amount of surface area for colonies of bacteria
responsible for converting ammonia into nitrites and nitrites into nitrates,
which can then be taken up by plants or algae and converted into other
chemicals that are less harmful to aquatic species.

Dredging sand from rivers and beaches is likely going to be seen as a massive
ecological disaster in the next couple of decades.

~~~
beat
One of my favorite factoids is that in many deserts, the most common plant
life by weight is algae. It grows in tiny drops of dew on the underside of
grains of sand.

~~~
sk0g
Wait, so the most common plant life by weight _isn 't_ algae, then? What is it
actually?

~~~
im3w1l
Factoid has two almost opposite meanings

1\. an insignificant or trivial fact.

2\. something fictitious or unsubstantiated that is presented as fact, devised
especially to gain publicity and accepted because of constant repetition.

~~~
crimsonalucard
Interesting. Are there any other words in the English language with two
contradicting definitions?

~~~
Stratoscope
There are literally millions of them.

Some people object when a word means its opposite, but I could care less.

~~~
rrauenza
I can't sanction your response.

------
Sharlin
One of my favorite bits of trivia is that Australia sells sand (and camels!)
to Saudi Arabia [1]. In fact, the Arab countries import most of the sand used
for construction because their own sand is not well suited to that purpose.

[1] [https://www.quora.com/Is-it-true-that-Saudi-Arabia-
imports-s...](https://www.quora.com/Is-it-true-that-Saudi-Arabia-imports-
sands-from-Australia-If-so-why)

~~~
21
And US sells chop sticks to China :)

~~~
javajosh
I was surprised to find that the US also grows most of the world's cotton for
clothing. I wouldn't be surprised if we didn't produce a lot of wood products,
too.

~~~
wahern
Yes, but not as much as I originally thought, in relative terms:
[https://www.fas.usda.gov/data/money-does-grow-trees-us-
fores...](https://www.fas.usda.gov/data/money-does-grow-trees-us-forest-
product-exports-set-record)

    
    
      As the world’s fourth-largest exporter of forest products
      (behind the European Union, China, and Canada), the United
      States maintains a steady share of the growing global market
      at just over 10 percent.

~~~
Viper007Bond
Probably because we use so much of it ourselves for housing and stuff.

------
encoderer
Only somewhat related, I recently was in Malibu and needing to relieve myself
my wife and I stopped into an open house for a beachfront home. Nice house,
private beach access. Anyway, the agent tells me that just down the road the
residents there lost their private beach. Work was done to a harbor a couple
miles north and it changed the tidal dynamics and in just a couple of days all
the sand was washed away.

I had never heard of that before. Hard to feel too bad about people losing
their private beach but interesting nevertheless.

The house had nice facilities, 10/10 would use again.

~~~
smogcutter
Side note about Malibu: those beaches aren't private, but homeowners illegally
block access. (with cooperation from the sherriff's dept, who know where their
bread is buttered)

~~~
encoderer
The agent was clear that the beach wasn't private, but the beach _access_ is
on private property. Somebody can walk to it during low tide but the only
land-route off the beach during high tide is thru a locked gate on private
property.

Is that correct or an over-simplification?

------
mdemare
According to Google autocomplete, the world is also running out of antivenom,
bees, cocoa, doctors, energy, fish, gravity, helium, ip addresses, jobs,
lithium, magnets, nutella, oil, phosphorus, rice, scotch, topsoil, vanilla and
water.

~~~
erickj
I'm definitely most concerned about the scotch.

~~~
randomtest
I was blown away at gravity shortage

~~~
rconti
I suppose that's exhibit A for the gravity shortage.

------
Animats
The developed world is not running out of sand. It's making sand by crushing
rock. Here's a typical sand-making plant in China, with old, beat-up equipment
making sand in high quantity.[1] There are lots of sand-making machine videos
on Youtube, some from China, some from India, and some from the US. They all
work about the same; first there's a rock-crusher, then some screening, then a
cone crusher which crushes gravel against gravel until it's sand, then a
washing and screening stage. All the plants look similar - lots of conveyors
and trucks, few people. It's not even that energy intensive. Look at the motor
sizes on the equipment. The trucks are probably using more energy than the
crushers.

[1] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=07WTDgO-
K-k](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=07WTDgO-K-k)

~~~
kilroy123
I thought it was crushed _coral_, not rock?

~~~
dwaltrip
Checking wikipedia, it looks like silica-based sands are the most common type.
Most rocks are composed heavily from silicate compounds -- I'm guessing this
is why sand manufacturing is possible. Calcium carbonate, which is crushed
coral and shellfish, is the second most common type of sand.

I'm curious about the differences between these two types of sand and how it
affects their use cases. I also wonder if manufactured silica-based sands are
any different from the naturally occurring variety.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sand](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sand)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rock_(geology)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rock_\(geology\))

------
deskamess
This is a big problem in India too. Many of the rivers in Kerala state have
been impacted by illegal sand mining. We had rarely used property next to the
river which we sold to a relative who had a house next to ours. They fell on
hard times and sold it to someone else who discovered the sand and started
mining the land ($$$$). That land, the house, the large jackfruit and coffee
trees are no more; in its place is a huge indentation in the landscape where
the river would fill if there was enough water. The rest of the river has very
little sand in it as a result of mining. Natural flooding is now very rare. It
has been reduced to a sliver of its former self.

------
chillax
This article on the same topic is worth reading: How the demand for sand is
killing rivers
[http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-41123284](http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-41123284)

------
program_whiz
Interesting comment on article: Isn't this better stated as "some areas of the
world are running out of sand"? The Sahara is 9.2E12 meters squared and one
estimate puts the average depth of sand at 150m, giving 1.38E15 m^3 of sand.
The earth's land area is 5.1E14 m^2, meaning the sand in the Sahara alone is
enough to cover earth's land area in 2.7m (9ft) of sand

