<i>"Bram Murton, a geologist with the UK’s National Oceanography Centre, says that if all the cars on Europe’s roads are electric by 2040, and if they use the same kind of batteries as the Tesla Model 3, that would require 28 times more cobalt than is produced right now."</i><p><i>"At the moment more than 60% of all cobalt comes from the Democratic Republic of Congo. For decades allegations of corruption and human rights abuses have swirled around parts of its mining industry."</i><p><i>"And with renewable power like wind and solar being installed at a frantic pace, every turbine and every panel also requires key metals."</i><p>I'm always wondering why more people aren't concerned about the production of these materials we need for all the clean energy, electric cars, and more iPhones. Is it just that it's not as bad as the oil production? Or do people really think we'll be mining asteroids in a few years?
In short: a almost romantic cold-war story of a mission to recover a sovier submarine triggers an interest of mining the deep ocean floor.<p>Not actual until the whole world is moving to an electrical future where raw materials such as copper, cobalt, zinc, etc are in shortage, or suspect of child work, thus an option of mine the ocean floor.<p>This has other drawbacks, such as destroying the ecology of the deep ocean floor, possibly wiping out species that we might not even know.
<i>"We’ve drilled the ocean floor for oil and gas, scarred it with trenches for communications cables, poisoned it with old radioactive waste and chemical weapons, and polluted its remotest corners with a blizzard of discarded plastic. So, is mining a step too far?"</i><p><i>"I put that question to Sir David Attenborough at the launch of his series Blue Planet II. When he sees our video of the giant machines being readied in Papua New Guinea, he is aghast. “It’s heartbreaking,” he says."</i><p>This sums it up for me. Our greed is sad.
It's hard not to see this from all sides: the saddening loss of biodiversity, the world's desperate need for these metals, and the needs of poor countries to exploit their natural resources to rise up in the world. At first I was horrified by the mining technique being described here, and then the article got into all the United Nations protections and regulations surrounding this process.<p>It's encouraging to know the world will be monitoring this as it happens. Often forgotten about American history is how badly we had to destroy our own environment before we took action to make things better. Much of our country was turned into barren wasteland as all the trees were cut down for industry, and it took FDR deploying a literal army of tree-planters to bring the forests back. I think we are watching the same history repeat in China now as they deploy tree-planters along their growing deserts.<p>So we'll watch this new environmental front. We'll read stories about companies breaking the rules and listen to pundits decry government regulations that protect snails over jobs. Hopefully we'll strike a balance and survive long enough to make asteroid-mining profitable and maybe take all of this off-world where such environmental conflicts don't exist.
Humans do not need to mine the ocean. The proven reserves of existing mines and future projects are more than enough for decades. Anyone who says otherwise is only looking to save a dollar and will cut costs on environmental sustainability. The USA is sitting on millions of tons of copper while watching other countries mine it out of theirs. We could supply the whole world for decades on our own if we wanted to restore our mining industry.<p>But there's no real economic need for US minerals.<p>I would argue there might be a strategic need for them, but not an economic one.<p>There is certainly no economic imperative to mine the ocean floor in the face of the potential environmental harm it may cause.<p>I question it's morality on the basis of balancing mankind's needs versus our calling to manage our resources properly.<p>Wouldn't this money be better spent recycling e-waste where the copper and gold content is significantly higher and the environmental impact is demonstrably positive?
So those vents, the ones covered in crabs, worms and all the other living things, are going to be ground up into slurry? Didn't Monty Burns try something like this?<p>A mile down might seem far, but that's where sperm whales and elephant seals feed. This will come back to haunt us.
With all the concerns in the OP, the many
questions, many calls for more research,
the speculations of disasters, the lack of
lots of solid, detailed information, etc.,
where the UN, etc. can be involved doing
much of anything on the ocean floor will
be blocked for decades.<p>But there is an alternative: Use the TIFO
method -- try it and find out.<p>So, pick some spots on the ocean floor.
It's a huge ocean with lots of candidate
spots.<p>At some of these spots, take a census of
what is there. Gather some worms, crabs,
shrimp, nodules, parts of hydrothermal
vents, etc. Admit that these are not
exhaustive or comprehensive but just
samples.<p>Then at some of these spots where took the
census, do the mining. Leave the other
spots as <i>controls</i>.<p>Then take another census. Compare the
mined spots with the controls. See what
the changes and upsides and
downsides are.<p>Since some of the candidate spots for
mining are in the waters of sovereign
countries and, thus, largely out of the
control of the US, likely some of this
TIFO work will be done and not blocked by
the UN, etc.<p>Maybe then we will begin to find out.
Related: Radioloab episode on the Glomar explorer and how the Glomar clause ('neither confirm nor deny') was born out of it. <a href="http://www.radiolab.org/story/confirm-nor-deny/" rel="nofollow">http://www.radiolab.org/story/confirm-nor-deny/</a>