We're Running Out of Sand to Make CPUs

[@harbl99]

Turns out the Spice in _Dune_ was a metaphor not for oil, but for high quality sand all along.

[@bujin5455]

Ironic considering the amount of sand on Dune.

[@Hebdomad7]

​@@bujin5455but have you seen some people's spice consumption? Those blue eyes aren't normal...

[@missonserch]

​@@Hebdomad7 intel inside

[@yaseen157]

​@@missonserchhahahaha that's good

[@CyanRooper]

@@missonserch *Intel_Theme_Song.mp3 starts playing*

[@animeye]

I love it -- first "Glass cpus are a thing!", and then immediately "oh btw we are running out of sand"

[@niccolorizzi7055]

exactly lol

[@RaveDecoy242]

They're waaaaay behind the sand news, btw. Warnings about it were already public around 2019, if I remember correctly. What resulted was accelerated research on synthetic silica and its applications.

[@greengamerguy623]

The why promote the use of glass in your new video? We are running out of sand and there is a deadly black market of sand glass cpus will only make this worse.

[@G-man420]

​@@greengamerguy623It's not a promotion. It's tech news. It could be very cool in certain applications.

[@FaZekiller-qe3uf]

@@greengamerguy623What?

[@JohnSmith-xq1pz]

We MUST protect the vintage CPU's from gold scrappers and Tusken Raiders...

[@V4Now]

exactly, every time I scare them off easily they always come back and in greater numbers. Damn, Sand People! 😤

[@JohnSmith-xq1pz]

@@V4Now 🤣🤣🤣

[@WyattOShea]

Tusken raider noises

[@LeonLionHeart]

I don't like sand.

[@neoasura]

This sounds like my dad when hes talking about Jews and Arabs.

[@GSBarlev]

You guys, we just need to find the End Portal and use the duping trick before Mojang patches it.

[@1403gavin]

I was thinking about that exact comment.

[@pirateluffy01]

Almost forgot about it

[@leonro]

How long will it take until someone finds a duplication bug IRL? Never mind, Intel already figured it out (14th gen).

[@Mesazane]

Truly a 2b2t moment

[@Gamer_RGX]

smart

[@Daniele63]

We need to make a intergalactic space empire and exploit all the resources from other planets

[@iluvpandas2755]

Stellaris moment

[@circleofsorrow4583]

Then we would have to monitor total mass taken onworld and balance it by jettisoning worthless crap toward the sun.

[@qufeng49]

Dead Space moment 😂😂

[@minneelyyyy]

importing sand from other planets would make electronics very expensive

[@florin9243]

@@minneelyyyy Yes but imagine importing purple spice from terrascore 3 planets

[@KevinBenecke]

I wonder what kind of sand the sandman uses to make us sleepy.

[@harbl99]

Ordinary sand in a canvas bag. Just don't take it out of the bag. Job done.

[@ItsReallyGeo]

silicon dioxide? It has inflammatory properties, could make you sleepy as your body prepares to fight its effects?

[@leonro]

Speaking of which, a major villain in this crisis must be Germany. They have been making new Sandmännchen episodes every day for over 60 years, and at the end of each episode Sandmann throws "sleeping" sand towards the camera/TV screen to make the children fall asleep. This is a huge waste of resources!

[@johnshite4656]

Chloroform.

[@breakfast7595]

"POCKET SAND" -Dale Gribble

[@donaldwatson7698]

Recycling glass used to be a standard thing in my hometown, until they pushed back and stated they'd take no more glass, just other things. I gather it was just no longer profitable to them. If such is to continue in the future, some sort of value needs to be established (not necessarily cash, perhaps some other barter) to make it worthwhile in that portion of the economy.

[@defeqel6537]

You don't use a deposit system? We have a legally required deposit system on almost all bottles, which gets added to the price of the product and then paid back when the bottle is returned.

[@quintit]

What country? In most places in the US there is literally "trash" and "recycling". There are no extra categories.@@defeqel6537

[@chrisbaker8533]

@@defeqel6537 It's actually a stupid system, as the 'deposit' just becomes a 'tax' as most people aren't going to bother due to the low amount of value. There's also the problem of persons on snap/food stamps buying stuff and just dumping the contents to get the deposit.