~~~
ehllo
Sand =! Industrial usable Sand. Not all kind of "Sand" is suited for the
industry(today). Most desert/dune sand is to fine grained and has a smooth
surface, so that it is unusable to create strong material. There are some
projects/studies already that use "desert sand + X" to create "strong"
material.

[http://www.resourcepanel.org/reports/global-material-
flows-a...](http://www.resourcepanel.org/reports/global-material-flows-and-
resource-productivity)

[https://na.unep.net/geas/archive/pdfs/GEAS_Mar2014_Sand_Mini...](https://na.unep.net/geas/archive/pdfs/GEAS_Mar2014_Sand_Mining.pdf)

[https://www.hindawi.com/journals/amse/2016/2158706/](https://www.hindawi.com/journals/amse/2016/2158706/)

[http://maxwellsci.com/print/rjees/v4-1071-1078.pdf](http://maxwellsci.com/print/rjees/v4-1071-1078.pdf)

~~~
microcolonel
> _Sand =! Industrial usable Sand. Not all kind of "Sand" is suited for the
> industry(today). Most desert/dune sand is to fine grained and has a smooth
> surface_

That's why you mine it to the East, closer to where it erodes, rather than to
the West, where it is fine enough to be considered dust.

------
rplst8
We're just an oxygen atom away from turning the CO2 from coal, natural gas,
and oil power plants into CO3.

[http://www.sfgate.com/green/article/Green-cement-may-set-
CO2...](http://www.sfgate.com/green/article/Green-cement-may-set-CO2-fate-in-
concrete-3196916.php)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J4Unt7MRsV4&t=267s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J4Unt7MRsV4&t=267s)

~~~
bdamm
I can't help but wonder if an Oxygen shortage is our next major challenge.

~~~
eitland
Along with a silicon shortage then?;-)

For anyone wondering: a lot of "rock" and "sand" is silica AKA silicon
dioxide.

When it comes to oxygen we also have water which contains oxygen.

------
toblender
What's stopping us from making new sand with a giant solar powered grinder?

We should have plenty of rocks...

~~~
pjc50
"Running out of" should, as always, come with the qualifier "at a reasonable
price". Rock-crushing is quite energy intensive compared to just dredging.

Generally in the West you'll find substitutes like crushed concrete or
pulverised fly ash being added to the mix (although PFA itself will be in
short supply as it's a coal-fired power station by product)

~~~
ggcdn
IIRC, in structural concretes flyash is used as an admixture to reduce
portland cement usage, and enhance some properties like permeability, but not
as a replacement for sand.

------
peeters
I'm not sure why they didn't get the Yangtze juxtaposition to line up, but you
can put this in the Chrome debugger to get a lined-up juxtaposition:

    
    
        $('.jx-left > img').style = 'margin-left: 5px'

------
PeachPlum
Homilies that didn't age well :

"If you put the federal government in charge of the Sahara Desert, in 5 years
there'd be a shortage of sand." \- Milton Friedman

------
tankenmate
The world is running out of cheap sand. Time to breed swarms of parrotfish?

~~~
werdnapk
You need a healthy coral reef to do that and us humans have done a pretty good
job at running out of those too.

------
amelius
Reminds me of:

[http://www.bbc.com/capital/story/20160502-even-desert-
city-d...](http://www.bbc.com/capital/story/20160502-even-desert-city-dubai-
imports-its-sand-this-is-why)

------
haberman
I worry about this sometimes with all sorts of raw materials and waste
products. We seem to take for granted that we can make as many cars,
computers, buildings, etc. as the market demands. But there must be some kind
of eventual limit to how much steel, rubber, plastic, glass, etc. we can
manufacture before we've used it all up. It fills me with vague anxiety that I
don't have any sense for how many of these raw materials are left. And I also
wonder whose job it is to think about such things, and if they are thinking
ahead or just building for the now.

~~~
mixmastamyk
As materials become scarce their prices are raised, acting as a natural brake
on their use. Environmental concerns may still be an issue however.

~~~
imtringued
At some point the price is high enough that we can no longer afford to just
throw away the material. It becomes profitable to recycle. Copper is a good
example.

