[HN Gopher] Crime rings trafficking sand
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Crime rings trafficking sand
Author : PaulHoule
Score : 97 points
Date : 2024-01-30 14:17 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.scientificamerican.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.scientificamerican.com)
| sandworm101 wrote:
| At what point does it become feasible to just manufacture sand? I
| know it is possible but how much more expensive must sand get
| before we just convert quartz mountains into sand? The article's
| quoted "50 billion metric tons" of needed sand isn't all that
| much when compared to the weight of actual mountains.
| sliken wrote:
| Quite a bit, it's expensive to turn rocks into sand. Seems
| plausible that mines will start selling off their sand (after
| whatever they are mining is removed).
| 14 wrote:
| Is mine sand suitable? The sand used in cement is very
| specific shape and size. I think that is what makes it so
| difficult to produce.
| darth_avocado wrote:
| It is not. We have an unlimited amount of desert sand
| available to us, but we need the river sand for
| construction. Otherwise the likes of Saudi Arabia would be
| exporting sand instead of importing it for their sky
| scrapers. The same is true for the mining sand, only a
| portion of it is appropriate for construction.
| gtvwill wrote:
| Actually that's a lie. Desert sand is fine for aggregate.
|
| https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S23
| 527...
|
| 41.3mpa on pure desert sand is completely fine. Stronger
| than your houses slab your probably on now.
| nerdponx wrote:
| So why aren't we using it for construction?
| gtvwill wrote:
| Because existing organisation's would lose their profits
| from sand mining?
|
| Nfi there's plenty of old wives tales from before the
| time when you could google it and be like "oi gran your
| talking sh*t" that effect how we do business today. This
| is probably one of them?
| throw0101d wrote:
| 'Just' pressure is not the only metric; from your link:
|
| > _However, the flexural and tensile strengths tended to
| decrease as the amount of desert sand increased,
| particularly beyond a 25% replacement level._
|
| So it is not a 1:1 replacement, and there are further
| considerations that need to be taken into account into
| how much (if any) desert sand can be put into a
| particular mix for a particular purpose. Another paper if
| you want to get into the weeds somewhat:
|
| > _In this paper, the effect of DSRR, temperature and
| cooling regime on the mechanical performances of concrete
| produced with desert sand was analyzed. To study the
| influence of temperature on the microstructure of
| concrete produced with desert sand, the microscopic
| experiments (XRD, SEM) were employed._
|
| * https://ijcsm.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/s40069-
| 020-0...
|
| See also perhaps:
|
| * https://engineering.stackexchange.com/questions/18118/w
| hy-is...
|
| It is an area of active research, and perhaps a system
| will be developed to use it in a cost effective manner.
| Prickle wrote:
| We really don't. The majority of desert is not sand. Only
| around 20% is sand, and around 3% consist of sand dunes.
| Transportation in deserts is complex due to the rocky
| terrain that usually fills the rest of the desert.
|
| It is economically cheaper and easier to take beach and
| river sand. (Especially since some countries designate
| sand dunes as protected areas)
| Scoundreller wrote:
| Leftover sand from mineral mining might be better for
| concrete. As "fresh" sand it's probably nice and jagged-y,
| but maybe so fresh without weathering that its weak points
| haven't broken off yet.
| Reptur wrote:
| Somewhat related, these people are turning glass to sand from
| recycled bottles.
|
| https://www.tv20detroit.com/news/national/turning-recycled-g...
| coffeebeqn wrote:
| I guess desert sand doesn't work? That would seem like quite a
| big supply
| arrosenberg wrote:
| Desert sand is too smooth and fine for most industrial
| applications. Most concrete, for example, uses sand and rocks
| from rivers.
| reaperman wrote:
| There are many different types of sand for many different
| purposes. Sand for silicon is the most expensive. Sands for
| construction tend to be very cheap.
|
| I don't think glass is appropriately pure for silicon - but
| that would probably be the only application for sand where it
| could possibly be economical to manufacture rather than extract
| and process.
| opwieurposiu wrote:
| Depending on the type of rocks and how fine you want to grind
| them, the Specific Energy used is between 10-100(kWh/t). That
| leads me to guess $8-$25 per ton of electricity used for
| grinding rocks into sand. I was unable to find good numbers for
| the capital cost.
