In a bright, open laboratory nestled along Washington State’s Sequim Bay, among rows of glassware filled with seawater and green and purple seaweed, researchers are investigating a new way to produce the critical minerals that are vital to everyday life.

Minerals known as rare earth elements, like neodymium, are some of the most important ingredients in our electronics, vehicles, and buildings and are traditionally mined underground. Now, researchers at the Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) are probing a new ore source, floating just off the nation’s coastlines: seaweed.

Image: Kristin Hoel, Unsplash