Researchers from the University of Oxford are working on a revolutionary new way to extract metals crucial to the production of clean energy sources without leaving a hefty carbon footprint, Interesting Engineering reports.
Metals like copper and lithium are key components in electric vehicle batteries, but the mining of such metals entails the release of harmful pollutants such as carbon dioxide and methane that play a big role in overheating the planet.
According to a video shared by Oxford's ReSET program, the ability to extract these materials from geofluids could greatly reduce the impact of extraction on the environment.
The team from Oxford is working on the island of Montserrat, a British overseas territory in the eastern Caribbean, to find out if metals in the geofluids beneath the Soufrière Hills volcano, which wreaked havoc on the island in the 1990s and sustained a continued eruption for nearly 20 years, can be extracted and put to use in batteries and other clean energy sources.
The volcano is now showing signs of going dormant, according to the video, but it still releases a constant stream of gases into the atmosphere.
The researchers are looking to find out if the residual heat from the volcano can be used for the generation of electricity on Montserrat, which would do away with the island's need to import dirty energy sources like diesel-powered generators — and reduce the carbon footprint of any potential mining activities.
The team is expected to wrap up its research in October 2026, MNI Alive reports, so the world will have to wait to find out if the extraction of metals from geofluids is a viable source of materials. If it is, this process could be used in other locations and make clean energy production even cleaner.
This is just another example of researchers figuring out new ways to use the earth's natural occurrences to generate energy.
Oxford professor Jonathan Blundy told the Independent: "We are using Montserrat as an example, as a blueprint, and we'll understand more about what we can do in Montserrat but also what we could do in other places."
But Blundy made it clear that the research is still in its infancy and any real-world application of what the team may learn is a long way off.
"So I think maybe not in my lifetime, but in my children's lifetime," Blundy said, "what we call the saline geofluids — the resource landscape that is getting metals and energy out of underground fluids — will feature very extensively in resources of the future."
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