Scientists have formed an unusual new alliance in their fight against climate change. They are using bacteria to help them extract rare metals vital in the development of green technology. Without the help of these microbes, we could run out of raw materials to build turbines, electric cars and solar panels, they say.
No, we’re not going to run out in any timescale that’s of any interest to humans.
But a new method? Why not?
“To get around these problems we need to develop a circular economy where we reuse these minerals wherever possible, otherwise we will run out of materials very quickly,” said Horsfall. “There is only a finite amount of these metals on Earth and we can no longer afford to throw them away as waste as we do now. We need new recycling technologies if we want to do something about global warming.”
“Afford” an interesting point. Because that is the point. Is this new recycling method cheaper than new material? Than other recycling methods?
Using such strains of bacteria, Horsfall and her team have now taken waste from electronic batteries and cars, dissolved it and then used bacteria to latch on to specific metals in the waste and deposit these as solid chemicals.
Hmm, dunno. We know how to take Li, Co, Ni and so on out of solution already. Most of the costs are in collecting, grinding and dissolving the stuff. So it’s not obvious that this is going to be a better idea. Explore it, by all means, but I’d not leap on it sa a grand solution.
The basic flaw in the argument here is that there is a fight against climate change. The climate changes naturally and no amounts of solar panels, turbines or battery powered cars will make the slightest difference.
If we are going to end our dependence on petrochemicals and rely on electricity for our heating, transport and power
If.
“All those photovoltaics, drones, 3D printing machines, hydrogen fuel cells, wind turbines and motors for electric cars require metals – many of them rare – that are key to their operations.”
Mmmkay.
Politics is also an issue, scientists warn. China controls not only the main supplies of rare earth elements, but dominates the processing of them as well.
But that’s not really an issue, because China and other Asian countries will also manufacture all the photovoltaics, drones, 3D printing machines, hydrogen fuel cells, wind turbines and motors for electric cars. The UK and Europe have decided to opt out of making and building things through government legislation and stupid ideas about having a “circular economy”:
“To get around these problems we need to develop a circular economy where we reuse these minerals wherever possible, otherwise we will run out of materials very quickly,” said Horsfall. “There is only a finite amount of these metals on Earth and we can no longer afford to throw them away as waste as we do now. We need new recycling technologies if we want to do something about global warming.”
According to Deloitte, a “circular economy” means: Picture a world where all your everyday products are recycled, reused or repurposed. That’s what life could look like within a circular economy.
Picture living in poverty all your life, constantly trying to fix your 60 year old car while dreaming of winning the lottery so you can afford a new washing machine.
New legislation has decreed that by the next decade recycled metals will have to be used at significant levels for manufacturing new green technology devices.
Decreed, eh? And did the tides obey?
Steve, those lovely folks over in Brussels (or Strasbourg depending on which day of the week it is) have decided that ICE vehicles will not be allowed to be repaired (“Fit for 55”).
You’ll either have electric (if rich enough), use the bus or train, or cycle / walk.
Or of course be unable to go anywhere because you’ve had your travel privileges revoked for saying hurty things about Dear Leader at The Chestnut Tree Cafe…….
I love the use of the word ‘finite’ to imply running out soon
Whereas it actually means there’s loads of the stuff, most of which is not economic to extract or require the development of new processes, but it’s contained within one planet so it’s definitely finite in quantity, even if we don’t actually know or can be sure how much there is
Addolff – ICE vehicles will not be allowed to be repaired
What an interesting idea. Did they mention how they plan to enforce this?
@Steve
I seem to recall this was sort of tried many years ago – or at least suggested to perhaps test the waters (for motorbikes I think?)
There are a number of ways. Not to make it impossible, but to make it very difficult and “illegal” for private individuals and independent garages.
Specifying fixings and fasteners etc requiring special tools, and making sure only “approved dealers” can legally use them.
On vehicle diagnostics same, approved dealers only.
Warranties easily invalidated in the case of the above.
MOTs same, if any “evidence ” of tampering, made generally more strict to get older cars of the road.
Of course, in the real world all this would be the usual unworkable regulatory clusterfuck, doubly, triply so as exemptions for milk float and unicorn fart engines would be required.
And if these engineered bacteria get get loose into the environment & prosper? Your fone starts rotting from the inside? Your car battery turns into grey goo?
@Mark And making the supply & possession of drugs illegal has been a great success! Impossible to get your hands on a toot of charlie?
