Under the sea

Audio version of the article right below the paywall

Between Hawaii and Mexico, deep underwater, there sits a treasure. The treasure is contained in formations called polymetallic nodules that just sit there on the seabed full of nickel, manganese, and cobalt, as well as copper, and zinc, doing nothing when the transition army on the ground needs these nickel, manganese, and cobalt as well as copper, and zinc urgently. Lots of them.

The area where the treasure is located is called the Clarion-Clipperton Fracture Zone. the Zone spans 4.5 million sq km, or 1.7 million sq miles, and there are already more than a dozen exploration licences issued for it by the authority that regulates it: the International Seabed Authority. Yep, we have a special seabed authority.

The reason we have it is that there are vast areas in the global ocean that do not fall into any one country’s jurisdiction and we need someone to regulate their use for fishing, for example, or, as in this case, deep-sea mining.

To say that deep-sea mining is a controversial practice is to say that the energy transition is kind of problematic for some people. Deep-sea mining is so controversial you could probably turn it into a three-part feature-length movie series with a couple of spinoffs.

First, though, let’s quickly go over what deep-sea mining actually involves. That’s simple enough. Since the polymetallic nodules the miners want to bring up to the surface literally lie on the seafloor, all they need to do is send a vehicle to collect them and bring them to the surface where they get loaded on a ship and either get processed on site or get shipped to shore where the processing takes place.

The World Resources Institute, a research NGO affiliated with the World Economic Forum, describes the process as not dissimilar to “a tractor plowing a field, along with the top layers of sediment.” The sediment, the WRI explains, is then piped back into the sea along with any waste from the processing. Which is where the first red flag flashed.

Leaving that flag to flap in the wind for now, proponents of deep-sea mining such as The Metals Company, which holds several exploration licences for the Clarion-Clipperton Zone, argue that it is a lot more sparing for the environment than terrestrial mining and that it is vitally important because transition = much greater demand for metals = shortages if you only rely on terrestrial mining.

At first glance it’s hard to argue with that. Having an underwater tractor plough the seabed for what can roughly be described as balls of metals certainly looks and sounds a lot more sparing than digging up millions of tonnes of soil and rock to get to some copper. There is, however, an ethical problem. It is a problem that environmentalist heavyweights such as the WWF and Greenpeace have been quick to flag.

Here’s where the problem lies. For decades, scientists apparently assumed that the deep sea is largely uninhabited because it is not exactly warm and welcoming, and full of food. Imagine these scientists’ surprise when it turned out that there are, in fact, thousands of species living in the deep sea.

A study released earlier this year, conducted by researchers from the Natural History Museum in London found 5,000 species in the Clarion-Clipperton Zone, hitherto unknown to science. The ethical problem, therefore, comes down to the question: is it better to harm marine life than terrestrial life to get the transition metals we are told we need? Believe it or not, this is the smaller problem with deep-sea mining.