Are deep-sea metals a vital resource or an environmental disaster in the making?

Are deep-sea metals a vital resource or an environmental disaster in the making?

Subject: Geo

Sec: Eco Geo

Context:

Mining the valuable metals and rare earths found in the ocean floor could permanently damage fragile marine systems. The ocean floor holds vast quantities of metals and rare earths. But mining these valuable resources could permanently damage fragile marine systems.

Current state of deep-sea mining:

• By 2025, the ISA wants to define a set of legally binding rules to manage deep-sea mining — without these rules, any planned mining operation will not be able to get started.
• Germany, Brazil and the Pacific Island nation of Palau, have said they won’t agree on the new rules until their environmental impact has been fully investigated.
• China, together with Norway, Japan and the microstate Nauru in the Central Pacific have pushed for a quick agreement so that mining companies can start putting their plans into action.

Profits from deep-sea mining:

• The focus is primarily on manganese nodules and other minerals found on the ocean floor outside territorial waters.
• These areas are classified as the “common heritage of mankind,” raw materials that belong to everyone, not one particular country.
• Managing and monitoring any potential mining activities in these regions would be the responsibility of the ISA, as outlined in the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea.
• The ISA has so far issued 31 exploration licenses for certain areas, five of which have gone to Chinese companies.
• But several other countries, including Germany, India and Russia, have also been exploring the seabed.
• The UN’s Sea convention stipulates that any activities in the high seas must be equitably shared among states, and that would include profits from deep-sea mining.

What kind of metals can be found in the ocean floor?

• Mining companies are particularly interested in polymetallic nodules, also known as manganese nodules.
• These potato-sized lumps, which form over millions of years from sediment deposits, are composed mainly of manganese, cobalt, copper and nickel.
• As the world makes the transition to renewable energy, the International Energy Agency expects the demand for these metals to double by 2040.
• In addition to manganese nodules, mining companies are also targeting polymetallic sulphides, which contain large amounts of copper, zinc, lead, iron, silver and gold, and cobalt-rich ferromanganese crusts, which are especially hard to break up and recover from the ocean depths.

Deep-sea mining harm marine ecosystems:

• Manganese nodules and mineral crusts aren’t dead rocks — they’re an important habitat for many sea creatures.
• At this depth, conditions are extreme: food is scare, sunlight is non-existent, and the water pressure is 100 times higher than at sea level.
• For that reason, the seabed ecosystem — and species that have adapted to living in these conditions — are extremely fragile.
• Mining robots, which vacuum up huge expanses in their search for manganese nodules, would destroy the ocean floor and suck up countless sea creatures.
• Even marine life found kilometers away from these mining areas would be disturbed by light and noise pollution as well as the far-reaching, swirling clouds of sediment.
• Fishing activity above the mining areas could be permanently disrupted.