[@defeqel6537]

@@chrisbaker8533 we don't have food stamps, so there is that. Most people do return bottles here to get the deposit back, the bottles that aren't returned are often collected by drunks, though not sure how good of a thing that is

[@TabbuEme]

@@chrisbaker8533 IDK bro, the deposit system works pretty well and has achieved a 90% return rate. It's better than nothing for sure. People who aren't as well off, return them.

[@Charkel]

I never thought Techquickie would make a video covering my companies business. Yes, I sell sand. We mine, dredge from ocean floor bottom, excavate from our sand pits looking like a desert. We have everything sand of every type and size and company has over 100 sites/plants/factories world-wide. So this was fun to see them bring it up as you can probably understand it is most of my every day life. Sand...

[@blade1989222]

and how limited sand is in your opinion? will we run out of it in the next 100 years? or is there enough for 500-1000 years?

[@m.l.9385]

@@blade1989222 No we won't run out of sand - but we might run out of affordable sand. Prices are already high in some region and demand is steadily growing.

[@Charkel]

@@blade1989222 At some places we have for the next 70-100 years even tough we have to expand the area and at some places we have deposits prospected to last longer. Hard to say for the world as a whole

[@kyperactive]

Demented, but based

[@LuqmanDaim]

If you’re in need of sand with SiO2 99.2% above, Fe 0.02-0.03 in Asia, let me know 😉

[@raistlinmajere1000]

These types of videos are essential. I did not know about it and how serious it can be. Thank you :D

[@FolstrimHori]

There are so many things in life that we take for granted. I was really surprised by this video too.

[@forkliftofzen5318]

Yep, I'm Gen X and they were pushing this on us back in the late 80's or early 90's that we were going to run out of sand and everything else years ago. Yet, here we are today with far more of many of those things than they were saying back then.

[@forkliftofzen5318]

Beware the doomsday prop agan da. It is a huge lie built on very limited truth.

[@alpacatje]

Don’t believe everything they tell you…

[@LubosMudrak]

There are milion problems in thouSANDs of industries that you also have no clue about. Intelligent people on the free market are solving them so you don't have to worry. What do I know, maybe you are also solving one of these issues in some industry

[@Dhruv-qw7jf]

Every "renewable" resource is renewable only in a very technical sense.

[@MaddTheSane]

It takes time to renew those resources. Technically coal/oil is also renewable… if you're willing to wait 10 million years.

[@martywalters4804]

no… actually not lol

[@mukiex4413]

@@MaddTheSane You can make functional equivalents way faster, but we'd need to stop pretending nuclear is icky to do it at a scale big enough to stop needing to drill/mine those.

[@Mallchad]

​@@MaddTheSaneOil is actually way more renewable than a lot of other stuff... It's much easier to get pure CO2 from the air than its to get pure Uranium from the ground. you'll also get a much cleaner product than fossils It's really hard to beat the renewability of glass and metal based products though.

[@derickd6150]

The sun is renewable in a very real sense

[@AngryFloatingCow]

This is why we should stop Intel from wasting all the damn sand

[@JohnSmith-xq1pz]

Shoots Fiyred!!

[@InternetUser-u6u]

lil bro, at least they can make better drivers and they don't malfunction within 2 years of use

[@ridakesserwan8712]

​@@skyblock_mouseamd's adrenaline drivers are pain in the ass and notorious for random glitches each update somehow creates new buggy shit for you to deal with

[@Aragubas]

all of the sand wasted on Intel Celeron s 😢

[@skyblock_mouse]

@@ridakesserwan8712 why u acting like glitches are rare af? Intel drivers might have less glitches but still why do u expect 0 gliches.

[@JaekSean]

This is hilarious to me because I just turned in an essay in college where I proposed that spaghetti might be a viable alternative to concrete in construction, citing the sand crisis as the reason for needing to explore this option. Now I want to know if maybe we could make cpus out of spaghetti

[@solarsailor973]

Please elaborate; this sounds fascinating. How could spaghetti become concrete?

[@ski1951]

i wanna know too

[@pax256]

Its almost always just a matter of how much energy you are willing to put into a process. We arent running out of anything. We just are running out of super cheap stuff to process. For example its cheaper to make new aluminum than recycle it. Aluminum is ~18% of the earths crust dont worry about it. So we will have to look at alternatives or find cheaper sources of energy or pay a little bit more for some things in the future.

