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Deep Sea Mining

Fresh study calls for moratorium on deep-sea mining – by Cecilia Jamasmie (Mining.com – May 20, 2020)

https://www.mining.com/

A coalition of non-profit organizations is pushing for an international moratorium on deep-sea mining following a fresh report that warns of potential irreversible damage to Pacific island states including Kiribati, the Cook Islands, Nauru, Tonga, Papua New Guinea and Tuvalu.

“Accumulated scientific evidence indicates that the impacts of nodule mining in the Pacific Ocean would be extensive, severe and last for generations, causing essentially irreversible damage,” the report, commissioned by the Deep Sea Mining Campaign and MiningWatch Canada, found.

Polymetallic nodules — potato-sized metals-rich rocks that lie in a shallow layer of mud on the seafloor — are believed to be rich in cobalt, nickel, copper, manganese and rare earth metals.

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Extracting battery metals from seafloor may beat traditional mining — study – by Cecilia Jamasmie (Mining.com – April 22, 2020)

https://www.mining.com/

Mining battery metals from the ocean floor could potentially eliminate or dramatically reduce most of the environmental and social impacts associated with the extraction of riches from the Earth’s surface, a new study claims.

According to a research published this week and funded by Canada’s DeepGreen Metals, a start-up planning to extract cobalt and other battery metals from the seabed, undersea mining generates up to 70% less direct CO2 emissions, 94% less stored carbon risk, as well as 90% less sulphur oxides (SOx) and nitrogen oxides (NOx) emissions — air pollution from maritime transportation.

Mining the ocean floor would also eliminate the issue of solid waste, while using 94% less land and 92% less forest, the report reads.

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DeepGreen to make run for battery metals from seafloor – by Cecilia Jamasmie (Mining.com – April 7, 2020)

https://www.mining.com/

DeepGreen Metals, a Canadian start-up planning to extract cobalt and other battery metals from the seafloor, has added a new area to its seabed portfolio, which it believes could potentially help it solve the bottleneck supply of critical battery metals needed for the world’s green energy transition.

The strategic acquisition of Tonga Offshore Mining Limited (TOML), announced Tuesday, gives the Vancouver-based company exploration rights to a third area inside the Clarion-Clipperton Zone (CCZ) in the Pacific Ocean.

The 4,000-kilometre swath of ocean, stretching from Hawaii to Mexico, is known for containing enough nickel, copper, cobalt and manganese to build over 250 million electric vehicle batteries.

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Unstable Mineral Supply Threatens Electric Car, Green Projects, Justifies Undersea, Space Mining; Report – by Neil Winton (Forbes Magazine – January 3, 2019)

https://www.forbes.com/

The advent of the electric car is threatened by a few known knowns like range anxiety, high prices, and a thin recharging network, but now, according to a report from the University of Sussex, lurking in the background are possible shortages of the raw materials at the heart of this low-carbon revolution, which threaten to derail the whole project.

Making sure of adequate supplies is so important, mining under the sea, or even on other planets, would be justified, according to the report.

The automotive industry in Europe has been spending massively to embrace the electric car. On Thursday, Europe’s number one auto maker, Volkswagen, raised the stakes of its electric plans by bringing forward its target of producing one million electric cars a year by two years, to the end of 2023. By 2025 this will reach 1.5 million a year.

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History’s Largest Mining Operation Is About to Begin – by Wil S. Hylton (The Atlantic – January/February 2020)

https://www.theatlantic.com/

It’s underwater—and the consequences are unimaginable.

Unless you are given to chronic anxiety or suffer from nihilistic despair, you probably haven’t spent much time contemplating the bottom of the ocean. Many people imagine the seabed to be a vast expanse of sand, but it’s a jagged and dynamic landscape with as much variation as any place onshore. Mountains surge from underwater plains, canyons slice miles deep, hot springs billow through fissures in rock, and streams of heavy brine ooze down hillsides, pooling into undersea lakes.

These peaks and valleys are laced with most of the same minerals found on land. Scientists have documented their deposits since at least 1868, when a dredging ship pulled a chunk of iron ore from the seabed north of Russia. Five years later, another ship found similar nuggets at the bottom of the Atlantic, and two years after that, it discovered a field of the same objects in the Pacific.

