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To protect US coasts, scientists want to zap the sea with electricity

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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just_another_person ,

Absolutely nothing can go wrong.

fpslem OP ,

Sounds like the beginning of a supervillain origin story.

veganpizza69 ,

why zap? Use a big magnifying lens in the sunlight, there is a lot of microplastic in the sand.

gravitas_deficiency ,

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).

njm1314 ,

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.

Hegar ,
@Hegar@fedia.io avatar

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.

Crumbgrabber ,

Lets do it. Nothing could possibly go wrong.

Fiivemacs ,

Start with the ones who proposed it

TachyonTele ,

This sounds like a completely normal and well thought out thing to do…

magnetosphere ,
@magnetosphere@fedia.io avatar

Humanity is further proof that evolution makes mistakes. We deserve whatever’s coming to us.

Hello_there ,

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.

TerkErJerbs ,

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.

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