[@jtnachos16]

I mean, if the electronics/glass grade sand is made from quartz, should we not instead be focused on dialing in that whole 'artificially grown quartz' market to target the specific qualities needed for that usage?

[@shanent5793]

All the quartz used for electronics is synthetic and has been for decades. Artificial quartz can't compete with rock quartz for use in glass, unless it's something technical like fused quartz or Zerodur. Quartz for both electronics and technical glass is synthesized from silane (SiH4) or tetrachlorosilane (SiCl4), which in turn can be made from any of the quartzes that make up half of the Earth's crust

[@augustday9483]

It's probably just way too expensive to supply the world's demand from synthetic sources.

[@blackout0938]

@@shanent5793Thanks for the info

[@snackweight]

Legal sand mining also does its fair share of damage to the biosphere.

[@Mernom]

At least it can be potentially regulated. Criminals already don't care about the law by default.

[@snackweight]

@@Mernom I really don't see how dredging rivers for sand can be done without devastating the aquatic ecosystems that we rely on.

[@DTS24-DJT24]

I bet this could situation could all be over if we just looked at all the sand that would get into the car at the end of those childhood beach days.

[@lordraiden007]

Glass actually isn’t recycled in most places around the globe, even those that accept glass in their recycling programs. It is still cheaper to produce new glass from natural sand than it is to ship, clean, pulverize, ship again, and process glass back into more glass products. As of a few years ago it was actually more expensive just to ship recyclable glass to a processing facility than it returned in sales. Until that changes “recycled” glass is mainly just an urban legend from companies that want to appear more environmentally friendly than they really are.

[@Leanzazzy]

Exactly. Recycling glass is just too costly.

[@kris-p-4365]

simple solution, crush old cpu's into sand and make new cpu's out of them

[@Liamallen125]

That is not how that works

[@Dtr146]

It's not CPUs anymore that we're worried about. It's solar panels. There's a group of scientists that are working hard to find a new medium for solar panels right now. They're also working to find a more efficient one.

[@gdtyra]

Retro enthusiasts/collectors: 😱

[@JohnSmith-xq1pz]

@@gdtyra Protect the vintage CPU's!!

[@Codewow]

They said in the video that with our current technology, we don't have the ability to recycle them efficiently.

[@sir.fender6034]

No one should ever have to pay a premium to have their personal data removed from the internet. I feel a DELETE ME service should be provided for FREE. Money grubbers are STILL making money from peoples personal information.

[@PitboyHarmony1]

You know, compared to usual Techquickie and TechLinked video reads ... which are either fairly simple or moderately fine, this one is more complex ... I actually saw Riley having to pay attention and work hard to keep it natural. A challenging subject that wandered a lot, with pretty in depth details, needing more careful attention to the flow while reading. Well done Riley

[@djnazgra]

Me looking at my 7-4790k - hold on buddy, hold on...

[@darktitan8085]

Middle east knowing they finally got something beside oil now: *happy dancing*

[@macgeekgrl]

“Sand Demand” is my new band name.

[@theflowpowa42oshow]

Can't forget Adam Sandler and Sandler Bing

[@pierce9019]

I cant wait to become a sand dealer

[@theflowpowa42oshow]

Yo you got that sand man?

[@anomonyous]

But muh electric vehicles!#!@@!11 -Some Apple user, probably. Reject normies and concrete and return to wholesome rusticness.

[@WHITEPERSUAS1ON]

Anakin is behind this....

[@EMAngel2718]

Are cheap devices really the problem with tech not lasting or is the problem more on the software side?

[@totolgueimer]

Both

[@GSBarlev]

_¿Por qué no los dos?_

[@CyanRooper]

Yes

[@Aragubas]

both tbh, with developers using electron and web shit to build apps, not even caring a little bit about performance

[@chadbizeau5997]

Well in most cases they only care about pushing ads and they're using a half to compute available on the internet to do so...

[@avicohen2k]

Just shows how awesome the show Barry is for incorporating this into it's criminal story.

[@KnightandDay33]

Welp, guess it's time to bring back the window tax

[@Henry14arsenal2007]

If only a policy was made to limit new models of phones/tablets/PCs/etc each year, but especially phones so we'd get aa new model every 2-3 years instead of each year, that could greatly reduce the demand and also make each upgrade more special and feature-rich.

