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Deep Sea Mining

Wealth in the water: the face-off over deep-sea mining in Oceania – by Giles Crosse (Mining Technology – September 22, 2022)

https://www.mining-technology.com/

The International Seabed Authority (ISA) is tasked with effectively protecting the world’s deepest seas and most alien environments, and the body is granting an increasing number of exploration permits to research institutes and private companies alike.

Many of the companies’ efforts are aimed at the Clarion-Clipperton zone in the South Pacific, where fist-sized polymetallic nodules often contain valuable rare earth minerals, and have become an attractive prospect for miners.

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Pacific Islands remain divided on deep-sea mining as trial begins to extract precious metals from ocean floor – by Marian Faa and Jordan Fennell (Australian Broadcasting Corporation – September 14, 2022)

https://www.abc.net.au/

Electric robots will soon be crawling along the sea floor and sucking up precious metals through a giant straw in a controversial trial to mine some of the ocean’s deepest, most pristine environments.

Deep-sea mining operator The Metals Company has been granted approval by the International Seabed Authority to begin testing its collection system in Pacific waters. It will be the first time since the 1970s that this has been allowed to occur.

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Pressure is on to start mining the deep sea. Is it worth it? – by Lisa Johnson (CBC News Climate – September 4, 2022)

https://www.cbc.ca/news/climate/

Vancouver-based The Metals Company wants to be 1st to mine sea floor for critical minerals

A battle is brewing over the future of the ocean floor that pits the fate of this little-known ecosystem against humanity’s demand for critical minerals — and a Vancouver company is leading the charge.

The Metals Company (TMC), formerly known as DeepGreen Metals, wants to mine potato-sized rocks known as polymetallic nodules, which contain metals in demand for electric vehicles, solar panels and more.

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Mind this deep sea mining – by Glenn Tucker (Jamaica Observer – August 22, 2022)

https://www.jamaicaobserver.com/

It has been announced that deep sea mining is scheduled to start in Jamaican waters soon. There are some muted expressions of concern from the usual quarters. And with good reason.

Earth’s mass is 6.6 sextillion tonnes. Its volume is about 260 billion cubic miles. The total surface of the Earth is about 197 million square miles. About 71 per cent of our planet is covered by water and just 29 per cent by land. Only three per cent of this water is fresh water.

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Deep sea mining not worth the risk – by Theresa Rodriguez-Moodie (Jamaica Gleaner – August 14, 2022)

https://jamaica-gleaner.com/

Theresa Rodriguez-Moodie, PhD, is an environmental scientist and the CEO of the Jamaica Environment Trust.

Scientists today know more about space than about the deep sea. This ecosystem is the largest on the planet, comprising over 90 per cent of the marine environment. In 1970, the deep sea was declared the ‘Common Heritage of Mankind’ to be preserved for peaceful purposes.

In spite of this recognition, mining this fragile and critically important environment could begin as early as 2023. The impacts of deep sea mining (DSM) have the potential to be devastating and global.

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Governments Turn Against Deep-Sea Mining as EV Boom Drives Demand for Metals – by Todd Woody (Bloomberg News – July18, 2022)

https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/

(Bloomberg) — As battery makers scramble to procure cobalt, nickel and other metals to meet rising consumer demand for electric cars, governmental opposition to strip-mining the seabed for minerals is mounting.

The deep ocean contains the largest estimated deposits of minerals on the planet, potentially worth trillions of dollars. But in recent weeks, Chile, Fiji, Palau and other nations have called for a moratorium on ocean mining until there is a better understanding of the environmental consequences of destroying little-explored and unique deep-sea ecosystems that play an undetermined role in the global climate.

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Mining the deep sea for battery materials will be dangerously noisy, study finds – by Justine Calma (The Verge – July 7, 2022)

https://www.theverge.com/

The race is on to figure out how to protect the ocean abyss as deep-sea mining operations look to extract minerals like nickel, cobalt, and copper from the sea floor. But there’s one potential risk to the deep-sea environment that tends to fall under the radar.

Not only will mining dredge up the seafloor, but it’ll also create a lot of noise that poses its own problems for marine life, according to a newly published paper in the journal Science.

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Race to the Bottom: Deep Sea Mining Is the Next Frontier – by Christina Lu (Foreign Policy – June 26, 2022)

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The untapped trove of metals on the ocean floor might be the key to a greener future—or an environmental catastrophe.

To power the energy revolution, nations have stripped their lands for the metals crucial to build everything from Teslas to wind turbines. The hunt for cobalt has left a trail of pollution and human rights abuses in the Democratic Republic of the Congo while Zambia’s copper mining industry has poisoned nearby rivers. In nickel-rich Indonesia, mining has generated enough runoff to dye the country’s waters red.

