We're Running Out of Sand to Make CPUs 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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...

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

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

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

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

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.

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?

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.

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

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.

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

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

I cant wait to become a sand dealer

“Sand Demand” is my new band name.

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

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

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.

Anakin Skywalker would be proud

"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.

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

Solution: crush glass into grains

This is why we should try to keep using our devices for as long as possible.

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.

Anakin hearing we're running out of sand:STONKS

Pound sand to make more sand, eh?

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.

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.

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

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

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

But I need to get high FPS for CSGO2

0:06 much appreciated quote XD

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

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.

We are running out of CPUs to make sand

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.

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

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

Anakin is behind this....

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

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

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

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

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

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

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?

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

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

the flintstones was running on cutting edge tech

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

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

Sand is Sand.

Someone has got to find the end portal ASAP

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

Sorry but this video is BS. Yes, the construction industry has difficulties finding sand with suitable grain structure, but the semiconductor industry does not. Chemical composition largely doesn't matter either, as sand can easily be chemically purified, just by washing it with hydrochloric acid, already leaving 97%+ pure silicon dioxide behind. That silicon dioxide can be turned into a gas simply by reacting it with hydrofluoric acid and applying heat, and is then processed to reach semiconductor grade purity. The gas can also be turned back into pure silicon dioxide, using nothing but water and recovering the hydrofluoric acid in the process. This is already being done and there isn't a lack of any of the reagents and educts involved. Btw, if particle size is of concern, there's stuff like sieves and ball mills…

get the submarine, we're digging in the ocean

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.

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

time to collect sand from the air then

NAS REFERENCE I LOVE YOU 4:50

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

Conversion techniques: Ahem..

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...

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?

Anakin Skywalker liked this.

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.

We need to build a real life minecraft sand machine.

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"

If anyone is out there going "Silicon is similar to Carbon, can't we have Silicon-based life" just remember that while carbon dioxide works for organic chemistry, silicon dioxide is literally sand. Carbon Dioxide can easily be broken up into Carbon and Oxygen, which facilitates the transactional nature of organic chemistry. Silicon dioxide is a one-way process for organic chemistry, since it takes EXTREME temperatures to break those bonds again. Temperature extreme enough to vaporize everything that isn't silicon. So you might get animals that use silicon dioxide for a skeleton or a shell or something, but it's not going to be integral to their organic processes as carbon dioxide is for us.

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

well glas is widely smelted back and reused, concrete and other stuff gets crushed and reused too. thing is the more modern the chips get the harder it is to get all the materials out to reuse the silicon for new chips. the old ones just had some circuets printed on them with aluminium or copper the new stuff? that would read like some soil sample behind a chemical complex dumping its waste into the landscape...

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

Shouldve given an alternate title of "Geography by Techquickie"

Wow My sand

Lmao I love his ending statement 😂

This was a minor plot point in the final season of Barry

dang no more sandy bridge

make a cobblegen and grind the cobble down to sand in a create crushing wheel

does that mean retro PCs Will Eventually Die?

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.

It's not possible to run out of sand. Go to the beach once and your car will be eternally full of sand

So my CPU is a tiny sandcastle. 🤔

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

There's the worlds largest silica mine near me (cape flattery) and it's the most pure stuff on earth, Whitest ever and like walking in powder. Anyway it's fricken huge and there is thousands of square miles of the stuff. For now.

It almost seems like we will play out Dune for actual dunes in the near future. 😮 Or start mining the moon. 🤷

every resource in our planet is limited, and we'll eventually consume our planet and die along with it

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

That dramatic tidal wave was hilarious

Came for tech, left with tech & geology knowledge

Glass is glass, and glass is sand.

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.

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

Came for the CPUs, stayed for the concrete.