World leaders have gathered in the French Mediterranean city of Nice for the third UN Ocean Conference. One of the biggest topics of deliberation there is deep-sea mining. Nations are scrambling after US President Donald Trump signed an executive order in April, which will fast track deep-sea mining permits to private companies. They will soon be able to trawl for deep-sea minerals in both American and international waters. This has caused concern across the globe.
Large swathes of the ocean floor are covered in mineral lumps known as polymetallic nodules. These nodules contain rare minerals such as manganese, nickel, cobalt and copper. These metals are used in everything from smartphone to electric vehicle manufacturing. Currently, China has a stranglehold on rare earth metal production. It has the largest known surface deposits. But deep-sea mining could upend China’s monopoly. However, it comes at a steep environmental cost.
The sea floor is a mysterious and understudied ecosystem. It is home to millions of undiscovered plants and animals. No one knows what will happen if this fragile ecosystem is even minutely disturbed, let alone upended by commercial mining operations.
One of the front-runners for Trump’s deep-sea mining permits is a Canadian firm called The Metals Company, or TMC. Their proposed extraction system involves lowering a harvester to the seabed. The machine will be lowered to the sea floor from a ship. It will then proceed to scoop up metallic nodules, undersea sediment, marine life, and everything else in its path. And it will likely leave a plume of sediment in its wake. All the harvested material will be taken up to the ship, where the nodules will be separated from the rest. The residue will then be released into the ocean, forming another plume of sediment, this time at a much greater height. What happens to the marine life on the sea floor caught by the harvester? What happens to fish caught in the upper sediment plumes? No one knows.
Another front-runner for Trump’s deep-sea mining permit is an American firm called Impossible Metals. They claim to have developed a less harmful extraction process, where robotic arms selectively pick up the metallic nodules without scooping up marine life as well. No one knows how much damage even minimally invasive deep-sea mining will cause.
The UN is racing against the clock to come up with a framework to regulate undersea activity. And possibly an international moratorium on deep-sea mining. But will Donald Trump’s America listen?
