Beneath a tiny Pacific nation, a seabed promising wealth

Cook Islands explores possibility of mining ocean’s floor for minerals used for electric car batteries

RAROTONGA, Cook Islands — Two ships arrived in the Cook Islands in the South Pacific in March of last year. One was a familiar sight: a massive cruise ship, bringing hundreds of tourists to the pristine shores of this nation of 15,000 people. The other, a neon-orange vessel hauling complex scientific equipment, was more unusual.

On a nearby wharf, Prime Minister Mark Brown and many other prominent citizens had gathered to celebrate the smaller boat’s arrival. To Brown, the cruise ship represented his country’s troubling dependence on tourism. He described the other vessel, owned by an international mining company, as a harbinger of incredible wealth.

The Cook Islands is at the vanguard of a quest to mine the ocean floor for minerals used in electric car batteries. Mining these deposits has never been attempted on a large scale, but their reserves are so vast, proponents argue, extracting them could power the world’s shift away from fossil fuels.

It would be a transformation for the Cook Islands, as well: Seabed mining could generate tens of billions of dollars for the tiny country, according to a 2019 study. Its per capita income is about $11,000.

But seabed mining faces stiff opposition from environmentalists, who worry it would harm the ecology of the deep sea. More than 800 scientists have called for a moratorium on the practice, as have France, Britain and major companies including Google and BMW.

For two years, mining companies have been surveying the feasibility of seabed mining in the Cook Islands’ waters. The government is poised to decide in 2027 whether to allow it, and it faces rising pressure at home and overseas from critics who say it is rushing to embrace an untested practice.

“The government is aggressively promoting deep sea mining,” said Duncan Currie, an adviser to the High Seas Alliance and other international conservation organizations. “They seem to be pursuing seabed mining regardless of adverse effects.”

Brown insisted the Cook Islands has not committed to mining.

The criticism “can be annoying, at times,” he said in an interview. Exploring the possibilities of seabed mining, he said, “is part of our journey of sovereign independence.”

In the past, he has pushed back against critics more forcefully.

“The very countries that destroy our planet through decades of profit-driven development and who to this day continue their profit-driven actions and neglect their climate change responsibilities are making demands,” he said at a 2022 conference. “It is patronizing, and it implies that we are too dumb or too greedy to know what we are doing.”

The Cook Islands, a 15-island chain that was once a colony of New Zealand, has been self-governing since 1965. Soon after achieving that status, which is short of full independence, international research vessels began exploring the country’s territorial waters, which cover about 756,000 square miles, roughly comparable to Mexico’s landmass.

The researchers found a seabed carpeted with avocado-sized rocks, or nodules, rich in cobalt and manganese. Each nodule grows the thickness of a credit card, roughly, every million years. Until recent technological advances, these rocks were unreachable.

Over the last decade, the Cook Islands has pursued those nodules in fits and starts. In 2012, it created an agency to solicit mining proposals for its own waters.

In 2022, it issued permits to three companies to survey the waters and test mining technology.

Other countries that have taken steps to survey their seabeds include Japan and Norway. Most private enterprise is focused on mining in international waters, but regulations to allow this are still being hammered out.

Scouring the ocean floor, supporters argue, is the best way to obtain more of the minerals used in electric vehicle batteries and reduce reliance on fossil fuels.