Salmon Sperm and Recycling REEs
What a quirky and exciting development for sustainability: a way to extract and recycle the rare earth elements we need for green technologies, like wind turbines.
It’s time to scrape that salmon semen off your plate, because it’s got a much better use than tickling your taste buds (yes, fish sperm is actually a delicacy in Japan). This unusual magical ingredient could help us extract and recycle rare earth elements from ore and a variety of other materials, such as magnets or old electronics. Not only would this process be significantly cheaper than traditional chemical extraction methods, but it’s also much better for the environment.
Read more: Salmon Sperm Could Help Us Recycle Rare Earth Elements | IFLScience.
A gold mine in my toilet
A gold mine? (click for source)
Mines use billions of litres of water each year but with one billion people without clean drinking water and 2.5 billion lacking access to basic sanitation worldwide, doesn’t it seem preposterous to pour clean water down a mine?
Sending undrinkable domestic waste water and sea water to mine sites is a promising solution.
Read more about the use of recycled water in mining in From My Toilet To The Gold Mine, my latest piece published on the RiAus blog on 29 April 2014. (more…)
Our race to find rare earths, from deep sea to the moon
Hundreds of kilos of REE neobium needed for magnets in wind turbines
Explorers are scouring the lands, racing to find new deposits of precious rare earth elements. But new supplies of these vital green technology metals might be found in less traditional mining locations, like deep below the sea and even out in space.
Putting the REE in gREEn technologies
Current supplies are barely enough to satisfy our insatiable thirst for rare earths (REE), a group of essential elements used in high-tech gadgets and sustainable green technologies. (more…)