|
| At an aggregate mine located in Brazil, the total expenses are
| $80-$160 per ton [1].
|
| The price of sand at home depot is 5.96 for a 50lb bag, $238
| per ton. My conclusion is you could make sand by grinding but
| it would cost 50%-100% more vs. digging up the beach.
|
| [1] https://www.scielo.br/j/rem/a/8MW5dFZc5Vh6qMdnTqRKbfM#
|
| Edit: Chat GPT thinks it would cost $62.25/per ton make sand
| from rocks.
| maxglute wrote:
| Land vs water/barge transport costs for bulk cargo may
| increase that by magnitude. Article suggest there will be 5x
| increase in demand and 5x increase in price at current
| stagnating availability. So that seems maybe doable.
| Scoundreller wrote:
| I call shenanigans on the 5x price increase.
|
| Marginal increases in commodity price can greatly increase
| supply as previously uneconomic deposits/production methods
| suddenly become very viable.
|
| And while some processes critically depend on concrete,
| others will get pushed to other non-concrete methods if
| price goes up.
| omgJustTest wrote:
| More & more feels like the real-world is becoming minecraft.
| fouc wrote:
| I wonder what proportion of HNers have played minecraft. I've
| never gotten around to it.
| max_ wrote:
| I played it for like 30 min. Then uninstalled it.
| RajT88 wrote:
| You've got it backwards.
|
| The real world has always been this way. Minecraft is getting
| better and better at making dull real world activities fun.
| hot_gril wrote:
| Back in middle school, there was MC server drama over people
| stealing sand from around people's houses. And every big build
| involved destroying some nearby island for its resources.
| ikesau wrote:
| > Luis Fernando Ramadon, a federal police specialist in Brazil
| who studies extractive industries, estimates that the global
| illegal sand trade ranges from $200 billion to $350 billion a
| year--more than illegal logging, gold mining and fishing
| combined. Buyers rarely check the provenance of sand; legal and
| black market sand look identical. Illegal mining rarely draws
| heat from law enforcement because it looks like legitimate mining
| --trucks, backhoes and shovels--there's no property owner lodging
| complaints, and officials may be profiting. For crime syndicates,
| it's easy money.
|
| > The environmental impacts are substantial. Dredging rivers
| destroys estuaries and habitats and exacerbates flooding.
| Scraping coastal ecosystems churns up vegetation, soil and
| seabeds and disrupts marine life. In some countries, illegal
| mining makes up a large portion of the total activity, and its
| environmental impacts are often worse than those of legitimate
| operators, Beiser says, all to build cities on the cheap.
|
| this sounds like a really hard problem to fix. i see there are
| researchers trying to estimate mining levels by counting
| ships[1], but even if we're able to get a heatmap of the problem,
| there'd need to be an enormous amount of cooperation between
| nations to certify sand provenance. damn.
|
| https://eos.org/articles/satellites-spy-on-sand-mining-in-th...
| temp0826 wrote:
| I wonder if there is any r&d around using cheaper/abundant
| (finer desert sand) for construction. Or if the sand racket is
| preventing that (feels ridiculous to write that but all this
| about black market sand is new to me). Way outta my wheelhouse
| so I'm not even sure why it would be bad for construction in
| the first place.
| philipkglass wrote:
| Mechanically crushed rock can be used in concrete in place of
| river sand. There's no danger of stripping the rivers bare of
| sand (or running out of materials to make concrete) in places
| that have a modicum of environmental laws and law
| enforcement. Sand theft operations plague places with weak
| rule of law, where there's free money to be made by stealing
| from the commons even when responsible ways to make concrete
| are only modestly more expensive.
| MootheCat wrote:
| Selling sand to the Arabs is a thing. Their sand is too fine
| if I remember correctly.
| 1-more wrote:
| too smooth too. Windblown desert sand has smooth grains
| that won't adhere inside of the concrete mix. Sand grains
| from water have been slowed down by the water when hitting
| one another, so the grains have jagged parts. At least
| according to a thing I read about this years ago.
| Scoundreller wrote:
| Fine weathered sand is great for drilling/fracking though.
|
| And sandboxes for kids.
| eszed wrote:
| My understanding is that desert sand gets blown around by the
| wind, which (heh) sands it smooth. Smooth sand doesn't grip
| the concrete (I think), so it's not amenable for building.
