Surfing, Beaches and Sandy Batteries

Dean Sigler Electric Powerplants, Sustainable Aviation Leave a Comment

According to scientific history, or perhaps legend, Archimedes had his Eureka moment when settling into his bathtub and seeing the water rise around him.  He came up with his idea that a body’s mass displaced an equal amount of water, something that’s proved to be useful to know. Zachary Favors, a graduate student at the University of California at Riverside, had a similar moment of discovery when leaving the water after surfing near the beaches of San Clemente.  According to the UCR press release, “he picked up some sand, took a close look at it and saw it was made up primarily of quartz, or silicon dioxide.”  This led him to research locations in the United States where sand with high proportions of quartz existed.  He found that the Cedar Creek Reservoir, east of Dallas, had sand with the qualities for which he was searching. Not only that, it was close to his boyhood home. What would lead him to …