ダミアン・ペイリン 「海水から鉱物資源を取り出す」

Damian Palin: Mining minerals from seawater

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「水ビジネス」の話ではなく…、「鉱業」の話です。ただし採掘場所は鉱山ではなく「海水」。

海水から真水を取り出した後に残る有害な残渣をどう処理するか？産業廃棄物として捨てるのではなく、独立した「産業」にしようとペイリンさんは挑戦しています。

TED を聴いているを、２つの異なる問題を組み合わせることで両方を同時に解決してしまう話が結構あって、感動すらおぼえます。キーワードは、災い転じて福となす？発想の転換？逆もまた真なり？

【話題】 海水から鉱物資源を取り出す

【時間】 3分01秒

【要約】

１．微生物を使って海水から鉱物資源を取り出す

　代謝するときに細胞も外側に電気的にミネラルを蓄積していく

２．飲料水の確保は世界中の問題

　海水から飲料水、農業用水をつくる技術

　高圧で膜を透過させて真水をつくる方法

３．脱塩水生産の問題点

　高エネルギー・高コスト

　残渣として高濃度な塩水ができる、海に戻すと環境に悪い

　シンガポールの取り組み

　　・2060年までに1日9億リットルの脱塩水を生産する

　　・同時に同量の高濃度塩水も残ってしまう

４．高濃度の残渣塩水から鉱物資源を取り出す

　カルシウム、カリウム、マグネシウム

　微生物を使って取り出す

　マグネシウムはシンガポール市場で450万USドル相当／日

５．微生物を使った新しい「鉱業」が誕生する

【語彙】

mine ：採掘する、掘り出す

mineral ：鉱物

accumulate ：蓄積する

metabolize ：代謝する

pervasive ：広範な、広まった

inadequate ：不十分な

desalination ：脱塩

reverse osmosis ：逆浸透

critical ：重大な

membrane-filtering ：膜ろ過

brine ：海水から真水を取り出した後の残りの濃～い塩水

cost-prohibitive ：コストが高過ぎ

detrimental ：有害な

potassium ：カリウム

defile ：汚す

precipitate ：沈殿する

sediment ：堆積する

【transcripts】

I collaborate with bacteria. And I'm about to show you some stop-motion footage that I made recently where you'll see bacteria accumulating minerals from their environment over the period of an hour.

So what you're seeing here is the bacteria metabolizing, and as they do so they create an electrical charge. And this attracts metals from their local environment. And these metals accumulate as minerals on the surface of the bacteria.

One of the most pervasive problems in the world today for people is inadequate access to clean drinking water. And the desalination process is one where we take out salts. We can use it for drinking and agriculture. Removing the salts from water -- particularly seawater -- through reverse osmosis is a critical technique for countries who do not have access to clean drinking water around the globe.

So seawater reverse osmosis is a membrane-filtration technology. We take the water from the sea and we apply pressure. And this pressure forces the seawater through a membrane. This takes energy, producing clean water. But we're also left with a concentrated salt solution, or brine.

But the process is very expensive and it's cost-prohibitive for many countries around the globe. And also, the brine that's produced is oftentimes just pumped back out into the sea. And this is detrimental to the local ecology of the sea area that it's pumped back out into.

So I work in Singapore at the moment, and this is a place that's really a leading place for desalination technology. And Singapore proposes by 2060 to produce [900] million liters per day of desalinated water. But this will produce an equally massive amount of desalination brine. And this is where my collaboration with bacteria comes into play.

So what we're doing at the moment is we're accumulating metals like calcium, potassium and magnesium from out of desalination brine. And this, in terms of magnesium and the amount of water that I just mentioned, equates to a $4.5 billion mining industry for Singapore -- a place that doesn't have any natural resources.

So I'd like you to image a mining industry in a way that one hasn't existed before; imagine a mining industry that doesn't mean defiling the Earth; imagine bacteria helping us do this by accumulating and precipitating and sedimenting minerals out of desalination brine. And what you can see here is the beginning of an industry in a test tube, a mining industry that is in harmony with nature.

Thank you.