For more than a century, oceanographers continued to identify new minerals on the seafloor—copper, nickel, silver, platinum, gold, and even gemstones—while mining companies searched for a practical way to dig them up.

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United States sitting out race to mine ocean floor for metals essential to electronics (CBS News – November 13, 2019)

https://www.cbsnews.com/

One of the most high-stakes races in history is underway, with colossal riches waiting for the winners. It’s a race to a little known frontier: the bottom of the sea. Around the world, thousands of engineers and scientists are in fierce competition to build the first undersea robot that can mine the ocean floor.

The explosion of interest in deep sea mining is driven by the demands of our high-tech economy. The deep ocean is the El Dorado that contains metals like nickel, cobalt and rare earth elements, essential for use in cell phones, supercomputers and electric cars. They’re also critical for a green future of solar and wind power.

Dozens of nations, including Russia and China, are racing to get there first. But not the United States. As Bill Whitaker reports, America must sit on the sidelines of this great treasure hunt. Whitaker’s report will be broadcast on the next edition of 60 Minutes, Sunday, November 17 at 7:30 p.m. ET and 7 p.m. PT on CBS.

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China leads the race to exploit deep sea minerals: U.N. body (Reuters U.S. – October 23, 2019)

https://www.reuters.com/

OSLO (Reuters) – China is likely to become the first country in the world to start mining seabed minerals if the international rules for exploitation are approved next year, the head of the International Seabed Authority (ISA) said.

The quest for exploiting seabed minerals, such as polymetallic nodules containing nickel, copper, cobalt and manganese is driven by demand for smart phones and electric car batteries, and the need to diversify supply.

The ISA has already signed 30 contracts with governments, research institutions and commercial entities for exploration phase, with China holding the most, five contracts.

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EXPLAINER-How do miners dispose of their waste in the sea? – by Melainie Burton (Reuters U.S. – October 11, 2019)

https://www.reuters.com/

MELBOURNE, Oct 11 (Reuters) – Sea disposal of mining waste could spread as Indonesia weighs adopting the technique for new nickel projects, as Papua New Guinea is doing for a gold mine proposed by Australia’s Newcrest Mining.

The management of mining waste has drawn attention since two dam disasters in Brazil, and after red mud spilled into Papua New Guinea’s Basamuk Bay from Ramu Nickel’s operations in August.

An expert in chemical contamination has called test results from the Ramu Nickel spill “alarming,” media said this week. That spill resulted from an operational failure, however, rather than an issue with tailings management.

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Getting to the bottom of things: Can mining the deep sea be sustainable? – by Anna Metaxas and Verena Tunnicliffe (The Conversation – September 8, 2019)

https://theconversation.com/

It is completely dark, just above freezing cold and the pressure is crushing: this is the deep-sea floor. Food is very scarce in this huge region, yet a great diversity of animals have adapted to exploit and recycle resources and thrive within it.

As technology enabled us to penetrate deeper into the ocean in the past 50 years, we discovered extraordinary ecosystems: hydrothermal vents support lush communities of unique animals, seamounts foster coral and sponge forests and abyssal plains continue to yield biodiversity novelties.

Metal-rich ores were also discovered in these same environments — and in quantities that sparked commercial interest. These deposits are now the targets for exploitation by mining companies both within and beyond national waters.

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[Seabed Mining] Progress at snail’s pace – by Donal Hickey (Irish Examiner – August 25, 2019)

https://www.irishexaminer.com/

Over the years, we’ve had controversies about the need to save rare snails which had got in the way of roadworks in places such as Ballyvourney, Co Cork, and the Pollardstown Fen nature reserve in Co Kildare. Some politicians tried to trivialise the issue and mock campaigners, but they missed the point.

The real story was that the presence of these snails was a sign of a valuable environment which was worth protecting. Now, the focus is taking a completely different turn, and another obscure snail comes into the picture.

Ironically, this ocean resident may be a victim of the drive to manufacture electric cars which are supposed to protect the environment. The seabed may well have to be mined to obtain some essential materials for electric car batteries, with negative effects on marine life. The seabed, more than half the world’s surface, contains more nickel, cobalt, and rare earth metals than all land reserves combined.

