Sources: Elhacham et al. (2020), Hackney et al. (2021), UNEP (2022)
Interesting, but they neglect to mention why desert sand is unusable.
Only some sands are suitable for the construction industry, for example for making concrete. Grains of desert sand are rounded by being blown in the wind, and for this reason do not produce solid concrete, unlike the rough sand from the sea.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sand#Resources_and_environmental_concerns
So am I correct in guessing it at least (if quartz sand) can be used for microchips and the likes? I hope the rough sands aren’t extrated just to be used in something, were other, less scarce sands could be used - but I could at least imagine stuff like economy of scale, existing infrastructure and special interest of the established industries could actually cause that.
But the amount needed for chips is several order of magnitude lower than what needed for concrete. If you see the square, usage diagram on the lower left, chips aren’t even visible, so small is needed.
You can also use it for glass, which is on the diagram, there is this old video of a guy 3D printing things with only solar power in the Sahara:
- original video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ptUj8JRAYu8
- background: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kpunlLk4fgE
We don’t really have an economical alternative to concrete (yet) in a lot of usecases, e.g. building foundations, substructure everywhere on the earth is made from concrete. On superstructure there are other options as structural material, e.g. wood, steel, but those don’t like to be put in soil.
In case you don’t know, desert sand is very smooth, which means that it doesn’t bind at all in e.g. concrete. For cement, concrete etc., you need sharp sand, which has more ‘sharp’ bits for things to bind to.
This recent video by Business Insider talks about it and shows how it’s mined. It comes down to the shape.