Why haven't we been able to figure out how to convert sand into energy? There's shitloads of it and it would make places like Africa actually venerable as an energy supplier to the global market.
we need sand for silicon and cleaning and refining it costs energy
>>109799410Ask claude
>>109799410this is a question for an LLM anon
>>109799433Well, yes, but that's a given because we haven't figured out 100% energy efficiency. All energy conversions require a loss in output vs. input. If we did we wouldn't even need to ask why something isn't usable as an energy supply because the problem would already be solved.
>>109799433Truth
>>109799410Electricity generation is a solved problem
>>109799410what?
>>109799410Several countries in Africa already are energy suppliers and it's only made them more violent.
>>109802176WHY HAVENT WE BEEN ABLE TO CONVERT SAND INTO ENERGY?
just put solar panels out there?
>>109799410>>109802200There's no practical way to do it. Silicon and oxygen are poor materials for nuclear reactions, and no-one has worked out how to make annihilation work as an energy production method
>>109802200it's just not very chemically reactive I suppose. Find an exothermic reaction with silicon dioxide, contain it, extract the heat and then turn that heat into electricity if you want.But sand on its own doesn't emit energy in the form of radiation.
>>109802231sand erosion destroys even the most stainless steel.
>>109799410Because sand is shit at generating energy? Having said that, it is pretty good at retaining heat, so there are some systems that use sand as batteries/storing heat.
>>109799410Actually, you gave me a decent idea. But not in the way you probably meant. I thought: how about we harvest the already prestacked potential energy of sand dunes in deserts, or snow. We drive a big pole or something into the base to make it unstable then capture the energy of it falling down a slope we have ready and turn a turbine from that. Repeat until the desert runs out of hills.
>>109804765If only there was some way to harvest energy directly from the wind that forms the dunes in the first place.
>>109802244Actually there is. I just asked Astra to solve this.
>>109804816well yeah but you're still wasting a lot of energy just sitting around for the taking with that dune. And like I said, apply it to snow and collapsing ice also. Any random shit stacked up on a hill, might as well make it falling down useful.
>>109799410Africa already was a supplier to the global energy markets. The only reason anyone gave a fuck about North Africa is uranium.
