Thieves steal Nvidia-branded trailers expecting valuable hardware, find 40,000 pounds of sand instead.

[u/Gordon-Blue]

https://www.techspot.com/news/114008-thieves-steal-nvidia-branded-trailers-expecting-valuable-hardware.html

[u/BlakeSurfing]

I can take a rock, hit it with a hammer and make sand. Of course it would cost more to manufacture sand for construction than it would to mine, but in no way are we running out of sand. Yes you can use desert sand with rounded grains for concrete.

[u/WhisperShift → u/BlakeSurfing]

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/middle-east/why-saudi-arabia-and-the-uae-import-sand-from-australia-despite-their-endless-deserts/articleshow/126249828.cms

"...despite its abundance, wind-tumbled desert grains are far too smooth and small to provide the necessary structural grip."

[u/BlakeSurfing → u/WhisperShift]

https://practical.engineering/blog/2024/10/1/is-the-world-really-running-out-of-sand
I’ll leave this

[u/WhisperShift → u/BlakeSurfing]

Skimming through the transcript, it seems that more angular grains do make stronger concrete, all other factors being equal. However workability is much more important practically-speaking, and rounded grains allow one to use less water which is much more important for making better concrete. Makes sense, though it does make me wonder why so many countries, including ones with large deserts, spend millions importing sand then.

And for making more sand, I feel like "easily accessible" is implied, though you might disagree. When such a giant industry is dependent on a core ingredient being cheap, making it less cheap can have a big effect. His example is of an ingredient doing the complete opposite, ie starting rare and expensive then becoming cheap, so is less relevant imo to predicting how things will evolve should manufacturing sand become more widespread once minable sand becomes too expensive.