Mhm. The math for that one is not too bad, requiring a "vanishingly tiny" amount of Te per m^2, so that our current production gives a little over a gigawatt's

Mhm. The math for that one is not too bad, requiring a "vanishingly tiny" amount of Te per m^2, so that our current production gives a little over a gigawatt's worth per year. We'd need "merely" two orders of magnitude increase. (old explanation removed) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cadmium_telluride_photovoltaics#cite_note-34 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cadmium_telluride_photovoltaics... It's actually more up-in-the-air than I thought about twenty minutes ago -- tellurium has not been widely prospected, and the source du jour is undersea ocean ridges: http://walrus.wr.usgs.gov/reports/reprints/Hein_GCA_67.pdf http://walrus.wr.usgs.gov/reports/reprints/Hein_GCA_67.pdf ( http://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:FeKPblDo6GYJ:walrus.wr.usgs.gov/reports/reprints/Hein_GCA_67.pdf+tellurium-rich+ferromanganese+crusts&hl=en&gl=us&pid=bl&srcid=ADGEESj5ODfjmzgQVMi96rhRj2bXy2i0cTMtgmzZYpX7ieU1VBr8NIf3hOqr1ejrnZ4WFYcALjdJjuuMI49L0wlPyCZzUByMsgZNzRDcUBxZ1EwYYl1rJoakRZVlt8uyg44tuPmfb9IS&sig=AHIEtbTgIIegE-ZaUzTib8mHSTf717Jzrw http://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:FeKPblDo6GYJ:w... ) I'm still a skeptic.