Hi! Greetings from Poland...

I've been reading a lot about peak oil recently, and this site is a fascinating and informative resource! So thanks!

Now, I wonder if any of you have any information on a problem that I foresee running parrell to peak oil. Apparently at the current rate of extraction, the world will exhaust its iridium supply in about 10 years time or less. I been trying to find more information on that, however this seems hard to come by anywhere. I am not sure how much people are aware of this here (I tried searching, but found little information) but iridium is a vital component of solar panels, so how does this effect the long term viability of solar power? Iridium is also used in LED lights, LCD displays - so running out would appear to be a serious crisis. How much do people know about this? Have I put 2 and 2 together and made 5? Also, if this information is here forgive me for asking - I'm new!

Welcome. Iridium is not necessarily a show stopper for solar PV or IC's, LED's and the like. It is an ideal substance in many of the currently used substrates but there are other substitutes. A more worrisome problem is that PV is really only a TINY minority of world energy production and likely will never make up a majority. So look at the bigger issues like coal and nuclear for the issues that will shut down future growth.

-G

Do you mean indium?

@gnm Thanks for the prompt reply. I'm just really waking up to peak oil etc. I was considering solar panels (logistical nightmare in Poland, sadly - as are all off the grid technologies at the moment) and thought about the iridium shortage. I remembered reading about shortages of it a while ago with regards to the electronics industry and drew a conclusion. I still think that using a resource in decline to counteract the problems of a resource in decline might be a little be counter-productive, so good to know there are alternatives, do you have any links or further info?

@kuidaskassikaeb no, I mean iridium. It's a metal used in many electronic components. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iridium