An executive order to flout international consensus and open the deep ocean to mining is reportedly being considered by the USA’s Trump administration – but experts including the world’s deepest undersea explorer Victor Vescovo have been speaking out to say that such a move would be economic folly and a hunt for “fool’s gold”.
The government order would enable permits to be issued to companies to mine the deep sea in international waters – contravening the requirements of the International Seabed Authority (ISA), the body that regulates mining activities on the high seas.
Ocean-conservation campaigners argue that while such a move would be akin to piracy and environmentally damaging, it would also be based on a flawed business case.
“Deep-sea mining is extremely challenging technically, highly destructive, not meaningful to worldwide production and a very expensive, financially risky solution to a battery metals problem that existed ten years ago,” explains Vescovo, the founder and CEO of Caladan Capital and a retired naval officer and pilot as well as undersea explorer.
Among many submersible-piloting achievements, Vescovo carried out the deepest manned dive in history when he reached Challenger Deep in the Mariana Trench at a depth of 10,928m, and was the first person to visit the deepest points in all five of Earth’s oceans.
Global oversupplies
Mining the deep sea would create economic hardship and geopolitical harm for the USA without any apparent gains, other opponents claim. “This is a search for fool’s gold,” is how Dr Douglas McCauley, a professor at University of California Santa Barbara and adjunct professor at UC Berkeley, expresses it.
“Market prices for minerals and metals sought from the deep sea have sharply declined in recent years, driven by global oversupplies from conventional mining and innovations in battery chemistries, ” says McCauley. “This could be the most expensive cobalt and nickel that has ever been mined on the planet.
“These trends are in part driven by reduced demand from the electric-vehicle market, which has become increasingly reliant on batteries – for example, the LFP batteries used in many Tesla models – that do not require difficult-to-obtain, expensive metals.
“New innovation in ultra-fast charging stations designed for these new batteries, such as [Chinese electric car manufacturer] BYD’s recent announcement of charging stations that can add 400km of range in just five minutes, may further secure the dominance of these new batteries that do not require metals from the ocean.
“Another challenge may be reluctance on the part of the USA to land this material in US ports, given the newly discovered radioactive nature of these minerals,” concludes MacCauley. The release of toxic materials associated with mining could endanger public health globally through seafood contamination.
Marine ecosystems
“Unilateral mining of the deep sea, which is the common heritage of humankind, would be a fundamental breach of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, which for over 40 years has provided stability in ocean governance,” adds Duncan Currie, international legal expert and policy advisor for the Deep Sea Conservation Coalition (DSCC), reinforcing the view that a dash to beat competitors such as Russia and China would cause irreparable harm to vulnerable marine ecosystems and ocean health.
“Every country and every person would suffer the consequences,” says Currie. “It will not yield the profits or royalties promised, will not solve the environmental and security problems it claims, and will destroy tens of thousands of square kilometres of virgin seafloor – just to prove it doesn’t work.”
“The Metals Company is promising regulatory certainty in a regulatory vacuum,” says Bobbi-Jo Dobush, ocean-conservation policy expert and author of Deep Sea Mining Isn’t Worth The Risk. “The only certainty is that seabed mining remains an untested, wildly expensive way to get minerals we have already innovated away from.”
The DSCC, representing separate campaigning bodies, has welcomed a call for a moratorium on deep-sea mining issued in the SOS Ocean Summit Manifesto at the end of March, as part of a high-level summit hosted by France.
The manifesto urges countries at the ISA to align with global scientific consensus by adopting a moratorium on what it describes as “a destructive industry” for at least 10-15 years – or until sufficient knowledge is available to make informed decisions.
Also on Divernet: What on Earth is next for Vescovo?, Vescovo dives world’s deepest shipwreck USS Samuel B Roberts, History made with deepest wreck dive, Whaling nation first to enable deep-sea mining
