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@@ -211,7 +211,7 @@ Can we do better? Tungsten carbide is much stiffer and stronger than steel, but
It looks like [polycrystalline diamond](/assets/misc/lammer1988.pdf) - very small grains of diamond bonded to cobalt or tungsten carbide[^12], now used for e.g. high-performance 3D printer nozzles and drill bits - has even better properties, being lighter than tungsten carbide and steel but having about the same strength as tungsten carbide. This has the same problem of consuming much more than all global production, and the [existing process](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=96eFnTescoY) looks limited to small objects and difficult and expensive to scale. Without a way to form the strong carbon/carbon bonds *in situ*, or the ability to make much larger polycrystalline diamond structural elements, this is not practical. It might be possible to use [chemical vapour deposition](https://worksinprogress.co/issue/lab-grown-diamonds/) to slowly grow additional structural diamond onto existing diamond, but this requires a vacuum chamber with tightly controlled conditions and is very slow and difficult to tune. Overall, this is not feasible without further research or [Drexlerian nanotechnology](https://nanosyste.ms/), which also requires further research and may be impossible.
You may have noticed that the calculation with steel requires ~2500 tonnes of steel per square metre of vertical support, or about 22 billion tonnes in total. Global steel production is ~2 billion tonnes per year[^14], and it would not be possible to repurpose all of this.
You may have noticed that the calculation with steel requires ~2500 tonnes of steel per square metre supported, or about 22 billion tonnes in total. Global steel production is ~2 billion tonnes per year[^14], and it would not be possible to repurpose all of this.
::: captioned src=/assets/images/gwangyang_steel_plant.jpg
Someone's photograph of the [POSCO Gwangyang steelworks](https://www.gem.wiki/POSCO_Gwangyang_steel_plant); it looks less shiny in Google Maps, and this picture excludes some of what I take to be support infrastructure.