Mandalore76 said:
While sand is indeed used for silicon chips (among a myriad of other things), the overwhelming majority of it is used in concrete for construction. The increased demand you are seeing has nothing to do with the semiconductor shortage. Sand is being overharvested (50 billion tonnes of sand and gravel per year) due to the world population quadrupling since 1950 requiring the construction of new homes, buildings, roads, etc. Some nations are also frivolously wasting the resource to artificially extend coast lines and create artificial islands to build luxury resorts. Sand mining and extraction has been carried to such an extreme that it has already lead to riverbank collapses, bridge collapses, coastal coral reef damage, destruction of coastal wetlands, and fish & bird habitats. So, I wouldn't be so quick to celebrate an increase of sand mining just because you think it might get more video game consoles produced. |
Oh I’m not someone that’s celebrating. I was curious about what industries could be demanding it when locally a sand mine is expanding into a massacre site that has only completed preliminary investigations.
Construction materials make more sense when we don’t really have modern fabs or substrate set ups.