Many countries have now set their sights on a new market: the deep ocean floor. These depths potentially hold an untapped trove of metals—nickel, cobalt, copper, and manganese—tucked into polymetallic nodules, potato-shaped deposits that are millions of years old. Mining these riches, they say, is the key to a greener future. Some are already fiddling with the lock.

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The Metals Company Success: Deep-Water Collector Vehicle Tested At Depth Of Almost 2,500 Meters – by Johnna Crider (Clean Technica – May 7, 2022)

https://cleantechnica.com/

The Metals Company announced along with Allseas the successful results of a deep-water test of its polymetallic nodule collector vehicle in the Atlantic Ocean. The vehicle was tested at a depth of almost 2,500 meters.

You may remember my previous articles about The Metals Company, and my two interviews with CEO Gerard Barron. I’ve been following the progress of The Metals Company since before they changed their name from Deep Green. To recap, I’ll briefly share what their focus is.

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This Mining Executive Is Fighting Her Own Industry to Protect the Environment – by Aryn Baker (Time Magazine – April 13, 2022)

https://time.com/

In her 16-year career in the mining industry, Renee Grogan has battled hostile environments, arduous work conditions, and the perception that women don’t belong at a mine site—let alone in a mining-company boardroom. But her biggest battle has only just begun: getting climate-conscious car buyers to care as much about how the metals going into their new electric-vehicle (EV) batteries are mined as they do about their carbon emissions.

“Consumers don’t generally know what their metal footprint looks like,” says Grogan, the co-founder and chief sustainability officer of California-based Impossible Mining, a battery-metal mining startup.

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We Don’t Need Nickel From Russia – by Johnna Crider (Clean Technica – April 15, 2022)

https://cleantechnica.com/

We don’t need nickel from Russia. There is a critical need for nickel and other EV battery metals worldwide, but we don’t need to get it from Russia. In March 2022, Morgan Stanley’s Adam Jonas shared worries about Russia’s outsized role in the nickel supply chain for EVs.

CNBC’s Phil LeBeau then discussed the note from Jonas. Jonas noted that Ford announced a target of 2 million EV unit sales by 2026, and that this will require a lot of EV battery metals. The question he posed was where Ford would source all of these raw materials. LeBeau pointed out that everyone in the auto industry has been talking about this issue for quite a while.

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Seabed mineral exploration licences approved in the Cook Islands – by Caleb Fotheringham (RNZ – March 13, 2022)

https://www.rnz.co.nz/

Five kilometres deep on the Cook Islands seafloor, potato-shaped rocks pave the bottom loaded with expensive minerals like cobalt, copper, manganese and nickel. They’re called polymetallic nodules and three weeks ago the Cook Islands Prime Minister, Mark Brown referred to them as “golden apples”.

Brown made the comment during an official signing ceremony where three companies were awarded a seabed minerals exploration licence. The licence allows the companies to see if mining is a viable option which includes reviewing the environmental risks associated with the task.

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Canada absent from global conversation on deep-sea mining – by Natasha Bulowski (National Observer – January 2022)

https://www.nationalobserver.com/

Environmental groups want the Canadian government to call for a moratorium on deep-sea mining, joining countries like Chile and the EU Parliament.

Companies around the globe want to mine metals such as cobalt, manganese, nickel, and copper deep on the ocean floor, but hundreds of scientists warn the area is under-researched and its impacts on delicate ocean ecosystems could be devastating.

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Earth’s final frontier: China and the deep-sea gold rush set to cause environmental catastrophe – by Stuart Heaver (Hong Kong Free Press – January 2, 2022)

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Scientists say that a highly controversial deep-sea “gold rush” risks potentially devastating consequences for marine ecosystems, biodiversity, coastal communities and climate change.

The deep seabed is Earth’s final frontier but this mostly unexplored, dark and pristine abyss is threatened by highly destructive deep-sea mining which could be at full throttle within months.

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Deep-Sea Mining Could Help Meet Demand for Critical Minerals, But Also Comes with Serious Obstacles (U.S. Government Accountability Office – December 16, 2021)

https://www.gao.gov/blog/

Deep below the sea lay critical minerals that are both high in value and demand. These critical minerals—such as cobalt, nickel, and manganese—are used in everyday devices like cellphones and cars. But they are hard to come by, and demand is expected to double or triple by 2030.

Because of this demand, interest has turned toward the deep ocean seabed, which contains vast quantities of critical and other minerals. Today’s WatchBlog post looks at our new Science & Tech Spotlight on deep-sea mining—how it works and its challenges.

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