Controversial plans to mine the ocean floor face a key test this year when a United Nations body unveils rules that could spur the exploitation of hundreds of billions of dollars of battery metals.
The International Seabed Authority is preparing to pass regulations in July that could trigger a rush to extract metals needed to power the electric-vehicle revolution. Environmentalists say that would endanger fragile marine ecosystems and fear the ISA is too closely aligned with the emergent mining industry. The conflict exposes the complex trade-offs nations face to survive on a warming planet.
“It is a grand challenge of our time to reconcile humanity’s opposing interests in acquiring ocean resources—food, minerals and energy—with protecting these habitats,” said Will Homoky, a biochemist at the U.K.’s University of Leeds, who’s helped collect the environmental data being analyzed by miners and regulators.
A half-century after the Central Intelligence Agency first piqued interest in undersea mining while covertly salvaging a Soviet nuclear submarine with the help of Howard Hughes, the industry is back in the spotlight. The need to supply emissions-free vehicles has put the focus more than three kilometers (1.9 miles) down in the Pacific Ocean, where cobalt and nickel reserves dwarf those found in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Indonesia, the biggest terrestrial producers of the two metals.
Global Electric Vehicle Growth
A European research ship left San Diego in April to test mining equipment in the Clarion Clipperton Zone: an expanse of ocean between Hawaii and Mexico that’s as big as the continental U.S. Its seabed is littered with billions of tons of manganese nodules—fist-sized rocks formed over thousands of years, which are filled with nickel and cobalt needed for lithium-ion batteries.
Another vessel owned by A.P. Moller-Maersk A/S also departed this month to collect scientific data for DeepGreen Metals Inc., a Vancouver-based company that acquired the right to investigate parts of a patch of ocean floor the size of South Africa from the Pacific island nations of Nauru, Kiribati and Tonga. The exploration claims cover 225,000 square kilometers, the company said in an email.
“It’s a pivotal time,” said DeepGreen Chief Executive Officer Gerard Barron. The area of ocean DeepGreen has explored contains battery-mineral reserves to power 280 million plug-in cars, he said.
Valued through a blank-check company merger at $2.9 billion last month, DeepGreen is backed by Glencore Plc and Allseas Group SA. It’s just one of a new generation of ocean miners that include Lockheed Martin Corp., China Minmetals Corp. and Belgium’s Deme Group, which used a deep-sea mining robot on April 20 to retrieve minerals for the first time.
Deep Sea Battery Treasure
Previous attempts to mine the ocean depths, including the CIA’s Summa Corp. and Deep Sea Ventures, stalled in the 1970s. More recently, Nautilus Minerals Inc. left most investors out of pocket and incensed environmentalists by threatening to destroy coral reefs in the waters off Papua New Guinea.
Some scientists remain skeptical about the environmental trade-off being presented by miners and highlight the risks to marine ecosystems.