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The sea floor has deposits of minerals in sea hills and nodules, which proponents say are essential for batteries and electronics in the green transition.
Conservationists argue that seafloor mining will cause irreversible damage to pristine, unexplored areas, and that taking a circular economy approach means we don’t need all the cobalt, manganese and other minerals there.
No one has yet started deep-sea mining, but the International Maritime Authority is working on developing rules for this new business and has given permission to explore it.
On September 7 of this year, the sector took a leap forward, when a leading company in the field, the so-called Steel Company, announced the start of a deep-sea mining test in the Pacific Ocean’s Clarion Klipton zone. The news came as a surprise that the UN’s International Maritime Organization approved the expedition and now there is a chance that commercial mining could begin in 2024, despite widespread calls for a moratorium.
Listen to the episode in the player below.
“A few years ago, deep sea drilling was still in the realm of science fiction,” says Scientist. Pedro Ribeiro Euro News says In this section of the latest ocean calls.
“The environment is very violent. We are talking about high pressure. We are talking about low temperatures and inaccessibility. My first impression, to be completely honest, was that there was no way such an industry could develop in the time frame advertised by some companies.
Ribeiro is a marine biologist at the University of Bergen and is currently working with the Norwegian government to mine its territorial waters for precious minerals.
“Here in Norway, there is also a big concern for environmental impacts,” says Ribeiro.
Traditionally, Norway is an important oil producer. By 2021, Norway will export 1.2 million barrels of crude oil per day to other European countries, according to Norwegian Petroleum.
According to Ribeiro, Norway’s experience with oil and gas records brings knowledge of how to develop the technology to reduce the environmental footprint on the seabed and water column.
‘Our collection machines do not touch the seabed’
He says the green transition will not happen if there is wealth in the sea Renee GroganDirector of Sustainable Mining at a mining company.
“Looking at the terrestrial resources we have for cobalt today, it’s not enough to move the UK towards its electric vehicle target. And then it’s a question of where the rest of the world is going to get cobalt,” Grogan told Ocean Calls.
“So the size and scale of the resource on the sea floor is what prompted this discussion. He is the one who drives the competition. And it’s a very important and tricky conversation. “
Impossible Mining says its mission is to find ways to extract the metal from the seafloor without destroying the habitat. The company is developing autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) robots to collect polymetallic nodules from the seabed.
We are designing underwater robotic vehicles. And they are not attached to the ship. (…) They do not make contact with the sea floor. They hover over it,” says Grogan.
She explained that the method was designed to collect polymetallic nodules, relatively small formations spread over the sea and to limit disturbance to the surrounding environment.
“The AUV is also programmed to leave a certain percentage of nodules for the habitat to remain on the sea floor. Now, that number, the question of over a hundred that we leave behind is something we are working with scientists to understand,” she said.
Conservationists have called for protection against offshore drilling.
“Nodules (…) are not just lying in there somehow. They are not floating in the air,” explains Jessica Battle, head of the Deep Seabed Mining Initiative at WWF.
“If you put your hand down in a pond in the woods, where there’s silt, for example, you touch it and the silt comes flying up and becomes a vortex.”
“So it’s impossible not to have an impact,” she added.
The deep sea, everything below 200 meters in the ocean, is the largest habitat on the planet.
“If you go down there with light, you get color — bright orange, bright blue, bright pink, all kinds of colors. But to us, to the naked eye, it’s pitch black,” Battle explained.
“The animals that live there communicate with sound, light. (…) Many of the animals that live there are almost transparent. You can’t see them.
The deep sea plays an important role in regulating our planet’s climate. It is a less well-known area than the surface of Mars. With that in mind, many environmentalists argue that it would be careless to mine because it is impossible to predict the exact environmental impact.
As a result, WWF and other groups have called for a halt to deep-sea drilling to give scientists time to gather more information on these distant worlds.
“At this point it doesn’t matter what technology we talk about because we have to study the ocean floor first to understand what’s underneath, to understand what the impact of any technology will be,” Battle said.
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In this episode of Ocean Calls, we’re discussing whether sea bed removal is a solution to our green technology needs or an environmental threat.
Created in collaboration with the European Commission’s DG Mare.
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