Hi, this is Wayne again with a topic “We’re Running Out of Sand to Make CPUs”.
We are running out of sand. That sounds insane. There are massive deserts all around the world that are just full of sand. 27.7 % of the Earth’s crust is just silicon, a key component of silica sand. The problem is that not all sand is created equal and we use a lot of it.
Over 50 billion tons of sand and gravel are used globally every year in Paving and construction, but also in windows, screens, silicon chips and photovoltaic cells, and this massive sand demand has been going on for a long time. A 2014 un report estimated that sand was 85 % of all material mined globally by weight sand is formed by the gradual erosion of rocks into smaller and smaller grains. This is a process that takes thousands of years making sand a renewable resource only in a very technical sense, plus that sand has different properties depending on how it was created. Concrete typically uses water weathered sand, because the resulting grains are rough and angular which allows them to lock together.
Wind weathered desert sand, on the other hand, tends to be too round and smooth. Therefore, Dubai, despite being built on a desert Imports hundreds of millions of dollars of sand each year to support its rapid growth. As for the screen in front of you and the Silicon chips inside your device, that’s a slightly different story. Glass needs to be made from near pure silica sand sand, that is at least 95 % %. Silicon dioxide or your window is going to look just awful. It also needs to be extremely fine with grains between 075 mm and 1.18 mm, and it also has to be the right color for more sophisticated industrial purposes. Silica is extracted from Rock quartz and quartz-rich sand, then purified into 98 % pure metallurgical grade silicon.
Silicon for semiconductors needs to have a purity of 119, that’s 99 % %, a decimal and N More NS. The advantage of this process is that the geometry of the sand doesn’t actually matter all that much so desert sand can be used. That being said, natural sources of sand vary a lot in terms of composition and easily accessible quartz-rich sand sources are still a limited resource.
The global demand for sand is so intense that the industry has attracted attention from organized crime, and you know the situation is getting serious when a bunch of gangsters roll up and steal a beach sure it sounds funny, but illicit sand mining can cause serious problems. Not only can intensive dredging of sand from rivers and the ocean floor, damaged local ecosystems but irresponsible sand mining can erode supports from nearby structures and has resulted in multiple fatal Bridge collapses. There are a few ways we can manage the ongoing sand shortage and we’ll tell you about them right after we thank the sponsor of this video delete me. Your personal information is being easily shared online without your consent and delete me has a strong moral intuition that that’s wrong. They’Ll help you find hundreds of online profiles sharing your personal info, which can be used by scammers to bombard you with Annoying rooc calls and scam emails. Delete me.
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Some have even suggested replacing sand with used pyrolized coffee grounds, which research has shown can even result in 30 %, stronger Concrete in the right proportions. We also need to reuse what we’ve already extracted as much as we can. The bright side is that many processed forms of sand are basically infinitely recyclable.
Around 80 % of asphalt used in American roads is already recycled back into new asphalt and glass can be broken down, tumbled and turned back into sand. However, many forms of processed sand such as rubber-like silicone polymers, can only be downcycled a limited number of times due to physical constraints, or they may be too contaminated to safely and economically recycle at scale with current technology. We also need to push for longer lasting, repairable. Digital devices, because even the very cheap ones are made from materials that are ultimately limited life’s a beach and then you die. But first you finished this video nice job, hey thanks for watching like the video, if you liked it dislike it, if you disliked it check out our other videos, we have many and feel free to comment with video suggestions down in the description or in the comments.
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