Modern mineral extraction
is a lucrative but intensely cost- and labor-intensive process. Outside of a
few talented amateurs who prospect solo and the informal mining operations of
gold-panning communities, the industry is largely dominated by gigantic
multinational conglomerates which make use of geologically insensitive
technologies to minimize effort and maximize profit, even if that means cutting
off mountain tops and fouling waterways with acid run-off.
However, that may change.
Mineral extraction and its attendant economic consolidations has long followed
the pattern of using ever-more sophisticated, gigantic and expensive
technologies to get the job done. But what if there were a way of developing a
technology that was more amenable to collective or community use, such that the
wealth of mineral resources would not be concentrated in the fortune of a
single individual but could be used for public good?
Phytomining may offer a
solution. The principle behind phytomining is simpler than you might expect.
Plants take nutrients out of the ground, including mineral nutrients such as
the phosphates in fertilizer and heavy metals. Some plants act as
hyper-accumulators, putting out large networks of roots and concentrating large
quantities of these metals. These plants, such as the alpine pennycress, are
used by Superfund
for remediation during and after normal mining operations.
Historically, mining
companies have used the pH and mineral content of plants in exploration
efforts. But only relatively recently has the processing technology enabled the
possibility that vegetation could be used for the actual extraction of
minerals.
Theoretically, the
hyper-accumulator plants or perhaps special variations developed through
intensive breeding or genetic engineering could obviate the necessity of mining
altogether. They could potentially offer an ecologically safe and sustainable
way of harvesting minerals in the same way we harvest nutritional resources
from the soil. As a function of reducing costs of production, this method would
also offer the possibility of recovering mineral deposits which are currently
uneconomical from any soils that have a significant concentration of particular
metals which can be targeted with different plan species, saving processing and
smelting costs down the road and reducing sulfur pollution.
Early exploration will also
not be a problem, as phytomining can be particularly useful in recovering
minerals from mines that were exhausted using conventional technologies, as has
been proposed
for gold mines in India.
Companies have already been
making moves on this sweet concept, but with few exceptions, the notion
that with the right seeds you could literally plant and grow a gold mine has escaped the focus of major
biotechnology companies. Communities that live near supposedly exhausted
mineral deposits can capitalize on this corporate lacuna by drawing up the
terms for public-private partnerships well in advance of the technical
developments that will enable these operations, thus ensuring that a portion of
the recovered wealth can benefit the public good.
Put another way, if all
goes well in phytomining, money could grow on trees.