|
| When I first read that my question was whether a different
| concrete formula or amalgam could work with smooth(er) sand,
| or if that's a hard limit that cannot be overcome. Does
| anyone know?
| engineer_22 wrote:
| Concrete strength is a function of several factors
|
| Strength of Cement - portland cement is typically used.
| Fire limestone to get lime, add fly ash and other additives
| for increased strength. Ratio of Water to Cement is
| important to get a complete reaction, but dont add too much
| water.
|
| Aggregate - angular aggregates provide the cement something
| to stick to and distribute the stresses evenly. You want a
| well graded aggregate, including sand particles up to
| larger chunks of rock.
|
| In my part of the world the aggregate is typically crushed
| limestone. Add clean sand for different mixes.
|
| There are other chemical additives that will increase
| strength, workability, and the speed of cure.
|
| Since reaction of water to cement is exothermic - on the
| really high tech monolithic pours they're using technology
| to carry away the waste heat. You want the whole mass to be
| at the same temperature to reduce the internal stresses.
|
| There are actually spherical glass orbs you can add to your
| concrete if you want it light-weight. Floating concrete is
| a thing. This comes at the expense of strength.
| gtvwill wrote:
| Yo it's cement + aggregate makes concrete. As in concrete
| is the sum of two or more products. Concrete doesn't grip
| anything. Cement binds and aggregate shape doesn't count
| for bugger all.
|
| You use tie in rods of rebar to bind one slab to another,
| not the aggregate because the aggregate does sh*t all for
| structural strength. It's more for the compressive
| strength.
|
| Tbh you can make a form or concrete out of perlite and
| cement. It's light af, great for ship hulls when reinforced
| with steel. Still concrete,just doesn't need any sand.
| eszed wrote:
| Thanks. Yeah, I've poured a few slabs and built a few
| walls, but construction engineering is waaay out of my
| normal competencies, so I appreciate the vocabulary
| corrections.
|
| You say "aggregate shape doesn't count for bugger all".
| So why does river / crushed sand work, and desert sand
| doesn't? It sounds more like there are different
| aggregate mixes / types of aggregate material that work
| for particular applications (hadn't thought that through,
| but it makes perfect sense), and that "rough" sand is
| better for the most-common concrete use-cases. Do you
| know of specific types of concrete where "smooth" sand
| would be preferred?
| gtvwill wrote:
| Someone covers it further down. There's a whole bunch
| more to the strength of concrete than the aggregate.
|
| Man last major concreting I did smooth sand would have
| been awesome. We were already trying to use the finest
| grade sand we could find. It was on mad max 4. Making
| concrete not look like concrete (think underwater
| caverns, cliffs, waterfalls). So smooth is awesome, makes
| it easy to texture to look like different types of
| weathered rock.
|
| All the structural strength was from steel rebar with
| chook mesh wired to it. The crete and scratch coats were
| about 100mm thick at the most.
| margalabargala wrote:
| > Cement binds and aggregate shape doesn't count for
| bugger all.
|
| This isn't true at all.
|
| Using your example of rebar, this is why any piece of
| rebar has lugs down it; to bond better with the cement.
| If you use a smooth cylinder of steel, it won't bind to
| the cement as well and you wind up with a weaker finished
| product. The ribs of the rebar increase the surface area
| and make the rebar-cement bond stronger.
|
| Same thing with desert sand. If you have rounded sand
| grains, you've got reduced surface area per unit volume,
| and thus reduce the strength of the bond between the
| aggregate and the cement. That weaker bond becomes a
| fracture point.
| PaulHoule wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geopolymer_cement
|
| is the ultimate example of a technology suppressed by
| regulatory capture.
| gottorf wrote:
| What are the regulatory burdens around this? Is it simply
| that building codes only recognize Portland cement, and
| anything else is treated like you're trying to build with
| mud?
| PaulHoule wrote:
| Exactly.
| tda wrote:
| I once was involved in project where 60M m3 of sand was
| pumped to the desert from the sea. It felt totally insane;
| all that sand was dredged from the sea, mixed with a ton of
| water and then pumped for some 5-15km using up to 6 5MW pumps
| in series. Look for Al Zout refinery in Kuwait
| burningChrome wrote:
| Is this an issue where its just too low on the priority list of
| enforcement agencies?
