WHAT IS THE STATUS OF DEEP SEA MINING FOR MINERALS?

Seabed mining goes back to 1869, Jules Verne, and 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (paperback for $3.95).  Then in the 1870's, the British Challenger Expedition explored the world's oceans for polymetallic nodules.

Amazingly enough, I was once an authority in deep seabed mining.  I was the staff manager in the U.S. Senate for the Deep Seabed Mineral Resources Act in 1981, and attended a variety of Law of the Sea gatherings around the world.  That was more than 40 years ago.  When I was director of the Hawaii Natural Energy Institute from the mid-80s to 2000, we were with the University of Mississippi the national centers for this topic with funding from the Department of Interior.  I retired almost a quarter century ago, and the field is finally beginning to show some life.

But back then, there was one more matter of secret urgency, using this Senate legislation as a post-cover.  A Russian submarine had sunk close to Hawaii, and our CIA had recovered it.  The Howard Hughes Glomar Explorer ($2.37 billion in 2023 cost) was built ostensibly to gather manganese nodules, but was really for something else.  I participated in a couple of gatherings in the Senate as a post-briefing, and could participate because I had Q clearance from just working for the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory on fusion.  Learned that our seabed mining bill was more subterfuge than anything else.  Here, a posting on some of these tangential matters.

From the very beginning, this subject matter was considered to be just another ocean environmental disaster waiting to happen.  I responded to all the comments sent to Senator Spark Matsunaga, which was a new experience, for my academic career at the University of Hawaii was on topics like renewable energy, and I taught Environmental Engineering in the Civil Engineering Department.  Greenpeace has been particularly active in the call for a seabed mining moratorium.  There was a workshop on my campus in 2007 on these matters.

The year I left the Senate to return to the Manoa Campus in 1982, 167 United Nations member states and the European Union established the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea to protect the ocean seabed.  

• The United Nations allows countries to mine in their own Exclusive Economic Zone.  The UN governs the high seas and international ocean floor beyond the EEZ.
• The U.S. Senate never approved the treaty, for industrial lobbying and Republicans found a way to deny this agreement.
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  Over the years from 1994 this international authority has gone on to approve over 30 ocean floor mining exploration contracts, and most them are in the Clarion-Clipperton Zone between Hawaii and Mexico, where polymetallic nodules contain copper, cobalt, manganese, nickel and a variety of rare earths.

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  Note that these were only exploration approvals.  The Authority has not allowed for even one commercial mining contract, although when it does, the governing body, called the Enterprise, will insure for companies contributing to a fund, to be in the hundreds of million dollars.  The first permits are being accepted this month.  Japan is particularly interested in methane hydrates.
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  These compromising reasons, plus military sensitivity, are why the U.S. Senate has still not approved the Agreement, for American companies can still choose to actually mine for deep seabed minerals and not share royalties nor the technology.  These yellow nations are thus, theoretically, only observers.

The Star Advertiser this week reported that permits for deep sea mining could affect waters near Hawaii.  The United Nations seeks a green transition for mining of the seabed.  But to quote:

Engineering and technology used for deep sea mining are still evolving. Some companies are looking to vacuum materials from the seafloor using massive pumps. Others are developing artificial intelligence-based technology that would teach deep sea robots how to pluck nodules from the floor. Some are looking to use advanced machines that could mine materials off side of huge underwater mountains and volcanoes.

So is deep-sea mining a new gold rush or potential environmental disaster?  

• Probably a combination of both.  
• Some say mining the sea is better than mining land.  In any case, if sea operations begin, these land mines are cheaper to mine, so will continue anyway.

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  Without a doubt, more minerals will be needed to achieve net-zero global greenhouse gas emissions, which will quadruple demand for certain metals.
• One motivating factor is that China is more and more making it difficult for countries to purchase crucial minerals.  

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  The International Seabed Authority (ISA) has begin meeting Jamaica to discuss permitting and the environment. To quote Mining Weekly (read this article, for it goes into the ISA and nicely repeats what I said above):

A showdown in Jamaica is deciding the fate of the deep ocean

• Pro-deep seabed mining countries are China, Russia, Norway, Japan and South Korea.  Many others are calling for a moratorium.  The USA has no important voice.
• The ISA established an Assembly, consisting of all member (and, of course, not the U.S.), which will on from July 24-28 make key decisions to initiate deep seabed mining.

I'll end with two performances last night from America's Got talent.

• Simon & The Cow Belles with Somebody to Love.

• Andrew Stanton horrified the judges, and me.  If I were you, I'd skip this finalé.

Andrew is a 50ish-year old massage therapist from the the UK.  He has appeared on the Got Talent franchises in Europe, and was nauseatingly controversial every time.

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