Companies leading the effort to collect battery metals from the bottom of the ocean say seabed mining is inevitable despite high-profile environmental concerns.
The battle is over the trillions of nodules littering the sea floor outside of the jurisdiction of any single nation. They contain manganese, nickel, cobalt and copper, all of which are either used in electric vehicle batteries, grid scale energy storage or other green technology like wind turbines and solar arrays.
Covering more than half of the total area of the world’s oceans, the international area in question is governed by the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea and its organizational arm, the International Seabed Authority.
The authority is debating rules for deep sea mining at a meeting in Jamaica scheduled to conclude Friday with a vote on a new secretary general who will oversee the body in a four-year term to start on Jan. 1.
The contest is between a candidate seen as more friendly to conservationists and the incumbent who is considered more pro-mining.
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Craig Shesky, chief financial officer of The Metals Company TMC, told Benzinga he is fairly agnostic about who wins.
“No matter who’s at the helm we are at the point of a snowball rolling downhill,” he said. “There’s nothing to stop it at this point. This is now inevitable.”
Privately held Impossible Metals‘ CEO Oliver Gunasekara voiced a similar opinion in an interview with Benzinga, saying whether or not there’s a change of leadership, it won’t affect his company.
Perhaps more important than the outcome of the election are the rules for seabed mining being hashed out behind the scenes at the authority’s meeting in Jamaica. The body is aiming to have those finalized by 2025.
A minority of member nations have voiced some level of opposition to seabed mining in international waters, ranging from France, who wants the practice banned, to nations who have called for a precautionary pause.
Many critics of seabed mining want to hold off on the practice until the environment at the bottom of the ocean is better understood.
While it makes sense to have regulations that mitigate potential negative impacts to seafloor life, such as sediment plumes, an outright ban on seafloor mining would be similar to opposing any form of nuclear power, Gunasekara said.
Conservation groups in recent years have eased their stance on nuclear power, as it holds the potential to provide non-carbon-producing baseload electricity to the grid to fill in the gaps when wind and solar farms aren’t able to produce energy.
Shesky also compares the seabed mining debate to the one about nuclear energy, saying that people will realize seabed mining is better than the alternative on land, which can destroy large swaths of habitat, such as forests.
“We’re not really mining,” Shesky said. “You’re picking up rocks off the seafloor.”
The political brouhaha between pro-seabed mining countries such as Norway, China and Japan and detractors such as Chile and France is “driven by the extreme NGOs,” Gunasekara said.
Shesky suggests Chile and France are against deep sea mining to protect their domestic mining industries. Chile is the largest producer of copper in the world, and the economy of France’s overseas territory of New Caledonia is heavily reliant on nickel mining.
“Of course they don’t want to do it,” Shesky said.
Shesky says there is no legal basis for a moratorium as the seabed authority has a legal mandate to move forward.
Now Read:
• Future Of Deep-Sea Mining Might Rest On International Seabed Authority Leadership Election
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