| mcculley wrote:
| When I ended up in the tugboat business I was surprised to learn
| that there are markets for sand in both directions between
| Florida and The Bahamas.
|
| We export some types of sand from Florida to The Bahamas for use
| in concrete construction. We import other types of sand from The
| Bahamas to Florida for use in aquariums.
| gottorf wrote:
| Every industry is so fascinating when you look under the
| surface.
| hot_gril wrote:
| I once visited the famous Waikiki Beach in Hawaii. Ironically,
| the sand is from my home city of Manhattan Beach, California.
| darth_avocado wrote:
| This is a big problem in India. The sand mafia not only destroys
| ecosystems, but is also linked directly to violence and deaths of
| people.
| malingo wrote:
| "Sand is one of our most widely used natural resources, but it's
| scarcer than you think."
|
| https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/05/29/the-world-is-r...
| gr1zzlybe4r wrote:
| I was wondering about this after a recent beach trip I took. I
| won't name where I was, but I noticed a considerable improvement
| in sand quality on the beaches in front of the nice hotels. It
| was a quality difference that went beyond normal beach cleanup.
| Perhaps the sand was sourced locally, and beach improvement
| surely pales in volume to construction use of sand, but still it
| was the first time I'd wondered about sand mining/theft.
| throwup238 wrote:
| Regions that depend on tourism spend a lot of money on their
| beach sand. Even San Diego, CA where tourism is probably not
| even top 10 of industries by revenue, they replenish the sand
| that gets eroded every few decades. The process just started on
| the northern beaches:
| https://www.nbcsandiego.com/news/local/long-awaited-sand-rep...
|
| They ship it in by sea on huge barges that are quite something
| to watch.
| latchkey wrote:
| Due to a recent storm in San Diego, large swaths of
| Mission/Pacific Beach houses and the boardwalk were left with
| tons of sand all over them.
|
| The city scoops up the sand off the boardwalk and loads it
| into trucks which take it a few miles away to Fiesta Island.
|
| Why? Apparently it is contaminated badly enough by whatever
| is on the boardwalk, that they don't want to just push it
| back onto the beach (and back into the water).
| bombcar wrote:
| It's $14 billion a year for San Diego County, that's not
| chicken feed.
| everybodyknows wrote:
| > They ship it in by sea on huge barges that are quite
| something to watch.
|
| Not shipped in, pumped in: The source is less than a mile
| offshore, overlying a reef that supported lots of marine
| life, much of which is now being picked over by seagulls.
|
| The hope is that friction and inertia will prevail for a few
| years against wave action and gravity. But, the project has
| its nose in the trough provided by the national and state
| taxpayers, and local politicians go along.
|
| > tourism spend a lot of money on their beach sand
|
| Not a factor in Solana Beach, the Chamber of Commerce is
| utterly supine on public policy issues. Rather, it's the
| owners of houses on the bluff top, where prices start in the
| high 7 digits, who drive beach policy: they all have, or want
| to construct, concrete armored seawalls. Like these:
|
| https://www.google.com/maps/@32.9963108,-117.276439,3a,75y,8.
| ..
|
| With an effectively unlimited legal budget to invent ways
| around the law and litigate against the Coastal Commission,
| and willingness to mob City Council meetings, incumbents keep
| their mouths shut. Local resistance has collapsed down to a
| few die-hards at environmentalist groups, e.g.
| https://sandiego.surfrider.org, fighting what amounts to a
| retreating action.
| bmelton wrote:
| Sargassum Seaweed is usually what washes up to shores and makes
| beaches ugly. Resorts in the Mexico and Caribbean regions get a
| lot of it ashore, but there are now industries that use the
| seaweed as a building material.
|
| Sargablocks[1] are one of the companies that are turning
| sargassum into cheap building materials
|
| [1] - https://fortomorrow.org/explore-solutions/sargablock
| evrimoztamur wrote:
| This was one of the plot points of a Barry episode
| (https://m.imdb.com/title/tt27052797/) where two characters
| (legally) obtain sand for construction purposes and turn it into
| a business to whitewash their criminal past.
| PerryCox wrote:
| That was the first thing I thought of when I read this
| headline. That show is one of my all time favorites, very
| underrated!
