Belgium’s Global Sea Mineral Resources (GSR) resume tests on Friday that could lead to the mining of battery minerals from the Pacific Ocean floor after it managed to recover a robot stranded at a depth of thousands of metres.
The company reported Wednesday that its Patania II, a 25-tonne mining robot prototype, had uncoupled from a 5km-long (3.1 miles) cable connecting it to the surface.
The unit of Belgium’s DEME Group is with a group of European scientists to determine the environmental impacts of deep-sea mining. They are working on GSR’s concession in the Clarion Clipperton Zone.
“It’s ironic that an industry that wants to extract metals from the seabed ends up dropping it down there instead,” Sandra Schoettner, deep-sea biologist from Greenpeace Germany, said in a statement. “This glaring operational failure must act as a stark warning that deep sea mining is too big a risk.”
“It’s ironic that an industry that wants to extract metals from the seabed ends up dropping it down there instead”
Sandra Schoettner, deep-sea biologist from Greenpeace Germany
“We are taking a cautious, step-by-step approach to project development. We conduct these trials to better understand the challenges involved so we can continuously refine our technology,” Kris Van Nijen, managing director of GSR, said in its media statement.
“The prototype has functioned well, and learnings will be taken into the next phase of development. This is pioneering engineering work and we were prepared for multiple eventualities,” he noted.
Before this week’s incident, Patania II had had collected potato-sized rocks called “polymetallic nodules”, which are rich in manganese, cobalt nickel and rare earths from the seabed.
Mining the ocean floor has been promoted as an alternative to land-based mining, as demand for minerals needed for the green energy transition, such as cobalt and nickel, are set to exceed current production rates by 2030.
READ ABOUT: How the battery metal rush has pitted miners against marine biologists
DEME Group is among a group of companies, including DeepGreen Metals, Lockheed Martin and China Minmetals Corp., spearheading moves to extract metals needed for electric vehicles and green technologies.
Regulations to support the emerging activity have yet to be agreed upon by the International Seabed Authority (ISA). The UN-backed body of 167 countries has already issued exploration contracts to 21 companies, but they cannot begin mining until regulation is passed.
An international team of researchers published in 2018 a set of criteria to help the ISA protect biodiversity from deep-sea mining activities while it prepares global rules.
According to the US Geological Survey, the deep-sea accounts for more than half the world’s surface and contains minerals in concentrations several times higher than those found in all land reserves combined.
Scientists and explorers have also identified cobalt-rich crusts, located shallower than nodules and sulphates.
Recent reports, including one commissioned by the High Level Panel for a Sustainable Ocean Economy (Ocean Panel), have called for further research to fill gaps in knowledge before any seabed mining is allowed. They have also argued for the need to set protected zones across all ocean regions under the ISA’s jurisdiction.
“This is pioneering engineering work and we were prepared for multiple eventualities”
Kris Van Nijen, managing director of GSR
The European Parliament has also called for a ban on seabed mining until the environmental impacts and risks of disturbing unique deep-sea ecosystems are understood.
In the resolution, passed three years ago, the legislators also urged the European Commission to persuade member states to stop sponsoring and subsidizing licenses to explore and exploit the seabed in international waters as well as within their own territories.
Conservationists recommend countries encourage the recycling of battery metals to reduce the need of finding new supplies.
RELATED: DeepGreen hits backs at firms opposing seafloor mining
Supporters of the activity, however, argue that the extraction of 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.
DeepGreen, one of the companies actively seeking to mine the ocean floor, said environmental benefits can be achieved only through collecting polymetallic nodules, 4,000 meters deep on the abyssal plain. At that depth, life is up to 1,500 times less abundant than in the vibrant ecosystems on land from where battery metals are currently sourced, the Canadian firm noted.
Nodules lie unattached on the seafloor and DeepGreen says its approach to collecting them differs from other extractive processes that could affect the integrity of the seafloor crust, as explained by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF).
BMW, Volvo, Google and Korean battery maker Samsung SDI, announced in March they will not buy metals extracted through deep-sea mining until the environmental risks of the activity are “comprehensively understood.”
2 Comments
ram
There is no way that deep sea mining makes sense. The energy requirements are ridiculous. Just work it out on an energy basis: energy required to mine those minerals on land versus that required to mine them in deep oceans (depths on the order of km). Don’t forget about the kms of umbilicals to the ROVs trying to maintain station in the presence of significant ocean currents and sizes of the surface ships required to handle all that gear.
Having retrieved a few deep ocean wrecks, or wreckage, in my time, it is immediately obvious these deep ocean mining proposals are frauds from the get go.
Live Free or Die
“There is no way that deep sea mining makes sense.“
<— I feel like your opinion is extremely short-sighted and is calculated based on an overly narrow view of reality. You claim it makes no sense based solely on the 1:1 energy ratio required at THIS PRESENT MOMENT in time.. when this article is about the fact that deep sea mining is in its infancy and this company is only just conducting trials testing a PROTOTYPE— researching, pioneering and engineering a new technology currently in its infancy.
Maybe you will be right in the end, but it is WAY too soon to claim “it makes no sense” without knowing how future innovations will change the present calculations.
Also, there are more things to consider besides the current energy ratio of extraction. The demand for these rare metals/minerals is only going to increase dramatically in the not so distant future. There is a FINITE supply of them. We WILL need to expand the mining capability of ALL the available sources. And we can’t wait until land sources are exhausted and we run out to start project development on deep sea mining. Here are a few snippets from the article that I think are the most important points and where I’m basing my opinion on. Anyways— I respect your opinion, I just think you are very wrong. God bless!
[“..demand for minerals needed for the green energy transition, such as cobalt and nickel, are set to exceed current production rates by 2030.”]
[“According to the US Geological Survey, the deep-sea accounts for more than half the world’s surface and contains minerals in concentrations several times higher than those found in all land reserves combined.“]
[“..the extraction of 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.”]