#58 Genomines
Mining metal with plants
Read time: 5 minutes
Hi, I’m Javi Gascón.
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Today we’ll distill a company that’s revolutionizing mining with metal-absorbing plants, drastically cutting CO2 emissions: Genomines 🇫🇷
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What Problem Does Genomines Tackle❓
Genomines tackles problem of the environmental and social impacts associated with traditional metal mining, particularly focusing on nickel extraction.
1. Environmental Impact: Traditional mining methods are responsible for 4-7% of global GHG emissions. Extracting one carat of nickel through conventional mining involves removing up to 250 tons of earth and using significant amounts of freshwater.
2. Soil Degradation: Mining often results in soil contamination and deforestation, such as the scarring of landscapes that were once old-growth rainforests.
3. Resource Depletion: The mining industry is facing a shortage of high-grade ore, as most rich deposits have already been mined. This necessitates the extraction of metals from lower-grade sources, which is currently inefficient and costly.
4. Social Issues: Traditional mining often involves unethical practices, including forced labor and community displacement.
5. Long Term Degradation: A nickel mine can take up to 15 years just to become operational. After a few years of resource extraction, it can take 10+ years to close the mine and many decades more to remediate it.
There’s an urgent need for more sustainable and environmentally friendly metal extraction methods.
Product / Service 📦
It sounds crazy but Genomines extracts metals, particularly nickel, using genetically enhanced hyperaccumulator plants (plants capable of concentrating extremely high levels of metal).
It works as follows:
They look for metal-rich soils (mine tailings and fields with toxic levels of nickel and other heavy metals) and grow their genetically modified plants there.
The plants absorb a lot of metal and they are harvested after a few months.
They then recover metal from biomass by combining different techniques.
Why is this so awesome?
Environmental Sustainability: The process avoids soil and water contamination, unlike traditional mining methods, and reduces CO2 emissions significantly, with up to 15 tons of CO2e avoided per ton of metal extracted.
Efficiency and Speed: This method accelerates the extraction process, reducing the time from 15+ years to the growth cycle of the plants (months), making it faster and more efficient than conventional mining.
Cost-Effectiveness: Nickel is produced at below-market prices, making it a more affordable option for industries such as electric vehicle battery manufacturing.
Land Remediation: The process also remediates land with toxic levels of heavy metals, transforming a potential environmental hazard into a valuable resource.
By extracting value from the roughly 85% of soils that are dug up but unprocessed in conventional mines, Genomines’ plants transform liability into profit.
Market 🌐
Hitting the 2040 goals set out by the Paris Agreement will require 6x today's global metal output. IAE forecast a 19x nickel demand increase. Same applies to many other metals.
Other Key Players
BANiQL 🇺🇸: Specializes in green nickel refining technology. Their special chemical process selectively extracts nickel and cobalt from raw materials at lower temperatures and atmospheric pressure.
Traditional mining companies are also exploring different approaches to become more sustainable but for sure no one is as innovative as Genomines. Plants to capture metal, how crazy is that?
Founding Story 🦄
Genomines was founded in August 2021 by Fabien Koutchekian and Dali Rashid, who met through the Entrepreneur First (EF) program. Fabien Koutchekian, the CEO, holds dual Master’s degrees in Political Sciences and Mining Engineering and has experience as a strategy consultant and a second-time founder with a strong network in the mining industry.
Dali Rashid, the CTO, is a post-doctoral researcher in Plant Biotechnology and Genetics, having identified and patented a gene network related to floral sex alteration during her PhD. Her work was published in high-impact journals.
The founders combined their expertise to develop a revolutionary approach to mining using genetically enhanced hyperaccumulator plants (phytomining).
The company has raised $7.4 million, started shipping nickel to EV manufacturers and they are members of prestigious acceleration programs like Norrsken 100 and Elemental Excelerator.
Top Impact Stats 📈
1. Their process can enhance the metal-accumulating abilities of hyperaccumulator plants by 10-15x.
2. Genomines avoids 15 tons of CO2e per ton of metal extracted.
3. It also works for other metals so as the push to electrify everything ramps up, this once-niche technology is becoming the backbone of a $200B clean energy metal market.
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This is such an innovative company, thanks for sharing. Are there any stats on how much nickel they can get per acre, for example? It would be awesome to see how it goes from plants to metal. I didn't know plants could do this!