It’s the same with firearms & ammunition. There’s nothing particularly hard about manufacturing either. Any engineering shop. Even the propellant & primers are simple chemistry. The only thing stops it happening is a lack of market for the products.
I think that people with a vested interest in something deliberately confuse reserves and resources; I do not believe that they are ignorant of the difference.
The problem with complex recycling is that it needs to be done centrally; not one centre per country but just one centre in the entire EU. The ore from a mine may only contain 1% of what is wanted and a device may contain 5%. But it is all located at the mine not scattered about.
Transport costs then make recycling not just uneconomic but may use more resources of a different kind than not recycling.
Indeed so. I wrote a whole book making much the same points.
https://static1.squarespace.com/static/56eddde762cd9413e151ac92/t/56f71b64746fb9cb26770c9f/1459034981724/The-No-Breakfast-Fallacy-ONLINE2.pdf
@Bloke in Spain
Yes, but the illegality would remain, and warranties could doubtless be voided etc
In the states, John Deere – farm equipment purveyors to the great plains and a lot more besides – have been sort of doing this for a while.
A piece of highly computerised farm eqipment costing a hundred grand has a $50 sensor fail but the onboard diagnostics are only accessible via authorised dealers (with concomitant rip off labour rates and outrageous prices for the authroised spares).
The farmer, practical and proficient as such people inevitably are who, 20 years ago, would have rolled his sleeves up and fixed it in an hour is stuck.
Solution? Apparently pirate software is available from eastern European sources and the dealer is bypassed.
Farm equipment is rather specialised and it’s maintenance a bit more restricted compared to cars, but we can see how they might try. Car manufacturers – who have demonstrated their bovine stupidity by not kicking back at milk float dictats – doubtless would be eager.
Watch this space!
Yes, but the illegality would remain, and warranties could doubtless be voided etc
So what? The warranty is already voided for the owner because they won’t repair the car! The warranty restrictions on third party repairs & servicing have been in place for decades, already. As for the illegality. And 25% of people don’t buy their tobacco products from the baccyman?
I don’t think people really understand how illegality works. People obey the law when the cost of not doing so is higher than the benefits gained. Move the result of the equation far enough & people will break the law. Move it even futher & the law becomes unenforceable.
@Bloke in Spain
Points taken but look at how many people pay the TV licence or complied (and still do!) with chink flu and mask dictats
Someone’s trolling for funding, and the Guardian is there to help.
Dunno Mark. Never bought a TV license in 45 years of having my own UK home. Never saw a law I didn’t want to break. Unless I know all of them, there must be a lot of people like that. Brits are not all curtain twitchers.
Why are they engineering bacteria when shellfish already do the job?
Mark – Of course, in the real world all this would be the usual unworkable regulatory clusterfuck, doubly, triply so as exemptions for milk float and unicorn fart engines would be required
It strikes me, as it did our Bloke in Spain, that the modern state keeps doing stuff that pushes more and more people into off the books, not necessarily legal activities via the black economy.
Stuff we used to laugh at the USSR for.
‘Stuff we used to laugh at the USSR for.’
You have a point Steve. I’d argue that a lot of this is simple inertia. The size of the bureaucracy is increasing. The pollies make more rules to justify their existence. So no doubt the whole of the country (I’m definitely including Oz) tends to seize up and grind to a halt.
Perhaps once the entire world is westernised and bureaucratised, everything will simply collapse.
But of course I was a bureaucrat. Maybe BiS is right and simple common sense will lead people to just ignore all the crap.
Primary mining is almost always cheaper than reclamation. Only tailings dams/tips are worth reprocessing.
@Bloke in Spain.
45 years! I’m ashamed to say I paid at least ten years longer than I should.
This certainly isn’t a total nest of curtain twitchers, but there are enough alas.
Work (using the loosest definition) expands to fill the space available. As most of that space is on servers, it’s not too difficult to see what it is going to be filled with.
Long-running effort (early lab experiments already in the mid-1990’s ) , covered with the Flavour-du-Jour Pantytwisting sauce to get grants.
The hard bit there is that the metals involved are actually toxic to the bacteria. so they use a chemotroph trick from another species to have the host species deal with that.
As always: do-able in the lab, at scale ….quite another matter.
Same challenges as with methanogens at scale: Free oxygen ruins the enzymes, so strict anaerobic environment is mandatory, which makes a ( potentially economical) bulk flow process….. verrah tricksy.
Has Chris Packham started to protest about rights for enzymes and bacteria?