Dubai Telegraph - The battle over mining mineral-rich deep sea 'nodules'

EUR -
AED 3.811555
AFN 76.284531
ALL 99.061141
AMD 408.230224
ANG 1.869351
AOA 950.136042
ARS 1103.559311
AUD 1.672305
AWG 1.868091
AZN 1.768428
BAM 1.950881
BBD 2.0943
BDT 126.02106
BGN 1.956649
BHD 0.391129
BIF 3080.059325
BMD 1.037828
BND 1.39868
BOB 7.166965
BRL 6.108701
BSD 1.037275
BTN 90.696771
BWP 14.356389
BYN 3.394558
BYR 20341.43687
BZD 2.083557
CAD 1.501479
CDF 2980.643574
CHF 0.937475
CLF 0.026001
CLP 997.772295
CNY 7.559339
CNH 7.571395
COP 4314.564056
CRC 526.37543
CUC 1.037828
CUP 27.502453
CVE 110.788592
CZK 25.086081
DJF 184.443274
DKK 7.458981
DOP 64.709009
DZD 140.427566
EGP 52.545844
ERN 15.567426
ETB 131.600663
FJD 2.432411
FKP 0.824435
GBP 0.825442
GEL 2.890394
GGP 0.824435
GHS 16.097123
GIP 0.824435
GMD 74.208728
GNF 8983.443101
GTQ 8.003667
GYD 217.003932
HKD 8.073008
HNL 26.724485
HRK 7.53661
HTG 136.249767
HUF 403.55998
IDR 17156.808497
ILS 3.735252
IMP 0.824435
INR 90.779422
IQD 1359.555219
IRR 43705.552949
ISK 145.507501
JEP 0.824435
JMD 163.530069
JOD 0.736032
JPY 156.316719
KES 133.364896
KGS 90.757098
KHR 4162.730123
KMF 492.968859
KPW 934.083618
KRW 1517.092424
KWD 0.320382
KYD 0.864396
KZT 517.148649
LAK 22526.066039
LBP 93751.516407
LKR 306.249355
LRD 206.061227
LSL 19.418165
LTL 3.064438
LVL 0.627772
LYD 5.069832
MAD 10.360126
MDL 19.395539
MGA 4903.739605
MKD 61.527792
MMK 2177.734731
MNT 3602.040473
MOP 8.309808
MRU 41.575799
MUR 48.574252
MVR 15.986438
MWK 1800.632652
MXN 21.322915
MYR 4.631313
MZN 66.328005
NAD 19.418161
NGN 1559.341054
NIO 38.140585
NOK 11.684084
NPR 145.114833
NZD 1.853928
OMR 0.399403
PAB 1.03739
PEN 3.865951
PGK 4.122929
PHP 60.132167
PKR 290.332887
PLN 4.195693
PYG 8221.272407
QAR 3.778773
RON 4.972448
RSD 117.161274
RUB 92.719837
RWF 1459.186747
SAR 3.89246
SBD 8.751713
SCR 14.934582
SDG 623.735228
SEK 11.162679
SGD 1.402422
SHP 0.824685
SLE 23.714764
SLL 21762.748731
SOS 593.122738
SRD 36.88702
STD 21480.952755
SVC 9.076117
SYP 13494.077719
SZL 19.418153
THB 35.5467
TJS 11.316423
TMT 3.632399
TND 3.288619
TOP 2.430702
TRY 37.781145
TTD 7.034299
TWD 34.165693
TZS 2692.127248
UAH 42.999489
UGX 3813.348985
USD 1.037828
UYU 44.038968
UZS 13906.901064
VES 66.840054
VND 26521.705062
VUV 128.765924
WST 2.94935
XAF 654.288485
XAG 0.033324
XAU 0.000363
XCD 2.804784
XDR 0.790112
XOF 654.354545
XPF 119.331742
YER 256.603452
ZAR 19.408481
ZMK 9341.704822
ZMW 29.535677
ZWL 334.180325
  • CMSD

    -0.0615

    23.56

    -0.26%

  • CMSC

    -0.1200

    23.39

    -0.51%

  • NGG

    0.6600

    62.13

    +1.06%

  • BCC

    1.1100

    103.66

    +1.07%

  • AZN

    0.5600

    76.21

    +0.73%

  • SCS

    0.0100

    12.16

    +0.08%

  • JRI

    0.2500

    13.02

    +1.92%

  • GSK

    0.2900

    37.59

    +0.77%

  • BCE

    -0.2700

    23.12

    -1.17%

  • RIO

    -0.1500

    60.56

    -0.25%

  • BTI

    0.2200

    38.93

    +0.57%

  • RELX

    0.7600

    48.37

    +1.57%

  • BP

    0.0000

    33.12

    0%

  • RBGPF

    65.0700

    65.07

    +100%

  • RYCEF

    0.0700

    9.48

    +0.74%

  • VOD

    0.0600

    8.81

    +0.68%

The battle over mining mineral-rich deep sea 'nodules'
The battle over mining mineral-rich deep sea 'nodules' / Photo: Handout - National Oceanography Centre / Smartex project (NERC)/AFP

The battle over mining mineral-rich deep sea 'nodules'

They might look like pebbles strewn across the seafloor, but to the unique animals of the ocean deep, polymetallic nodules are a crucial habitat.

