[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UdO6T1TIDzQ&feature=player_embedded[/youtube]

Sand as the solution to the world’s energy woes? Or, more precisely, silica? The Sahara Solar Breeder Project is a plan by universities in Japan and Algeria to provide 50 percent of the world’s electricity by 2050.

How?

By building manufacturing plants across the Sahara Desert that would extract silica from sand to make solar panels. The facilities would then be used to build solar power plants. And so on and so on, until the breeding strategy can deliver 100 gigawatts of electricity.

Is it a great big idea? Sure. Will it work? Time will tell.

The Sahara Solar Breeder Project would take advantage of all the silica and sunlight found in the North Africa desert. One snag: The technology for transforming desert sand into silicon and then solar cells doesn’t exist yet. Also just a concept: The supergrid that would connect the desert to the world, requiring liquid-nitrogen cooled cables buried deep underground.

Project leader Hideomi Koinuma calls the venture the Super Apollo Project, after theGreek god of light and sun, and the NASA mission that put a man on the moon.

The universities plan to spend about $2 million U.S. on the research over five years, in hopes that the technology will be embraced by developers and used to build the project.

via Treehugger