[@BibleProphecyMadeClear]

Hey editor 2:08 - You will use B roll of Jesus but will you use Muhamed?

[@RockOrso2]

Anakin hearing we're running out of sand:STONKS

[@chrones56]

Wasn't expecting Jesus in the middle of the video XD

[@theflowpowa42oshow]

hes my homeboy

[@SharapovaFan]

Anakin Skywalker liked this.

[@FoolyXLC]

Conversion techniques: Ahem..

[@markemad1986]

Well we might tun out of cheap glass window sand, put we will never run out of 500$ 10 gram cpu sand, it's a problem if for heavy industries not silicon manufacturing anyone saying otherwise is probably trying to justify unearned profits.

[@esrynshudder4216]

4:00 ok I did a university report with experiments for putting coffee grounds in concrete and that "30% stronger" claim is bs, coffee grounds always make the concrete weaker for compressive strength. The higher the percentage of coffee grounds, the weaker the concrete. However, generally they can replace 5-15% of the sand with coffee grounds without it having too detrimental of an effect. So they are replacing a small amount of sand with coffee grounds, but ultimately it is not economically viable as the savings would only be 4% maximum, plus trust in the concrete is uncertain. However, this was from a few years ago, maybe they have designed a new type of coffee grounds that improves strength somehow.

[@praetoriancorps]

one thing that might help preserve some sand is get rid of planned obsolescense.

[@oneminutewonder77]

Almost like these companies should be held accountable and to NOT create e-waste just for the sake of launching a new phone, or a new computer component every three months.

[@axell964]

Maybe Europe will be seen as resource rich once quartzsand runs low. There are gigantic deposits of high purity quartz sand in the european lowlands created by the last ice age.

[@ZACKMAN2007]

Problem is that they have human rights, you can't exploit them

[@matheusfaria7230]

"We're Running Out of Sand to Make CPUs" Translation -> We are running out of cheap supply of sand that allows large profit margins without needing to do research on that specificity. What will happen if we run out of that easy supply of sand? We will simply use a different supply and if needed we will simply purify any contaminated Silica, for way less profit, obviously.

[@fantasypvp]

0:06 much appreciated quote XD

[@ahmedgamer8065]

Ok, We have in Egypt a lot of sand that is needed to make CPUs and Chips, Egypt does not use this type of sand except glass

[@SMCwasTaken]

Sand is Sand period

[@DennySchnitzler]

@@SMCwasTaken no actually

[@SMCwasTaken]

@@DennySchnitzler Sand IS SAND the end

[@DennySchnitzler]

@@SMCwasTaken But there is many kinds of Sand

[@SMCwasTaken]

@@DennySchnitzler but Sand is Sand

[@mishao9664]

Me: "It's coming up on time to replace this aging X99 build. I should pull up LTT and---" LTT: "THE EARTH IS RUNNING OUT OF USABLE SILICA SAND"

[@Ganymede2076]

Solution: crush glass into grains

[@SMCwasTaken]

Sand is Sand.

[@terminatevader]

Anakin Skywalker would be proud

[@danlowe]

There is no glass bottle recycler in the state of Montana, a state the size of Germany. Some breweries collect their own bottles to reuse but otherwise the dumps don't take it. Seems like a silly opportunity.

[@elone3997]

Nice to have a dive into a largely non tech subject (though of course does affect tech massively). I learnt something 👍👍

[@G.A.N.]

So i guess someday we will "visit" Mars to check if There is enough of what we need and complettely Ruin it with massive Factories literally on entire planet surface for our Earth people needs. Now that is exactly how i imagine future of Humanity in few centuries, legit.

[@RFDN0]

I honestly figure we would do meteor and asteroid minning/collections before just converting Mars to a factory planet. Mars might be reasonably able to be terraformed into something habitable.

[@666neoselen]

and old saying I know says: "give techs a desert, and they'll buy sand some years later" damn we're already at it.

[@egidiogaudi1899]

i knew someone's uncle who bought a mountain for mining the sand, went home. comes the next DAY only to finding out someone steals all the sand

[@akuma2124]

Interesting you guys put this video out when Microsoft put out a video 3 days ago called "Microsoft Project Silica" talking about how using glass is the way of the future to create sustainable long term data storage. LTT talking about how we need to ration all the sand, and Microsoft out there using all the sand to make glass storage.