| alephnerd wrote:
| "You know Thomas Friedman, you are bad at writing and nobody
| likes you"
|
| Edit: it's one of the best scenes in Barry.
| thom wrote:
| I too came here and typed "Ctrl+F barr". Criminal how
| overlooked Barry was this awards season!
| throw0101d wrote:
| For a good book on the non-renewable (on human time scales)
| resource of sand, see _The World in a Grain: The Story of Sand
| and How It Transformed Civilization_ by Vince Beiser:
|
| > The World in a Grain _is the compelling true story of the
| hugely important and diminishing natural resource that grows more
| essential every day, and of the people who mine it, sell it,
| build with it--and sometimes, even kill for it. It 's also a
| provocative examination of the serious human and environmental
| costs incurred by our dependence on sand, which has received
| little public attention. Not all sand is created equal: Some of
| the easiest sand to get to is the least useful. Award-winning
| journalist Vince Beiser delves deep into this world, taking
| readers on a journey across the globe, from the United States to
| remote corners of India, China, and Dubai to explain why sand is
| so crucial to modern life. _
|
| * https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/36950075
|
| > _The problem lies in the type of sand we are using. Desert sand
| is largely useless to us. The overwhelming bulk of the sand we
| harvest goes to make concrete, and for that purpose, desert sand
| grains are the wrong shape. Eroded by wind rather than water,
| they are too smooth and rounded to lock together to form stable
| concrete._
|
| * https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20191108-why-the-world-is...
| neodypsis wrote:
| If the problem of dessert sand lies in its grain shape, could
| it be addressed by using it to produce a "synthetic" grain with
| the right shape?
| nordsieck wrote:
| > If the problem of dessert sand lies in its grain shape,
| could it be addressed by using it to produce a "synthetic"
| grain with the right shape?
|
| That sounds incredibly expensive.
|
| One of the great virtues of modern concrete construction is
| that it's inexpensive compared to feasible alternatives.
| dmoy wrote:
| For sure, yea, but it'll likely be way more expensive than
| just hauling it off the ground.
| mkoryak wrote:
| That's a great startup idea!
|
| I'll bring the glue, you bring the sand and we can glue the
| grains into more useful shapes.
| GeoAtreides wrote:
| Yes, it's called manufactured sand and it's made by crushing
| rocks: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lVBiRPkQ0MI
| iamacyborg wrote:
| I'm currently reading Material World by Ed Conway which also
| explores the topic of sand in good detail.
|
| https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/125937631
| Jun8 wrote:
| How would you identify the source of a batch of sand easily?
| Using the sound it makes: https://www.economist.com/science-and-
| technology/2019/09/12/...
| catherinecodes wrote:
| The same day we have an article about a Chinese property company
| going bust who overdeveloped. All that sand is just sitting there
| in those buildings now.
| tanseydavid wrote:
| There's an old apocryphal story.
|
| Everyday for decades, a young man rides his bicycle, with a 10
| pound bag of sand in tow, across a national border. This draws
| the attention of customs nearly everyday and they search through
| the sand day after day and find nothing.
|
| Many many years later one of the customs agents sees the man, and
| asks if he was actually smuggling something all that time?
|
| The answer was: "Yes, I was smuggling -- bicycles."
| doh wrote:
| I heard this story first as a kid, but with a wheelbarrow.
| blacksmith_tb wrote:
| A modern retelling of a classic Mullah Nasruddin story, where
| it's donkeys[1].
|
| 1: https://www.sufiway.eu/hodja-mullah-nasruddin-smuggler/
| iamacyborg wrote:
| For those who watched The Grand Tour: Seamen, you can see sand
| dredging happening in real time as the cast travel down the
| Mekong river.
|
| Once you know what it is and how harmful it is to the ecosystem
| it's hard to miss.
| londons_explore wrote:
| We have to think what the alternative is... Either not build
| things with concrete... Or buy sand from other places which
| probably have corrupt officials willing to issue sand extraction
| permits without much thought.
|
| Also... Sand is expensive (in money and in environmental impact)
| to transport.
| shikon7 wrote:
| No wonder we can't control drug smuggling, if even smuggling sand
| is lucrative.
| 5cott0 wrote:
| https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=XboeI_lRW48
| geraldwhen wrote:
| This is a plot point in the final season of Barry. I had no idea
| it was a real thing.
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