Sahara Solar Breeder Project

Wild, imaginative, ambitious, perhaps a bit crazy, even…

As the video below shows, the project is being started by a somewhat dull (sorry!) University of Tokyo researcher and aims to produce 50 percent of the planet’s electricity by 2050 using desert sand.  They are starting this with an extremely modest $2M for five years, hardly enough to build the series of silicon manufacturing plants or the solar power plants using them.

Incredulous?  Ridiculous?

I love it!  I don’t know whether it is feasible or nonsense, but I believe that this is the kind of problem defining that is necessary to build sustainable societies today.  I think that it must coincide with just as imaginative ways of reducing our current energy needs.  But the vision is wonderful.