[@FrommDK]

Gallium nitride wafers are becoming more and more common as a replacement for silicon wafers at this point, and have proven to perform better than silicon, but i guess that fact would make this video kinda pointless... And in terms of electronics repairability and the environmental impact, that has to do far more with the other components used in modern consumer electronics such as lithium, cobalt and Indium, all of which have a FAR darker history than this considering the majority of Cobalt originates from slave labor in the DMC

[@johnnychang4233]

Could we do a real organic substrate chip with Corn starch? Like there were the attempt of fabricating biodegradable plastics for drink cups.

[@thedude5040]

Semiconductor vs organics... I guess you didn't take many chemistry classes?

[@johnnychang4233]

@@thedude5040 And what are OLED displays made of? What are capacitors chemistry made of?

[@thedude5040]

@johnnychang4233 you missed the point. The ability to emit a photon, disapate heat, or provide ions is not what makes a semiconductor. Think about a transistor and how the base current manipulates gates to let alot of current through, some current, or no current.

[@johnnychang4233]

@@thedude5040 As I told to another responder to my comments in another topic, don't aim for the high hanging fruits yet, aim for the lower ones and think of a way to make a simple functioning model first. Who say that we cannot have an organic base substrate that could potentially have semi-conductors properties that we can benefit from in the manufacturing of electronics?

[@nasmeskartz9149]

​@@johnnychang4233Actually it can be done, but I doubt the molecular size is small enough, this affect transistor density. Beside it won't be stable when heated, this would drop the chip performance, reliability and lifespan significantly. Such drawback won't be accepted by any consumer. I guess there would be more technical challenge during manufacturing too. Since you know, we make these chip by shooting laser at it. I doubt they could use the same thing for these.

[@BurrritoYT]

Someone has got to find the end portal ASAP

[@CricketEngland]

You wouldn’t think Dungeness in the U.k was a desert

[@Eoin-B]

Illegal dredging is no joke, some shit did it to our river during the night just before a bend, speeding it up and in only 3 years creating a nasty green stagnant oxbow lake denying us river access.

[@boat02]

Coffee grounds??? Just tell me how many microns I should set my grinder to and I'm ready to save the world.

[@Alsry1]

The semiconductor industry uses 200000 tones of silicon per year. That is nothing compared to the 10s of billions of tons used in construction. Even if you’re narrowing the use down to quartz rich sand. We aren’t close to running out. The only thing we should be worried about is sand used for construction.

[@firequartz3606]

Can someone explain to me what silicone polymers has to do with silicon/silica? 4:28

[@jrayself]

Silicone is made with silicon.

[@badtimelapses1870]

3:38 the most horrific sprawling single use suburbs imaginable followed by an abomination of 10 lanes. ... yeah lets scale down that use, immediately.

[@ste_ph_en9018]

I don't think I've seen you team make a video about attending the yearly supercomputing conference. Will any of your journalist be attending this year?

[@realcartoongirl]

time to collect sand from the air then

[@Pieman93]

1:38 Umm 0.075mm is not the same as 0.75mm They fixed up the 11-nines purity with a sneaky little audio splice at 2:01 though, so I guess that's something

[@felixkremer7773]

Just build a sand duper and dupe all the sand you could ever want. That’s until they patch it and we got to find new ways to dupe sand. Yes it’s a joke before anyone comments.

[@vinching926]

Just build a working computer in Minecraft

[@cs1825]

​@@vinching926we don't have enough sand for that sir 😂

[@rockingupthewrongtre]

That dramatic tidal wave was hilarious

[@fridaycaliforniaa236]

Life's a beach

[@InternetUser-u6u]

dang no more sandy bridge

[@user-op8fg3ny3j]

2:45 I need to know where that dramatic footage is from!

[@graemepennell]

Yea Riley, we as humans are wasteful and will only ever use the items that make the end result the fastest. If they/we bother to allow time to happen, any sand is effective for any use.

[@nmh5001]

Considering how easy it is to recycle glass, it's absurd to me that my municipality doesn't recycle it.

[@MrDobiedoobie]

You didn't mention that it's also used in oil and gas production extensively

[@averagecircleclicker6486]

'Oh no! We're running out of stock?! Better buy in bulk just in case!'