------
0x4f3759df
There's an interesting documentary about this 'Sand Wars' here's the trailer:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CAPfwwb59uY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CAPfwwb59uY)

------
neverminder
This exactly same titled youtube video documentary seems to precede the
article:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kMLYLcniXIc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kMLYLcniXIc)

------
thescriptkiddie
I wonder if we should start dumping crushed glass into the oceans again.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_glass](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_glass)

------
EGreg
Why aren't the companies required to replace the sand with Sahara desert sand,
say? They are capable of transporting sand so it would seem straightforward.

~~~
jlebrech
if they start taking the sahara sand it'll turn into a lake.

~~~
raverbashing
And?

\- Extract lots of sand

\- Fill it with water

Maybe it will compensate for the increased ocean levels if the hole is big
enough

~~~
gus_massa
It's more complicated, and someone thought about a similar project with a
different objective: "Qattara Depression Project
"[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qattara_Depression_Project](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qattara_Depression_Project)

Edit: Also see "Flood Death Valley" [https://what-
if.xkcd.com/152/](https://what-if.xkcd.com/152/)

~~~
hinkley
That much evaporation is going to increase rainfall downwind. If the Sahara
keeps spreading we might have to do that project for several reasons.

Edit: aaand it’s full of cheetahs and gazelles. Damnit.

------
sctb
Related:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14400760](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14400760)

------
TheGrassyKnoll
Pretty good article:

    
    
        http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-canadian-gravel-20171104-htmlstory.html

------
kiliantics
In the US, the federal government spends obscene amounts of money ($1 billion
over 30 years in NJ alone, apparently[0]) replenishing sand on beaches so that
rich people can keep their nice homes there. And even if they do lose the
houses, they can write off taxes to the value of their investments[1]

[0][http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2015/10/jersey_shore_beach_...](http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2015/10/jersey_shore_beach_replenishment_cost_pegged_at_1b_over_past_30_years.html)

[1][http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2013/06/hurricane-
san...](http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2013/06/hurricane-sandy-
beaches-government-spending/)

~~~
exelius
I was under the impression that there were legitimate, erosion-based reasons
for doing this. Basically, by building a gradual, sloped shore it causes waves
to break smaller and over a longer distance, reducing shoreline erosion. Sure
they dump the sand in front of the nice houses first because people want it
there, but they would still dredge the beaches even if they were abandoned. Or
that's the theory at least.

But I only remember reading it somewhere, not where I read it; so I don't know
if it's BS pseudoscience. Does anyone who actually knows something about the
science behind shoreline erosion have an opinion?

~~~
kroltan
It really depends on the kind of shore, in some places the dredged sand would
just be dragged all the way to the seafloor.

IANAMG (I Am Not A Marine Geologist)

------
lordnacho
If it's as bad as it sounds, Saudi prayers for an economy after oil have just
been answered.

~~~
bluegene
Not really, Desert sand is very smooth and fine to use in construction. From
what I read, Dubai actually imports sand for use in construction

------
tryingagainbro
This is also ruining beaches (sand should go to the sea)

Grinding limestone ??

------
2close4comfort
Thank your local fracker!

------
timthelion
In these articles I keep on seeing the phrase "illegal mining", and yet I see
no reason why legality would effect the environment. Is it somehow better for
the environment if the government gets paid for the resource extraction? I
don't think so.

I know that illegal miners may violate mining regulations which are intended
to protect the environment, but as far as I can tell, legal third world mining
is not regulated in any ecological way making that point moot.

~~~
rm_-rf_slash
Here’s something to think about: how much CO2 has been released into the
atmosphere just from crypto currency mining alone? One of the main reasons
I’ve avoided getting into bitcoin mining is because my town is powered by a
coal plant and I simply cannot justify burning coal to acquire make-believe
money.

Just because something is legal doesn’t mean it isn’t harmful.

~~~
emiliobumachar
Do you consider gold and silver similarly perverse? Literal mining is messy.

~~~
Scarblac
How is that not just whataboutism?

It's not as if we are all forced to choose between either bitcoin or gold...

~~~
rm_-rf_slash
Besides, those metals are real and have industrial uses, whereas cryptos are
just a series of bits that the market collectively agrees holds a value.

~~~
CoongLiu
Most economies use representative currency. In many places, notes and coins
are largely worthless.

Cryptocurrencies differ mainly by being virtual. Given that notes are usually
used to represent the larger sums of money, the virtual aspect becomes mostly
semantic. Given that most people store their money in banks, who don't have
all that money on hand at any point in time (hence why they collapse), then
the virtual factor begins to matter even less.

I don't use bitcoin (or equivalent) for pragmatic reasons. Your point however
seems to be about its collective abstraction. If you were being consistent,
you would have to be against most mainstream currencies as well. This is not a
pragmatic or scalable method of commerce. It very quickly become tedious to
trade with items that are of only concrete, immediate value to both parties.
Try to imagine how online purchases, or warehouses, would function. There's a
good reason why virtually every civilisation swapped to representative
currency after reaching a certain size.

------
himom
The bigger, obvious issue is destruction of soils near either thriving biomes
or human settlements. Destroying rivers, beaches, forests and areas around
where people live is just dumb.

There’s always two reasonable alternatives. One, use the essentially lifeless
interior, vast deserts of parts of Australia, Africa and South America. Or
two, ban concrete as a top CO2 emitter and switch to a renewable carbon
sequestration material.

