A new gold rush?
UN group weighs new rules to open seabed to mining
A little-known group meeting in Jamaica is causing big waves this month as it considers new rules that could open the seafloor to industrialscale mining for precious metals used in electric car batteries and other green technology.
The possibility of a gold rush at the bottom of the sea is keeping some oceanographers up at night.
“We don’t know what’s down there. We don’t know the ecosystems. We don’t know the damage that could be done,” said Douglas McCauley, a professor of ocean science at the University of California, Santa Barbara.
No sunlight ever reaches the abyssal zone that would be mined and temperatures never rise above 39 degrees. Even at those depths, the ocean floor teems with life. It’s slow-growing and often small but it is there – and some of it glows.
“Life down there operates like it’s on a different planet,” said McCauley. Because the environment is so cold and dark “the clock of life ticks more slowly.” Some of the organisms that have been documented are among the oldest on the planet.
Some environmental groups say ocean floor mining could have catastrophic consequences for a vast number of critical ecosystems we know very little about – including marine food chains that feed hundreds of millions of people.
But it’s been known for decades that the sea floor also holds important mineral resources. Mining companies say without the critical metals and minerals, transitioning to green energy will be impossible and doom efforts to stop climate change.
Here’s what to know about deep sea mining – and why you might be hearing more about it soon.
What is deep sea mining?
The mining involves sending robotic submarines as much as 4 miles below the ocean’s surface, twice as deep as the crushing depths that destroyed the Titan submersible in June.
Robots would prospect the area to determine where to mine. That reconnaissance would be aimed at doing as little damage as possible, said Jamal Rostami, a professor of mining engineering at the Colorado School of Mines.
“The reality is you have to explore the site very thoroughly before you even send the first robot. The chance of running into the Titanic when you’re mining is next to zero,” he said. “The key issue at this point is to understand the ecosystem and the environment so you don’t accidentally do something stupid and destroy it.”
Once a site was chosen, specially hardened mining equipment would be lowered down, trailing miles-long cables to provide the power necessary to pick up the ore and crush it to a manageable size.
Some companies have suggested vacuuming material off the seabed with massive pumps. One, Impossible Metals, says it will use artificial intelligence to have remote robots selectively pluck metal-rich nodules off the seafloor while minimizing habitat destruction.
What’s happening this summer?
The International Seabed Authority – the United Nations body that regulates the bottom of all the world’s oceans – has been discussing deep sea miningrelated rules for years.
The first deadline to complete regulations fell on July 9, meaning countries and companies are theoretically now allowed to start applying for provisional mining licenses. The authority has issued more than 30 exploration licenses but no provisional licenses – so far.
Global leaders are meeting in Jamaica to try to hammer out agreements on what this would look like. These could include requiring regional environmental management plans, environmental monitoring, liability and environmental compensation funds and evaluation of applications from companies. On Friday, Brazil urged a 10-year precautionary pause on deep sea mining in international waters.
“We have a lot of work ahead of us,” said Juan José González, the authority’s council president.
Here are a few reasons these decisions are so important right now:
Valuable minerals and metals: The price of minerals and metals critical to the transition to green energy is rising. Some of those minerals and metals, including copper, lithium and nickel, are found at the ocean bottom.
Advancing technology: The technology to mine them is on the cusp of being available and economical.
Mining interest: At least one firm, The Metals Company of Canada, and several nations are pushing to begin prospecting. Other nations and companies are calling for bans or moratoriums on such mining.
The main focus area for deep sea mining is currently in what’s known as the Clarion-Clipperton Zone, an area that spans more than 3,100 miles between Hawaii and Mexico at depths of between 12,000 and 18,000 feet.
What’s the downside?
Those who study the ocean point out that the sea is a critical part of the global environment and food chains – and yet only 5% of its waters have been explored. But there are environmental arguments on both sides. Mining companies say without the critical metals and minerals, transitioning to green energy could be a doomed effort.
A total of 167 nations are part of the International Seabed Authority, but not the United States because it has not ratified the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea and so is not a member, though it is observing in Jamaica.
Some see big potential
The current push towards deep sea mining is being driven by the belief that prices for these materials is going to continue rising.
Gerard Barron – CEO of The Metals Company, the company furthest along in pursuing this form of mining – said last week that to solve the planet’s biggest challenge, climate change, a new supply of these metals is critical.
“And I’d like to ask people, if not this, then what?” he said.
Investors seem to think ocean floor mining will be great because there are no environmental issues as no one lives there, said Ian Lange, director of the mineral and energy economics program at the Colorado School of Mines.
He disputed the notion that critical metals and minerals were in short supply from land-based systems. The real problem, he said, is environmental concerns at terrestrial mining sites.
But those urging caution point out that many creatures live in the deep seabed, including microbes, sea worms, mollusks, octopuses, otherworldly fish species, coral and the adorable Casper octopus. Very little is known about them in part because the environment is so hostile that studying it is expensive and difficult.
Just one concern: Plumes of silt kicked in the mining process. These could blanket large areas of pristine ocean floor that has never been roiled by storms or currents, said McCauley.
“It’s very, very clear water, which means the species are not at all designed to interact with sediment and waste,” he said. “They’d get fouled and suffocated very easily.”
One experiment by German researchers found that even 26 years after a portion of deep sea floor had been disturbed, microbial activity remained reduced by as much as four times.