 |
Deep Sea Mining Tube Worms
Deep sea mining worms to extract mineral wealth from the sea bottom? This science-fictional suggestion has been made (perhaps a bit tongue-in-cheek) by Greg Baiden, who holds the Canadian Research Chair in Robotics and Automation at Canada's Laurentian University.
The mining industry is in need of radical suggestions and far-out ideas. Centuries of exploration have found most of the mineral deposits that are close to the surface; when mines get deeper, expenses climb exponentially.
For a half-century, there have been no significant improvements in either the methods or the efficiency of standard mining techniques.
(Giant tube worms [Riftia pachyptila])
Cue the imaginative thinkers, who have noted that there are animals in the ocean depths able to withstand extremely high temperatures and sulfur levels and whose host bacteria turn carbon molecules and nutrients into organic matter. The ocean depths also contain (largely) untapped mineral resources.
"Mostly, everybody is just dipping their toe in the water these days in terms of innovation," Greg Baiden."I believe the next breakthrough is going to come when people actually go to mine underwater and bring back a few of these animals and we start putting them to work in our processing plants on the surface," said Baiden.
Although this is imaginative thinking, it is not original thinking. In his 1968 story A Gift From Earth, Larry Niven wrote about mining worms.
A mining worm is five inches long and a quarter inch in diameter, mutated from an earthworm. Its grinding orifice is rimmed with little diamond teeth. It ingests metal ores for pleasure, but for food it has to be supplied with blocks of synthetic stuff which is different for each breed of worm - and there's a breed for every metal...What breaks down the ores is a bacterium in the worm's stomach. Then the worm drops metal grains around it's food block, and we sweep them up.
(Read more about Niven's mining worm)
As far as I know, the earliest reference to the general idea of a mining worm is from Love Among The Robots, a 1946 story by Emmett McDowell (see the entry for robot mining worm).
Via Reuters.
Scroll down for more stories in the same category. (Story submitted 8/29/2008)
Follow this kind of news @Technovelgy.| Email | RSS | Blog It | Stumble | del.icio.us | Digg | Reddit |
Would
you like to contribute a story tip?
It's easy:
Get the URL of the story, and the related sf author, and add
it here.
Comment/Join discussion (Back On) ( 3 )
Related News Stories - (" Biology ")
Bacteria Now Make Biofuel Like Oil
'They have ... germs that eat pretty near anything, and produce oil as a waste product.'- Hal Clement, 1950.
Youthful Brain With A Flip Of A Molecular Switch
I need all the brain plasticity I can get.
Human 'Quadruple Helix' DNA
'Their genetic structure, based on the quadruple sterated octohelix...'- Douglas Adams, 1978.
The Plastic Eaters - Amazon Fungus Lives On Plastic
'the smell of the rotting plastic began to hang permanently in the air...'- Davis/Pedlar, 1971
Technovelgy (that's tech-novel-gee!) is devoted to the creative science inventions and ideas of sf authors. Look for the Invention Category that interests you, the Glossary, the Invention Timeline, or see what's New.
Current News
Sweat Be Gone! Non-Wetting Fabric
'The skin-contact layer is porous.'
German Firm Seeks To Recruit Autistics
Not a deficit, but a strength.
NASA Supports Pizza Printer
Is it extra with printed pepperoni?
Could Ground-Based Lasers De-Orbit Space Junk?
'Then their lasers vaporized the smaller satellites...'
'Hello, Computer!' Google Now Highlighted at IO13
'Hello, computer!'
MIT Robot Cheetah Video Shows Gait Transition
'The legs are long, curled way up to deliver power, like a cheetah's.'
TrackingPoint Smart Rifle
Not your typical 'smart bullet' approach.
Sky City's 220 Stories Are Go
'It rested among green parklands and... stood in total isolation, a glittering block of whites and flashing windows dotted with colors.'
CARMAT Bioprosthetic Total Human Heart Replacement
'George Walt's corporate existence proved the workability of wholly mechanical organs...'
Personal Sniffer Robots
'...The ticking combinations of the olfactory system of the hound.'
Physical Exam? We've Got Apps
See the future of handheld, personal medical devices.
The Interplanetary Internet, Vint Cerf Speaking
'This was the center of Interplanetary Communications.'
Drosophila Robotica, The Mechanical Fly
'... the Scarab [flying robot] buzzed into the great workroom as any intruding insect might...'
Robo-Raven Flapping Wing Robot Bird
'When he had first built them, they had been crude indeed, flying mechanisms with little more than a reflex-response unit.'
Japan's Nursing Home Robot Plan
Let's make the Roujin Z-0001 Robotic Bed!
Samsung Smart TVs With Gesture Control
'He waved his hand and the circuit switched abruptly.'
