Metalplant farms nickel instead of mining it

When Sahit Muja was a child growing up in the Tropojë region of northern Albania, Lulja e Qenit was no more than a weed. The bushy green plant with tiny yellow blossoms grew along the side of the road and invaded farm fields and pastures; animals refused to eat it, and locals often tried to burn it. In 2021, Muja, a businessman and developer, got a call from US climate tech entrepreneur Eric Matzner. Years earlier, one of Matzner’s start-ups had been interested in sourcing a carbon-trapping mineral called olivine from a quarry Muja owned in Tropojë. That start-up ended up sourcing olivine from a different location, and their partnership never blossomed, but Matzner now thought Muja could help him with a different problem: the olivine the start-up was using to capture carbon along coastlines was releasing nickel into the ocean, and scientists feared that could affect corals offshore. But,