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Mining Metals Using Plants and Trees?
elroySF writes "An MIT Technology Review article says "...Scientists reported Monday that they have bioengineered a plant capable of absorbing arsenic from soil and sequenced the complete set of genes for a microbe that can remove heavy metals from water." It goes on to say "...Some scientists even see the day when trees and grasses will be used to mine metals and minerals without disturbing the soil."
" We had a story about this a while back.
Does anyone have any more useful links than this one? I know it's in Nature, so there's probably not a free site that directly links the article, but are there any more brain heavy synopses of this article anywhere?
I am interested in several things:
1) what does the Arsenic turn into (chemically speaking). Does the plant change the chemical bonding? I think that most aresnic is stored as sodium arsenate (I could be wrong) if it changes it to something more managable, it would be much better than if it simply concentrates it. HOWEVER, concentrating it is, by itself, an incredible step forward. Period.
2) is it possible to seed these as "suicide" plants, EG: plants that produce no pollen or seeds?
hmmmm?
"...Some scientists even see the day when trees and grasses will be used to mine metals and minerals without disturbing the soil." That demonstrates why some people calling themselves 'scientists' should stick to their fields. Sucking up miniscule amounts of metals with plants would only deplete the 'crustal abundance' of minerals within the narrow range of plant roots, and the average American requires over 45,000 pounds of newly-mined minerals every year. I work in the mineral industry, and I am a scientist. This smells like a grant proposal that got by someone. Suckers!
What we need in Oz is a tree that can stand high salinity and absorb some of the excess salt to help fix the problems caused by over irrigation. It's going to take a very long time to fix with natural plants.
Mel Chin had already successfully done this in his work entitled "Revival Field" at the Pig's Eye Landfill in St. Paul Minnesota. Here he traps heavy metals and toxins in the soil leaving it untainted when he is done harvesting... at least that is the goal.. and so far it has been somewhat sucessfull. You can read more about it here satorimedia.com. I'm sure there are other articles out there about his research, but I found him in one of my text books entitled Art on the Edge and Over by Linda Weintraub....
We could all benefit from my education.
Arthur C. Clarke described a "golden reef," in which several species of coral were genetically engineered to extract gold from sea water, in his book "Imperial Earth," published in 1976. In a rather detailed passage, he describes his corals as being up to ten per cent gold, but states that the gold extraction feature weakened the health of the coral, so that they suffered from parasitism and disease and required regular gardening and maintenance to remain viable.
> And what happens when the leaves fall off the
> trees? When they decay won't they contaminate the
> soil
#1) The soil is already contaminated (that's where the plants are getting it from).
#2) Hopefully they'll use plants that can be easily harvested & removed from the environment (like cabbage). I think that's the point.