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Group of Microbes Change Dissolved Gold to Solid
option8 writes " National Geographic, has a an article about a newly discovered strain of bacteria that might be used (though, as the article says, not cost-effectively) to harvest gold and other metals from seawater - a longtime fantasy of science fiction."
The microbes might not be economically viable at extracting gold from seawater, but that doesn't mean that they're useless. A clever engineer could probably figure out a way of using the microbes to cheaply process low grade ore. That's currently done using environmentally dangerous processes like cyanide heap leaching (which is as dangerous as you'd expect a process using large amount of cyanide to be) but a microbe that has an affinity for gold could make that type of work much safer and more environmentally friendly. Yes it would take quite a bit of work, but gold is still valuable enough that people are likely to look into it.
There's no point in questioning authority if you aren't going to listen to the answers.
A million microbes is nothing!
Just let them breed for a few hours and you'll have billions
Why not use tidal forces to pump the water ? Or even just wave power.
Nuke 'em, for all I care.
When I first saw this I thought, "Hey.. now THIS is something cool!" Being able to take seawater that has diluted gold and make it into solid gold.
When I thought a bit further, though, I found this to be actually a VERY bad thing. The wealth/borrowing power of a nation is measured by its wealth (where gold is one of the primary methods of determining wealth). If this is an easy way to obtain new gold (where cost to get the gold is >= the gold gained), this could literally cripple the economies of the countries of the world. Heck, someone with a lot of money to blow and a "beef with the world" could drop some money into this in the hopes that this could happen.
Incidentally, Arthur C. Clarke wrote about using genetically engineered coral to extract gold from seawater in his 1975 book "Imperial Earth". However, the coral were extremely fragile, and eventually were only maintained as a curiosity.
Jobby
If I remember my early 20th century history correctly (and I might not), Bryant wanted free and unlimited minting of money. This would have made it easier for farmers (his chief supporters) to pay off their debts (small farmers then had the same problems as small farmers now), but would have made inflation rampant.
Bryant would have wanted these microbes because his understanding of economics sucked. His understanding of evolution sucked, too (he was part of the prosecution in the Scopes Monkey Trial). Hell of a public speaker, though
-jon
Remember Amalek.
What if gold is essential for some unknown process in the seas? Maybe mining the gold will have some unpleasant side effects. I often wonder this same thing when I think about mining asteroids for precious metals. What if some proto-virus is brought back, a la "The Andromeda Strain".
Admittedly, this is far-fetched, but I imagine that even an inert substance like gold must affect the ecosystem, But then again, Maybe the amount that would be extracted is still tiny compared to the sea-water reserves. How much gold is in that water?
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