Flower farm could supply nickel for electric vehicle batteries

Environment

A start-up in Albania, co-founded by a mining industry mogul, backed by a mining industry billionaire, is farming plants to harvest carbon-neutral nickel from the soil while simultaneously removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere

By James Dinneen

The start-up Metalplant harvests nickel-accumulating flowers

Courtesy of MetalPlant

On a recent afternoon in northern Albania, workers gathered armfuls of freshly cut shrubs covered in yellow flowers, leaving them to dry in the sun like hay. But this was no ordinary harvest. The farm is both a mine, growing plants that accumulate nickel metal in their leaves and stems, and a carbon sink, its soil spread with crushed rocks that remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

“We’re able to turn the lowest-grade land in the world into some of the most lucrative land in the world,” says Eric Matzner…

Article amended on 5 July 2024

We clarified Sahit Muja’s relationship to Metalplant.

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