Certain metals are essential to producing renewable energy products, and tellurium (Te) is one that is becoming more widely used in the manufacturing of photovoltaic cells for solar panels.
As an increasing number of people across the world invest in solar panels to meet their energy needs, more tellurium will be required. But because tellurium isn’t a mineral that is mined on its own — most of it is gathered as a by-product of copper mining — how much of it exists isn’t precisely known, according to a press release from The Geological Society of America.
Economic Geologist at the University of Nevada Las Vegas Simon Jowitt and Postdoctoral Fellow at The University of British Columbia Brian McNulty have been trying to figure out where tellurium is located and how much of the crucial metal there is. In October, they presented their work at the annual meeting of…
Read the full article originally published at www.ecowatch.com.