As efforts step up to protect coastal regions affected by erosion, scientists have found an unexpected way to protect communities—zapping the shoreline with electricity.
In a study published in the journal Communications Earth and the Environment, researchers from Northwestern University demonstrated the novel technique to strengthen marine sand, potentially offering a sustainable solution to combat erosion caused by climate change and rising sea levels.
“Over 40 percent of the world’s population lives in coastal areas,” Alessandro Rotta Loria, who led the study, said in a statement.
“Because of climate change and sea-level rise, erosion is an enormous threat to these communities. Through the disintegration of infrastructure and loss of land, erosion causes billions of dollars in damage per year worldwide,” he said.
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What would this do to the local ecology? Seems like turning the sand into a cement like substance would have massive effects on local wildlife.
What would this do to the local ecology?
This was my first thought.
Marine tardigrades are the weirder, cooler cousins of the freshwater moss-piglets we all love. They are just one of the species that live in intertidal sand.
I was reading through hoping they’d show they’d considered the impact on life, but nope. Two to three volts doesn’t sound a lot, but if you’re a small creature living half in brine it might be a big deal.
Plus the change in the sand that is the whole point, as you say.
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Absolutely nothing can go wrong.
Sounds like the beginning of a supervillain origin story.
This is why scientists are mocked. You get some guys from materials science saying ‘hey we can do this cool thing with beach sand and electricity’ and they don’t bother talking to the physical scientists about ocean erosion and why their idea does t make any sense.
They would tell you that beach erosion is inevitable. Either you let it happen, or you put a bunch of hard structures there instead. Then, the waves either undercut the hard structure, leading to more needed, or the wave reflection scours the beach and takes all of the sand out to sea or elsewhere along the coastline. Meankng no more sans next to you - just a concrete cliff.
Also sand is one of the most limited resources with actual cartels working on stealing it - and you want to use it as a primary building material? Instead of just a contributor like in concrete? What?
Source: worked in area.
Often something like this is published and people don’t use the methods for the materials they are described with. It’s like taking the idea to make dough for baking specifically shaped bread, and using the concept to make specifically shaped ceramics instead
Yeah, the problem with seawalls isn’t that they’re hard to make, it’s that they’re even worse than doing nothing. The coastal area where I live makes it almost impossible to build seawalls, and for good reason.
Lets do it. Nothing could possibly go wrong.
Start with the ones who proposed it
Seems like a neat technology. Would be interesting to see how they use it at scale.
They should probably still stop building houses on the coastline, though.
I don’t have much sympathy for the McMansions, but there are huge sections of Pacific Coast rail line threatened by coastal erosion, and it sure would be nice to get some nice high-speed rail along there.
Yeah, that’s true. It’s hopefully less costly to stabilize just the vulnerable parts of the surfliner than the entire west coast. I don’t think it’s possible to upgrade the speed on the surfliner much, given the geotechnical situation it’s in, and I believe that this is also one of the main reasons CAHSR is being built inland.
But yeah, I have seen some really irresponsible houses on the california coast, like houses built on the outside of seawalls, actively crumbling away.
This sounds more useful to apply to specific, small portions of the sand, rather than applying it to an entire coastline.
“We can use it to strengthen the seabed beneath sea walls, stabilize sand dunes and retain unstable soil slopes. We could also use it to strengthen protection structures, marine foundations and so many other things. There are many ways to apply this to protect coastal areas.”
Targeted applications sound more reasonable from a cost perspective too.
“Oh no, the sea is attacking the beach!”
“Quick! Taze the water!”
See Project Oilsand/Project Cauldron where huge brains wanted to nuke the oil sands deposits thus turning the sand into a big glass crater with all the oil floating nicely inside ready for exploitation.
?
why zap? Use a big magnifying lens in the sunlight, there is a lot of microplastic in the sand.
Just heat won’t cut it. The chemical reaction described in the article is initiated in part by electrical current (which is also pointed out in the article).
It was a joke
This sounds like a completely normal and well thought out thing to do…
Humanity is further proof that evolution makes mistakes. We deserve whatever’s coming to us.
