Society’s hunger for metals has entrepreneurs looking to the deep seabed

As companies race to expand renewable energy and batteries to store it, finding rare earth metals in sufficient quantities to build the technology is no small feat. This has led mining companies to delve into a largely unexplored frontier: the deep ocean floor.

The abundance of these metals is found in cobblestone-looking manganese nodules scattered over large areas of the deep sea floor. However, the fragile ecosystems of the deep sea are poorly understood and mining codes for sustainably mining these areas are still in their infancy.

The debate is heating up as a Canadian company plans to launch the first commercial deepwater mining operation in the Pacific.

The metals company has completed an exploration project in the Pacific in the fall of 2022. Under a treaty governing the deep sea floor, the international body overseeing these areas could be forced to approve interim mining there as early as spring 2023. We encourage a postponement until more research can be done. France and New Zealand have called for a ban on deep-sea mining.

As academics who have long focused on the economic, political, and legal challenges posed by deep sea mining, we are each concerned about the regulatory and environmental challenges it poses, and we are committed to this economic frontier. I have researched and written about.

What’s there and why should we care?

A strange journey began in the summer of 1974. Funded by eccentric billionaire Howard Hughes, the revolutionary ship set sail from Long Beach, California and set course for the Pacific Ocean.

Extensive media coverage of the expedition helped draw the attention of corporations and policy makers to the promise of deep seabed mining, given that the expedition was actually an elaborate cover for a CIA operation. , which is worth noting.

The real target was a sunken Soviet ballistic missile submarine in 1968, believed to be a treasure trove of Soviet state secrets and technology.

An expedition dubbed Project Azorian by the CIA recovered at least part of the submarine and also brought out some manganese nodules from the seafloor.

Manganese nodules are roughly the size of a potato and are found in the vast ocean floors of parts of the Pacific and Indian Oceans and the deep abyssal plains of the Atlantic Ocean. They are valuable because they are very rich in 37 metals, including nickel, cobalt and copper. They are essential for most large batteries and some renewable energy technologies.

These nodules form over thousands of years as metal nucleates around the shell or broken nodules. The Clarion Clipperton Zone between Mexico and Hawaii in the Pacific, where mining trials were conducted, is estimated to have over 21 billion metric tons of nodules capable of yielding twice as much nickel and three times as much cobalt as total reserves. I’m here. on the ground.

Mining in the Clarion-Clipperton Zone can be about 10 times more abundant than equivalent mineral deposits on land. Overall, this new industry is estimated to be worth about $30 billion annually by 2030. This could help meet the surge in global demand for cobalt, which is at the heart of lithium-ion batteries.

Yet, as some scientists point out, we still know more about the moon’s surface than we know about the deep ocean floor.

deep-sea ecology

Less than 10% of the deep seafloor has been mapped in sufficient detail to understand even the basic features of the structure and content of the seafloor, let alone the organisms and ecosystems of the seafloor.

Even the most thoroughly studied region, the Clarion-Clipperton Zone, is best characterized by the constant novelty of what is found there.

Between 70% and 90% of the organisms collected in the Clarion-Clipperton Zone have never been seen before, and scientists know what percentage of all species in the area have been seen or collected. You have to make a guess about what it is. The expedition regularly returns with images and samples of creatures that richly animated science fiction stories, such as the six-foot-long bioluminescent shark.

Also, the impact of deep-sea mining on these organisms is unknown.

Experiments in 2021 in waters about 3 miles off the coast of Mexico found that subsea drilling rigs produce sediment plumes up to about 6.5 feet high. However, the project’s creators stressed that they have not studied ecological impacts. A similar early experiment he conducted off the coast of Peru in 1989. When the scientist returned to the site in his 2015, they found that some species had not yet fully recovered.

Environmentalists question whether submarine life can be suffocated by sediment plumes, and whether sediment within the water column can affect island communities that depend on healthy marine ecosystems. The Metals Company claims that the impact is less than above-ground mining.

Given the lack of human knowledge of the ocean, it is currently not possible to set an environmental baseline for ocean health that can be used to weigh the environmental harms and economic benefits of seabed mining.

The economic case for scarcity and mining

The economic rationale for deep-sea mining reflects both possibilities and uncertainties.

On the upside, it can replace highly destructive land-based mining and increase the global supply of minerals used in clean energy sources such as wind turbines, solar cells and electric vehicles.

Aboveground mining imposes significant environmental damage and costs on human health, both for the miners themselves and the surrounding communities. Additionally, mines may be located in politically unstable areas. For example, the Democratic Republic of the Congo produces her 60% of the world’s cobalt supply, and China owns or finances 80% of the country’s industrial mines. China also accounts for 60% of the world supply of rare earth elements production and most of its processing. Concerns arise when one country is allowed to control a vital resource in such a way.

However, deep-sea mining is fraught with great uncertainties, especially given the technology’s relatively nascent state.

The first is the risks associated with commercializing new technologies. Discovery cannot be listed as “reserves” in corporate asset valuations until deep sea mining technology is proven. Without a defined value, it can be difficult to raise the large amount of capital needed to build a mining infrastructure. This reduces first-mover advantage and forces companies to wait for someone else to take the lead.

Commodity prices are also difficult to predict. Technological innovation may reduce or eliminate projected demand for minerals. New deposits on land could also boost supply. Sweden announced in January 2023 that it had discovered Europe’s largest deposit of rare earth oxides.

Overall, embarking on deep-sea mining involves spending significant costs on new technologies for uncertain returns, while posing risks to the natural environment that are likely to appreciate in value.

Who will decide the future of undersea mining?

The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, which came into force in the early 1990s, sets out the basic rules for marine resources.

This allows countries to control economic activities, including mining, within 200 miles of their coastline, which covers about 35% of the ocean. Beyond their own waters, nations around the world have established the Jamaica-based International Seabed Authority (ISA) to regulate deep seabed mining.

Importantly, the ISA framework calls for a portion of the profits from commercial mining to be shared with the international community. In this way, even countries that did not have the resources to mine the deep seabed could share in the benefits. This part of the ISA’s mandate was controversial and was one of the reasons the United States did not join the Convention on the Law of the Sea.

With little public attention, the ISA has worked slowly over decades to develop rules for exploration of seafloor minerals, but those rules are not yet finalized. More than a dozen companies and countries have contracted exploration, including work by The Metals Company, sponsored by the island nation of Nauru.

The ISA’s work has begun to draw criticism as companies look to begin commercial mining. A recent New York Times investigation into internal ISA documents suggested that the agency’s leaders downplayed environmental issues and shared confidential information with some of the companies involved in undersea mining. ISA has not finalized environmental regulations for mining.

Much of the coverage of deep-sea mining is structured to highlight its climatic benefits. But this overlooks the dangers this activity poses to the deep ocean, the largest pristine ecosystem on earth. We believe it is prudent to better understand this existing fragile ecosystem before rushing to mine.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Please read the original article.