“Copper is a key part of this first challenge. Understanding the processes that enable living organisms to manage copper as a critical resource is what we are going to explore.”

From there, the plan is to find ways to undertake remediation at sites with a history of copper mining, cleaning up wastes in such a way that ensures these sites can continue to supply this critical resource.

Interestingly the writer didn’t include a choice quote from Byrt in the video that really underlines a miner like Rio Tinto’s immediate interest in this research. (paraphrased)

…these tailings ponds might have $2 million in value, but $4 million worth of headaches… …so the challenge is to innovate to achieve the value gain, while simultaneously clean up that toxic pond.

Byrt and her team of researchers are looking at the mechanisms used by plants to separate molecules containing nutrients, metals and minerals. The learnings from their research could be applied to the creation of scalable technologies that will help us sustainably manage the resources we need for food, energy and water security.

“People might think ‘we need copper for its conducting processes’, well plants use copper molecules too,” Byrt says. “Humanity is interested in rare earth elements. Plants use rare earth element properties too.

“In diverse life forms, there’s been evolutionary selective pressures to be super-efficient with the management of resources, and we can learn from this efficiency and apply the learning to how we plan resource management going forward.

This sounds so scifi! My imagination goes to us design or breeding plant to essentially become copper pumps or something. Plant them, let them grow, out comes the copper, or harvest the copper when the plants are harvested. Weird, bit scifi.