Blue Evolution, a company operating off the coasts of Alaska and Mexico, has discovered that seaweed not only has applications in food and skincare but also absorbs critical minerals like scandium and platinum group metals. These findings emerged from research conducted in collaboration with Pacific Northwest National Labs. In response, Blue Evolution launched Orca Minerals to explore sustainable mining practices using seaweed. The initiative aims to selectively breed strains of seaweed for higher mineral content and has the potential to provide an alternative to traditional mining methods, which often result in substantial waste.
"That generated a lot of excitement," says Beau Perry, CEO of Blue Evolution. "Everyone was like, 'Can you mine with seaweed?'"
"We're starting to select the characteristics that should yield more, with faster growth, but also more solid content and more mineral content," Perry says.
"When you're mining rare earths, it's just mostly wasted material. You need a huge amount of rock," he says.
"Rare earth elements are not that much more concentrated in those deposits than in some of the seaweed samples we'...
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