Actually I was not so much ignoring rare earths as expecting that these cells would be
Perovskite and not silicon.
It is the silicon cells which are currently being built out with rare earths to try and increase the very things that Perovskite provides naturally. Also I would expect wiring etc to be more aluminium than copper as the weight ratio is so much lower for space lift.
So I was not even factoring in the materials impact of solar cells, I was expecting them to be built out of the correct materials for the job given that they will be exposed to more light for longer and provide a true 24x7/365 power source.
It is not ignorance of the issue. More knowledge of the alternatives.
But, yes, with AI and bots, mining the regolith on the moon is a far more viable solution given that you can fire out of lunar orbit using linear accelerators. Only the materials which cannot be found on the Moon will come from Earth and over time that will move to the Asteroid belt. Saturn is waiting to be mined for fuel and also a bunch of the moons.
We have not yet even begun to look at the solutions out there and yet you are trying to constrain us instead of letting us get to a vast range of resources which will remove our power and carbon issues forever.
Yes ships like Starship are going to launch to Mars and it is going to create emissions. Right.
So how many emissions?
The UK burns around 132mtoe (millions of tonnes of oil equivalent), of energy annually. Now I took a figure of 5 launches for every 200 tonnes to orbit, assuming that every 200 Tonnes will go to Mars and will need the refuel. Honestly I don't think this is the case as the transport will evolve and use different methods. But lets assume this is the case.
That comes out at 30mtoe. roughly one quarter of the UK's Annual emissions to send 1m tonnes of load to Mars. But we're not talking Mars are we? We are talking about Earth Orbit. So let's half that as we will need more to push it to GTO but not as much as to push it to Mars.
Now we are talking 1/8th of ONE year to push up an array of 27 solar grids to reduce UK emissions dramatically. More than 1/8th I'm very sure. Every single year.
So let's stop having the Oil Industry scare tactics and start talking about real solutions which can be deployed within a decade by the technology already developed.
Yes I know Elon made it happen and you hate Elon. But face facts. The full flow staged combustion rocket engine was deemed impossible when the USSR failed to make it happen. Then the N1, again USSR, which had 29 rockets on it but it couldn't be controlled. So, again, it could not be done. Until SpaceX did it.
Our world changed last year when Starship blasted off the launch pad without exploding and made it well into the upper atmosphere before doing the loop the loop due to engine failures. But it changed even more so in November last year when it made it controlled to hot staging and the ship made it to space. Again, doubling down again this year, when the booster made it all the way to trying a soft landing before crashing into the sea and the ship made it to attempting re-entry.
Within a month we'll have a 4th test. Potentially within a month of that again, a 5th.
Humans are going back to space with a vengeance and why should we not at least try to make the best of our energy generation? Once nothing would have stopped us. When did we become so timid?