Text size:

To the mining firms vying to extract them, on the other hand, they promise to be a "battery in a rock".

This month at a week-long meeting of the International Seabed Authority (ISA), those opposed to mining the nodules suffered a serious setback when they failed to take a first step toward an international moratorium on the controversial practice.

And on Tuesday a Nauru-backed company told AFP it would forge ahead with contentious plans to start industrial deep-sea mining in the Pacific in 2026, vowing to overcome environmental criticisms that have dogged the project.

The contract is for NORI (Nauru Ocean Resources Inc), a subsidiary of Canada's The Metals Company.

- Ancient -

Polymetallic nodules are most abundant in the Clarion-Clipperton Zone (CCZ) -- off the west coast of Mexico -- as well as in the central Indian Ocean and in the Peru Basin in the South Pacific, according to the ISA.

The nodules, found on the seafloor several kilometers below the surface, were probably formed over millions of years.

They likely started off as solid fragments -- perhaps a shark tooth -- that sank down to the soft muddy seabed, then grew slowly through the accumulation of minerals present in the water in extremely low concentrations.

Today, they reach up to 20 centimeters (nearly 8 inches) in size -- "metal pebbles", according to the French Research Institute for Exploitation of the Sea.

Adrian Glover, of Britain's Natural History Museum, thinks of them as like "potatoes" scattered on the seabed, roughly 15 to 20 kilograms (33 to 44 pounds) of them per square metre.

One of the reasons why the nodules have never been buried under the mud in the Pacific is because the sea is food poor, with fewer dead organisms drifting down to the depths.

The nodules were first recovered from the Pacific deep in the 1870s by the British Challenger expedition, which used thousands of meters of hemp rope, a steam-powered winch and plenty of manpower to dredge the westerly part of the CCZ.

"Straightaway they realised they were very interesting, it was actually one of the biggest discoveries of the voyage for them," said Glover.

But they were not considered to be a "resource", he added.

More than 30 countries have called for a moratorium on deep sea mining, including France, Canada, Chile, Brazil and the United Kingdom.

Adding to environmentalists' concerns is a new study, published last month, showing that these mineral-rich nodules that mining companies wish to harvest produce oxygen, which is vital for sealife.

- 'Clean' power? -

Multiple companies have lined up exploratory contracts and pursued tests for these nodules. One of these is NORI, whose contract covers four zones totalling some 75,000 square kilometers (about 30,000 square miles) in the CCZ.

These nodules are mainly composed of manganese and iron, but they also contain strategic minerals such as cobalt, nickel and copper.

According to the ISA, the CCZ contains around 21 billion metric tons of nodules, which could correspond to a reserve of six billion metric tons of manganese, 270 million metric tons of nickel and 44 million metric tons of cobalt, exceeding the known totals of these three minerals on land.

Advocates of undersea mining point to their potential use for green technology, particularly for electric vehicles.

"A battery in a rock," said The Metals Company.

"Polymetallic nodules are the cleanest path toward electric vehicles."

But that is an argument rejected by environmental NGOs and some scientists.

This claim is "more public relations than scientific fact", Michael Norton, of the European Academies' Science Advisory Council, told AFP, calling it "rather misleading" to say that demand cannot be met without undersea minerals.

- Impact fears -

Unlike the other two types of subsea mining resources regulated by the ISA -- including the mining of hydrothermal vents -- nodules do not require digging or cutting.

In tests carried out at the end of 2022, NORI lowered a collector vehicle to a depth of 4.3 kilometers (about 2.7 miles).

It swallowed nodules and sediment and then separated them, transporting the nodules to the surface vessel via a giant pipe and discharging the sediment into the water.

Catherine Weller, global policy director at the conservation organization Fauna & Flora, said that while the nodules are lying on the seafloor, they cannot just be "plucked" individually.

The impacts on the wider ocean system of churning up sediment and releasing wastewater was "simply unknown", she added.

Weller said the unique composition of the nodules which attracts mining firms is also what makes them such a special habitat for the creatures that live in the ocean depths.

Z.W.Varughese--DT