Deep sea mining: the unknown devil

You may have heard the story of a man who had a hen that laid golden eggs. Each time the hen laid a golden egg, the man sold the egg and became richer. Finally, the man decided not to wait until she laid the next egg. He killed her, expecting to get all the golden eggs she may have in her body, at once. Naturally, the greedy man never got a golden egg again.

Right now, an international body called the ISA is considering how to get the golden eggs.

Let’s take a step back.

The International Seabed Authority (ISA) is a U.N.-chartered body formed to issue regulations around underwater mining. The eggs in question are polymetallic nodules that certain companies want to mine, found in certain areas of the seabed at depths below 200m. Instead of gold, they contain rare earth minerals like Lithium, Nickel, Cobalt, and Manganese. These minerals are used in several electronic devices — including those needed to transition away from fossil fuels, like EV batteries and solar panels. Like the eggs, the polymetallic nodules take time to form. The time scale, however, is vastly different — the nodules need about 13 million years!

The process of extracting these nodules from the seabed is called deep sea mining (DSM). EVs, battery energy storage systems, and clean energy sources are all important pathways to de-carbonization and meeting climate commitments. So, if these nodules can give us the resources to achieve that goal, doesn’t it make sense to use them?

In the story, the hen is way more valuable than the eggs! The hen, in this case, is the deep sea itself.

A very recent ground-breaking discovery proved that these nodules actually produced oxygen, dubbed “dark oxygen” because it forms deep underwater in the absence of light, unlike plants which need light to make it.

An experiment showed that the voltages on the surface of each metallic nodule was almost equal to the voltage in a typical AA-sized battery. The nodules in close contact with each other on the seabed could split molecules of seawater into hydrogen and oxygen.

Furthermore, contrary to what mining companies and our imagination may suggest, the deep sea is not a barren, lifeless expanse. Recent research reveals that the deep-sea hosts high biodiversity, with many rare species uniquely adapted to the extreme habitat.

One of the main proposed deep-sea mining sites, the Clarion-Clipperton Zone (CCZ), spans 3,100 miles between Mexico and Hawaii in the Pacific Ocean. Over 5,000 sea species completely new to science were recently discovered in this region! Another expedition team also recently found over 100 potentially new species, including fish, squid, mollusks, and coral, at depths as far as 4,800 meters in another seabed region. So we may have only scratched the surface of underwater biodiversity, given that over 99% of the seabed remains unexplored.

Ferromanganese nodules in the deep sea serve as important breeding grounds for many species. Approximately 30-40% of these species live directly on the nodules, which are also inhabited by bacteria that absorb significant amounts of carbon dioxide. The deep sea has already absorbed a quarter of the carbon released from human activities, providing a critical service that regulates our climate.

The deep-sea environment also plays a key role in the cycling of other nutrients such as nitrogen, silica, phosphorus, hydrogen, and sulphur. Additionally, the impact of methane, a greenhouse gas 25 times more efficient at warming our atmosphere than carbon dioxide, is mitigated through deep-sea biological activity. This intricate chemical interplay between the ocean and our atmosphere creates a delicate balance that must be carefully preserved, and the resulting impacts from any disruption should be thoroughly considered.

However, at present, ISA applicants are not required to show that their mining activities will not harm the environment. Even if they were, clearly, the loss of these complex interlinked ecosystem functions cannot be measured by a simple cost–benefit analyses. Although environmental impact assessments methods for terrestrial mining are well-developed, deep-sea methods are still under development because of greater complexity, lack of data, and uncertainties in the process.

Unfortunately, mining the nodules from the seabed is not like plucking flowers from a garden. It would involve bulldozing the seabed, dumping the gathered contents into a container, which would be lifted to the surface. After the useful minerals are filtered out, the rest of the content would be released back into the ocean at a certain depth. The resulting sediment plumes would generate an underwater sandstorm and impact species in the entire water column including the creatures like whales.

In short, we cannot simply take the golden eggs, without grievously wounding the hen herself.

Importantly, being a very new concept, the vast majority of people are unaware of deep-sea mining or its alternatives, making it very much the unknown devil.

Given that the impacts could be great, irreversible, and far-reaching, it would be unethical to make these decisions without allowing our scientific understanding of the deep sea to progress further and before the public is educated enough on the topic.

This is why globally 32 states so far have called for a precautionary pause on deep sea mining activities.

The deep sea, especially outside territorial waters, is our common heritage and everyone has a right to understand the repercussions that they would collectively face.

And so far, here, we have not even talked about right to life of the marine creatures that have peacefully been living there, disturbing no one, and who will be massacred in the process.

Mining the ocean could create a devastating series of impacts that threaten the processes that are critical to the health and function of our oceans.

— Sir David Attenborough

More fundamentally, do we really need that much gold?

An ISA (2022a) study concluded that land-based sources could meet demand in all scenarios except those with the highest growth, and that deep-sea sources could lead to oversupply. Three of the main metals targeted in deep-sea mining (manganese, copper, and nickel) are considered to be of low supply risk while cobalt is moderate. If the prices of any of these four main metals drop, DSM projects would become unprofitable.

A common argument for it is that it may be better to mine the deep recesses of the ocean instead of land where terrestrial organisms and humans live. However, there is no guarantee that land mining would stop — instead it is more likely that both types of mining will continue.

Furthermore, the amount of cobalt in up to 3 million electric car batteries globally is lost. Recycling technology and industrial capacities are available to recover metals like cobalt, but very few batteries actually reach these facilities.

An International Energy Agency report found that innovation can significantly reduce demand for critical minerals and recycling them from e-waste can even exceed their demand. As an example of such innovation, research is being conducted on roadway electrification so EVs can be charged on the go, which would reduce the required battery size.

Electronics manufacturing is growing much faster than e-waste recycling, so valuable metals will be wasted unless we invest in recycling infrastructure. This would also allow local sourcing of critical minerals. We should focus on the materials we already have by making device repairs easier, improving recycling capabilities, and rethinking tech use after its lifecycle.

Our mindset of extracting more and more resources from the earth, and then quickly disposing them in an endless consumption treadmill can destroy the planet. Creating a circular economy, including with these metals, will ultimately reduce the need for all forms of extraction, including land and deep-sea mining.

Also, if we expect to run out of critical metals for batteries, we need to reconsider our options for electrification. We can focus on increasing connectivity, accessibility, and quality of public transportation along with infrastructure to enable use of bicycles like in some European countries to reduce the demand for personal vehicles in the first place. Along with solar and wind, generation using nuclear power plants should be ramped up. In short, before we think of destroying the final regions on our planet untouched by humans, we must expand all other avenues.

Because if we go through with deep sea mining, it is likely we will destroy the environment in our short-sighted attempt to save the environment.

How you can help make this critical decision:

Urge your government to block deep sea mining until more is known: Defend The Deep – Help Stop Deep-Sea Mining Now!
Sign the petition: https://chng.it/6rzMsKpZmC
Share information about this topic with your network so more people become educated about it.

References:

Cover photo by Blaque X on Pexels.com

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