Ever the disruptor, in April, US President Donald Trump took a naked flame to the already incendiary issue of deep-sea mining. Through an executive order he opened the waters – actually the seabed – of the US to mining.
Just to be clear, deep-sea mining is not a new proposition, but it is one steeped in contention.
In 2019, Mining Technology reported on mounting international concern surrounding proposals to mine the seabed in the hunt for critical minerals. That debate remains, with supporters and opponents ever more entrenched. “The United States has a core national security and economic interest in maintaining leadership in deep-sea science and technology and seabed mineral resources,” Trump said upon signing his directive.
It was a move met with furore, not just from environmentalists but other governments too. China labelled it a violation international law, claiming it “harms the overall interests of the international community”.
Speaking with Mining Technology, Sofia Tsenikli, campaign director of the Deep-Sea Conservation Coalition, urged governments not to rush into a new and “highly risky and destructive industry”.
Jessica Battle, lead of the No Deep Seabed Mining Initiative and High Seas Treaty with the WWF, went on to cast doubt about the real appetite for such projects, suggesting it was only a handful of countries that were “hedging their bets on the industry”.
She said: “Thirty-two countries to date are calling for a global moratorium, pause or ban on the industry at least until there is enough science… to determine whether deep seabed mining can be done without harming the marine environment and the necessary protective measures are in place.”
These are views those in the deep-sea mining space vehemently contest. “Since 2011, we have collected more environmental data than all other ISA [International Seabed Authority] contractors combined,” says Gerard Barron, executive chairman and CEO of Canada-based the Metals Company (TMC), which announced just days after Trump’s executive order that it had applied to the US Government for a licence to explore (and perhaps later exploit) the seabed.
Barron adds: “After 23 offshore campaigns, conducted in collaboration with many of the world’s leading marine research institutions and expert industry contractors, I can state with great certainty that we know enough to begin.”
He is not alone in believing the abundance of research allows for exploration to at the very least commence. Co-founder and CEO of California-based Impossible Metals, Oliver Gunasekara, told Mining Technology during a call that before any concession can be granted, as much as $75m of research is undertaken, each time, to collect scientific baseline and environmental data over several years.
“This is as detailed as measuring all the bacteria that live on the seabed floor; it is very comprehensive. Only then can an environmental impact statement be written and then submitted to the regulator,” he adds.
Lack of regulatory consensus
For years – 14 in fact – the ISA has been debating deep-sea mining. The authority has been working with 168 member states, all parties to the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), a legal framework overseeing all activities on the world’s seas and oceans, to draft Exploitation Regulations. However, it has been slow-going.
A significant hurdle is the lack of consensus among members and growing international concern of the harm opponents say deep-sea mining could cause.
“In 2022, no countries were supporting a moratorium. Three years later, there are 32 countries supporting a moratorium, precautionary pause or ban,” says Tsenikli. She adds that more than 60 businesses and financial institutions, human rights experts, fishing groups, indigenous leaders and communities, and civil society have opposed the prospect of deep-sea mining; she also suggests any code is “still years away”.
However, Gunasekara takes a different view. “There is always gaps in scientific knowledge. We are never going to know everything, and that is the nature of science,” he says. “The question is, do we know enough to make an informed decision?”
Opponents would say “no”. In addition to the economic, cultural and human rights implications they have long argued the fundamental issue is what, if any, destruction mining ocean floors might do to ecosystems.
The risks of seabed mining
One of the risks of deep-sea mining to have gained most traction is the potential damage of removing polymetallic nodules from the environment, including the resulting sediment displacement, noise and the impact on marine life.
But both Barron and Gunasekara are confident their technologies will largely eliminate those fears.
“Some concerns like noise have been fairly simple to address because we were never going to produce that much noise in the first place,” Barron says, adding that most would be generated by vessels at the surface, like other marine activities.
Barron says TMC has collected data that shows noise levels that could cause a behavioural response is constrained to 3.8km.
“When it comes to sediment plumes, we know they stay low and settle fast, but we are not sitting still. The wealth of data from our test mining campaign is already being put to good use by our engineering partner, Allseas, who [is] hard at work refining the diffuser designs for our commercial collector to limit sediment transport at the seafloor.”
He adds that TMC’s 2022 test mining had already demonstrated sediment plumes, which some had warned would travel tens of thousands of kilometres, remained “within roughly two metres of the seafloor” and settled at the test site.
Gunasekara, too, is confident the environmental impact of deep-sea mining can be managed. He says his company continues to work on its Eureka architecture, its AI-enabled autonomous underwater vehicle that conducts precision selective harvesting through its life detection algorithms.
Labelling it as a brand-new approach, he says: “Our system is completely different; it hovers [and] never touches the seabed floor. It uses its AI to look at the nodules and if we see life on them [such as corals and sponges] we do not disturb it… We have decided, as a policy, to leave 60% of the nodules undisturbed.”
Of course, Impossible Metals and TMC are just two interested commercial parties – there are many others – but both men exude care and concern for the oceans when speaking on the matter.
Gunasekara is pragmatic on the issue too, accepting that mining – at sea or on land – will always have some impact. For him the question is more about which is less harmful. Until mining at sea begins – and even when it does – we may not have a definitive answer.
The uncertain future for mining at sea
There are currently around 40 areas under ISA jurisdiction earmarked for exploration. The US and some countries in the Pacific are supporting projects in their waters; but there are still those opposed. This international discord means that the deep-sea mining debate rumbles on.
“Despite industry pressure to rush the process at the ISA so they can begin to mine… states continued to push back that absolutely no mining should begin without rules, regulations and procedures in place,” Tsenikli says, speaking of the regulator’s most recent meeting.
Barron, though, is pessimistic for what the future might hold in relation to the ISA delivering a mandate. “The discussions at the ISA are increasingly divorced from their original mandate,” he says. “While ISA officials publicly reaffirm commitment to UNCLOS and multilateralism, many privately admit that commercial industry is no longer welcome.”
Labelling it their “last green trophy”, he says the authority is now in the grip of members and non-governmental organisations that are “deliberately delaying” the adoption of regulations “with the goal of killing commercial participation”.
Is international consensus needed?
Wherever you stand on the debate, it seems the ISA is unlikely to rule one way or the other anytime soon – but does it need to? Perhaps Trump’s ambitions to shake the world order to its core might find a bedfellow in deep-sea mining. Barron says the arrival of the Trump administration with its drive to bring industry and the supply chains back to the US has “proved a game-changer”.
“A lot of those faces who had publicly championed the advantages of this remarkable resource in opposition are now front and centre in Trump’s cabinet across key departments like State and Commerce,” he says.
Asked what his hope for the future is, Barron adds: “My hope is that this industry can become a model for responsible resource development – helping to slow the proliferation of more impactful operations in our most biodiverse habitats, while also helping to achieve the economic aspirations of developing states, has been a bit of a rude awakening.”
However, Battle and Tsenikli don’t see it as an argument they have lost just yet. They will go on disputing its need, challenging would-be deep-sea miners’ research and pushing for a pause at the very least.
Battle is hopeful that the industry and facilitating nations can be talked down. Quoting David Attenborough from his recently released film Ocean: “After almost 100 years on the planet, I now understand the most important place on Earth is not on land, but at sea”, she says that realisation will grow and spread to others.
“It will be regarded as too expensive and too risky to develop the industry.” Only time will tell.
