Sarah DeWeerdt is a freelance science journalist based in Seattle covering biology, medicine, and the environment. Her work has appeared in Anthropocene, Atmos, Nature, Nautilus, Newsweek, Sierra, and elsewhere.
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Critical Minerals? There’s a Plant for That
But what phytomining could do is produce some metal while also remediating degraded land, sequestering carbon, and serving as the fuel for energy production or the raw material for biochar fertilizer, syngas, and other chemical creations.
November 10, 2025