The Dubious Economics of Deep-Sea Mining

Makes good cover for naval intelligence activities though. Just don't assume because you see a ship "mining manganese nodules" from the seabed that you should build your own ship with your own money.

And if you think they ruin the environment <i>above sea level</i>, I’ll bet the miners really fuck things up underwater.

Currently, there seems to be no tech that allows economical deep-sea mining.<p>It is challenging, yet I can&#x27;t see a compelling tech demo or explanation of why it nailed tech breakthroughs. There is not yet a shale oil moment.<p>Looking at The Metals&#x27; top staff is also not encouraging: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;metals.co&#x2F;company&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;metals.co&#x2F;company&#x2F;</a> Most executives are not related to underlying tech. Most are not related to their hardest problem. Even the CTO has experience just with pure software plays. I found just one person who previously did some novel underwater robots as a principal. It is not professional due diligence, but it does not sound like a solid plan.<p>I&#x27;m not sure why there is so much discussion about the environment, given that tech is not ready. Maybe after raising a lot of money, it&#x27;s easier to blame regulations than admit challenges with execution?

Even with dubious economics, deep sea mining could make sense for China for political reasons.<p>Securing supplies of key industrial commodities under de facto Chinese sovereignty may be worth the cost of whatever subsidies are required to encourage entrepreneurs &amp; investors.<p>It’s very hard for anyone, even the US&#x2F;UN, to sanction Chinese companies that only seek to import ocean materials into the Chinese domestic market.

If interest rates remain high, economically non-viable business will be far more self-limiting than in than in years before. Which in turns means that ecological damage might be more limited because doing it is just not worth it.

The argument I&#x27;ve seen is that the amount of seabed that has the required minerals is not big and the surface of the earth is predominantly covered by water so as a percentage of what&#x27;s there the mined area is small.<p>I would like to know how bad mining that area is compared that to the damage we will do continuing with internal combustion engines if we don&#x27;t solve the climate issue, or mining the same things on land. To me it seems we&#x27;re entering a time when no choice is a nice one.

From the article: &quot;Deep-sea ecosystems could be destroyed for metals that will only be needed for a few more years.&quot;<p>I doubt this.<p>Can someone please prove me wrong?<p>What metal(s) have we mined in the past that we no longer need? I&#x27;m looking for any metal that we used to use that now we no longer use because we do not need it with our ever-expanding population and industrial base.<p>I&#x27;m not referring to metals like lead and mercury that are limited in use due to their toxicity.

The economic argument is important for the environmental one, because sunk capital is often used to justify more capital. Even if the first ten companies fail, they may develop enough tech and know-how to make some sunk-cost minded financier unwilling to give up.

pfft, sometimes they are very successful: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Glomar_Explorer" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Glomar_Explorer</a>

I still find this whole thing absolutely idiotic given that there are absolutely colossal piles of cobalt, manganese etc left on the tailings of copper and silver mines through the world just waiting for being collected and processed... And you don&#x27;t need to build specialty equipment to reach the seabed at all