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U.N. deep sea mining body rejects Greenpeace criticism – by Barbara Lewis (Reuters U.S. – July 5, 2019)

https://www.reuters.com/

LONDON (Reuters) – The International Seabed Authority (ISA) has rejected criticism from Greenpeace over its handling of ocean mining, fuelling a spat that threatens to overshadow talks this month by the U.N. body toward rules for deep sea mining.

Mining international waters is in the spotlight as companies and countries are looking at minerals concentrated on the ocean floor that can be used in batteries for smart phones and electric vehicles.

Greenpeace, which wants a moratorium at least until the ocean depths are better understood, issued a report this week warning seabed mining risks doing irreversible harm and said the 168-member ISA should not set the rules.

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Greenpeace ship sets sail to highlight risk of mining below the waves – by Barbara Lewis (Reuters U.S. – July 2, 2019)

https://www.reuters.com/

LONDON (Reuters) – A Greenpeace ship sets sail on Thursday to study an ecosystem beneath the Atlantic Ocean thought to hold clues to the origins of life to press its case for a ban on deep sea mining, as talks in Jamaica seek to agree rules on deep sea mineral exploitation.

Throughout July, work is under way at the U.N.’s International Seabed Authority (ISA) in Kingston to establish regulation on mining the oceans. So far, regulations have only allowed exploration.

Greenpeace is among the campaigners urging a moratorium at least until the ocean depths are understood. The group also says the ISA is not the right authority to make the decision. It wants what it calls a global ocean treaty with a holistic view of all the challenges, including fishing and oil drilling, as well as seabed mining.

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Deep-sea mining could provide access to a wealth of valuable minerals – by Barclay Ballard (The New Economy – May 13, 2019)

https://www.theneweconomy.com/

Deep-sea mining could help meet mankind’s insatiable thirst for essential minerals and power the green economy of the future. It could also cause irreversible damage to a part of the planet that we know very little about

According to NASA and other industry experts, we know more about the Moon than the darkest recesses here on Earth. While 12 individuals have set foot on the lunar surface, only three have visited the deepest part of the ocean.
Satellites have mapped the Moon with a pixel scale of around 100m, but the seabed has only been catalogued to a far grainier resolution of 5km.

To take nothing away from man’s astronomical achievements, reaching the bottom of the sea still represents a significant technical challenge. Even if the deepest parts are avoided – including the Mariana Trench and its record depth of 10,994m – travelling to the seabed often means a shadowy descent lasting more than an hour and enduring pressure thousands of times stronger than that found at the Earth’s surface.

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Belgian fast-moving ‘caterpillar’ in deep sea copper, cobalt race – by Barbara Lewis (Reuters Canada – February 27, 2019)

https://ca.reuters.com/

LONDON, Feb 27 (Reuters) – Belgian group DEME and Canada’s DeepGreen are carrying out tests and research to collect nodules containing copper, cobalt and other minerals from the ocean floor, as a race to mine the depths gathers pace.

Deep sea mining is often dismissed as unaffordable and environmentally hazardous because of the potential risk to species science has barely begun to understand.

But U.N. talks in Jamaica, which began on Monday, are working out regulations on mining in international waters, which may appeal to companies struggling to find new reserves on land and to deal with governments and communities.

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Deep sea mining threatens indigenous culture in Papua New Guinea – by John Childs (The Conservation.com – February 19, 2019)

https://theconversation.com/

When they start mining the seabed, they’ll start mining part of me.

These are the words of a clan chief of the Duke of York Islands – a small archipelago in the Bismarck Sea of Papua New Guinea which lies 30km from the world’s first commercial deep sea mine site, known as “Solwara 1”. The project, which has been delayed due to funding difficulties, is operated by Canadian company Nautilus Minerals and is poised to extract copper from the seabed, 1600m below the surface.

Valuable minerals are created as rapidly cooling gases emerge from volcanic vents on the seafloor. Mining the seabed for these minerals could supply the metals and rare earth elements essential to building electric vehicles, solar panels and other green energy infrastructure. But deep sea mining could also damage and contaminate these unique environments, where researchers have only begun to explore.

The industry’s environmental impact isn’t the only concern. It’s been assumed by the corporate sector that there is limited human impact from mining in the deep sea. It is a notion that is persuasive especially when compared with the socio-ecological impacts of land-based mining.

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