The Hoover Silicon Eradication System

The purpose of the Hoover Silicon Eradication System, or HSES, is to remove extraneous silicon particles from the water flow system of the Hoover Dam. Although most of the silicon is destroyed, some of the silicon is used for practical uses.

Silicon has many industrial uses. Elemental silicon is the principal component of most semiconductor devices. Silicon is widely used in semiconductors because it remains a semiconductor at higher temperatures than the semiconductor germanium and because its native oxide is easily grown in a furnace and forms a better semiconductor/dielectric interface than almost all other material combinations.
 

In the form of silica and silicates, silicon forms useful glasses, cements, and ceramics. It is also a component of silicones, a class-name for various synthetic plastic substances made of silicon, oxygen, carbon, germanium, and hydrogen, often confused with silicon itself.

Silicon is an essential element in biology, although only tiny traces of it appear to be required by animals. It is much more important to the metabolism of plants, particularly many grasses, and silicic acid (a type of silica) forms the basis of the striking array of protective shells of the microscopic diatoms. 

The Hoover Silicon Eradication System is by no means affiliated with the 1986 movie "Hoosiers", which cleverly uses some of the first letters of the words in the name of this system to form an anagram of the name of the movie. Click here for more information about "Hoosiers".

The HSES is also by no means affiliated with the Hoover Dam. Click here for more information about the Hoover Dam.


                                                                    
                                                                                                                 The founders of HSES, Christopher Windhorst and Neil Pomerleau