Let there be light!
“And God saw the light, that it was good. And God divided the light from the darkness” Genesis 1:3
Despite the government’s own agency, the Energy Saving Trust, announcing that all new homes will be powered in part by solar power before the end of 2010 – we are only two years off the target and in the poor areas of Liverpool, we see dozens of different contractors building homes, but not a solar panel in sight.
Tony Blair promised in 2004 that ‘sustainable development would be incorporated in all new schools and public sector buildings’. But have you seen any new schools and public sector buildings that incorporate solar panels?
One the main ‘ingredients’ we need for solar panel production is silicon. Now like you, I’m as ignorant about the supplies of silicon as the next man or woman in the street. Thankfully, the internet can educate us on the things we don’t know. A quick search using several sources online reveals an abundance of research on how much silicon we have out there. The good news is that it covers 25.7% of the Earth’s crust.
That’s a lot of silicon.
From the US Geological Survey…
“Silicon is a light chemical element with both metallic and nonmetallic characteristics. In nature, silicon combines with oxygen and other elements to form silicates. Silicon, in the form of silicates, constitutes more than 25% of the Earth’s crust.” (link here )
Others say that silica forms 25.7% of the actual weight of the Earths crust. Either way, there is enough of the raw product be able to supply every man, woman and child on this planet with cheap, clean efficient energy supplies once we manufacture the end product of the silicon cells.
We would easily invest some newer energy supply before we used up 25% of the Earths crust. If we started now we’d not have 1% shifted for a few centuries.
Email this post
Print this post