[@SkillTimO]

Came for the CPUs, stayed for the concrete.

[@ninjireal]

NAS REFERENCE I LOVE YOU 4:50

[@xSKOOBSx]

From a geologist, "water-weathered" sand is round compared to "new" deserts, like in the USA, but compared to "old" deserts like in the middle east, it would be more angular. Generally speaking, water-weathered sand is rounded and desert sand is angular, the opposite of what was stated.

[@JonathanHarvell]

This episode was amazing. Thanks for making this make sense to the world.

[@BDRmongoose]

You might like the documentary Sand Wars then

[@fps_lego268]

Shouldve given an alternate title of "Geography by Techquickie"

[@Joshman601]

Time to start mining the landfills for old computer parts. I bet there’s lots of old cpus down there.

[@pittyman]

Ha-ha-ha! The glass has to be created from sound with special dimensions of grains... Don't you melt the sand when you create glass?🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

[@ultraali453]

Many different types of aggregate can be used. But, we may be in trouble if we run out of Portland cement.

[@SMCwasTaken]

Sand is Sand.

[@theguy8412]

Dredging is supposedly bad because you are left with holes underwater that cause erosion and receding of coast, desert sand is not useful for concrete because it's properties. Yet, it does not have to be PERFECT sand to be underwater, just make it a bit more expensive but replace underwater sand that is being extracted from rivers and sea, with desert sand, the desert sand will really make 0 difference because of its shape, but will however prevent further collapse of nearby shores...

[@LiamFaiaz]

Human's: were running out of sand to make silicone. Mindustry: First time?

[@sativagirl1885]

Pound sand to make more sand, eh?

[@Kontekst]

i'm not even 30 yet and i'm watching the earth go dry. literally and in every other aspect

[@holderofallknowledge604]

there should be minimum quality requirement laws to prevent wasting these materials to ewaste (example: all the knockoff phones from wish, temu, ex)

[@Moonstone-Redux]

Gamers Nexus's "waste of sand" comments about absolutely garbage chips no longer sound funny now.

[@rajithaww]

Only a matter of time till we have a Martian sand CPU

[@pcnoob101here8]

delete me: exists eteled: are you serious right now bro

[@grandpasgrandson]

Yeah, so I live in an area where silicant mines are very common. Very very common. And they are slowly shutting down because they get outsourced by cheaper labor outside of the US.... So much like oil, the new needed source for EV is now endangered. Right.

[@climarathorn]

stuff like this is why we need to figure out a feasible way to harvest minerals from asteroids

[@sdwboss]

@1:39 the text is wrong. Should read 0.075mm, not 0.75mm according to what Riley said.

[@KissyKaede]

We need to build a real life minecraft sand machine.

[@matyas94k]

Video suggestion: KZbin's anti-adblock policy. What is their standpoint, what is not, how it works, how does it influence users' activity and their account. I'm not suggesting to talk about how to circumvent it, let's leave that part for other channels.

[@Leanzazzy]

Sandman is no longer a villain, he's ransom 😂

[@sridharv56]

Very useful topic to create awareness of environment protection. Suggest that once a while such useful topics are discussed. 👏👍

[@Aeturnalis]

3:32 skip ad

[@basantatamang2249]

👍

[@UriahStuff]

Thank you!

[@ir.2044]

please do a video on rhythm games, in any of the LMG channels, because of their potential and how it can be used as a testing platform for both human and computation limits

[@JazzyAnasazi]

I need a chemist to explain why a processed version of silicone dioxide cant be broken back down to its simplest form (its namesake)? I could've sworn that through using chemical processes, its possible to reduce any compound back down to its basic chemical composition?

[@shanent5793]

If you apply enough energy anything can be broken down, the problem is doing it economically

[@JazzyAnasazi]

@@shanent5793 Okay so lets just arrest all the billionaires, sieze their assets, apply it to THIS, get room-temp super conductors, establish stage 2 civilization, enter third stage cuz EZPZ, WTF IS STOPPING US FR

[@Alsry1]

We can, it’s actually pretty easy. We just don’t need to because we’re not even close to running out of sand for semiconductors. For construction? That’s the actual issue.

[@warywhistle]

Thanks, now my crime empire with sand is about to start.