At the bottom of the sea, at a depth of 2,000 to 6,000 meters, lie the treasures of the 21st century: tons of untapped precious metals in the form of so-called manganese nodules. The earthy-brown to black nuggets of minerals, composed mostly of copper, nickel, cobalt and zinc, could provide important raw materials for the green transformation of the industry. According to analysts from BBC Research, the ocean resources could have a market volume of up to 15 billion dollars – and soon trigger a new commodity frenzy.
companies like The Metals Company Canada or Allseas from the Switzerland getting ready to dig the nuggets from the depths. But mining has been banned ever since the United Nations International Convention on the Law of the Sea in 1982 declared the deep seabed beyond national sovereignty and the mineral resources to be part of the “Common Heritage of Humanity”. The manganese nodules must not simply be mined.
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Nodule booty: German scientists with funded manganese nodules for a study in 2016
Photo: Federal Institute for Geosciences and Natural Resources/dpa
So far, that hasn’t been a problem either – mining on land has been sufficient to meet global demand for the metals. But with the advancing energy revolution and the resulting growing demand for precious metals for batteries and solar systems, the ocean is becoming more interesting again. In 2017, some states and companies tried to negotiate the set of rules again with the United Nations. The debate calmed down during the pandemic, but since the start of the Ukraine war and the explosion in commodity prices at the latest, greed has increased again. The funding companies and individual governments are now increasing the pressure on the International Maritime Authority (IMB) founded by the UN. With success: it is currently proposing to allow deep-sea mining from 2023 in order to get to the important metals in the sea.
The idea is a nightmare for environmentalists: They fear destructive effects on the seas and on previously unknown ecosystems, as Rebecca Zitoun, scientist at the Geomar Helmholtz Center for Ocean Research in Kiel, reports. Before deep-sea mining begins, it is important to examine the possible consequences more closely. “We scientists still need time and money to study the exact impacts of deep-sea mining on marine ecosystems and what social, cultural and economic consequences can be expected,” says Zitoun.
Energy transition yes – but at what price?
Research results so far show that this damage could be enormous: For every 5000 tons of manganese nodules mined, about one square kilometer of seabed is mined. This can lead to so-called cloudy currents, explains Zitoun – a torrent of raging amounts of water on slopes under water. The effect is like an avalanche, which could endanger marine life, but also humans: tsunamis could be triggered by the shifts in the sea.
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Studies by German ocean researchers also show possible long-term consequences of deep-sea mining: In 1989, they started a long-term experiment off the coast of Peru to explore the effects on biodiversity on the sea floor there. To do this, they plowed up the seabed in an area of about eleven square kilometers. In 2019, 30 years later, the traces of the intervention were still visible. “The hard substrate of the nodules forms the habitat of many organisms. Removing them means depriving these organisms of their livelihood,” says Zitoun. Deep-sea mining therefore means a massive intervention in marine life. “We now have to find out whether mining is worth the risk,” says the scientist. The dilemma can be reduced to a simple question: Yes, the energy transition – but at what price?
Swiss company promotes deep-sea mining
Companies like Global Sea Mineral Resources based in Belgium, the English company Seabed Resources or The Metals Company based in Canada are already intensively investigating whether and how manganese nodules can be mined commercially. They all want to start drilling under water as soon as possible. And advertise that deep-sea mining could be a green alternative to mining on land. Unlike there, no holes are drilled or shafts dug, but the seabed is plowed up with robots.
One of the pioneers of the purpose-built machines with rollers and helical screws is The Metals Company. The company came to the American tech exchange Nasdaq in 2021 via a SPAC IPO. The company’s strategic partner and investor is Allseas, a global leader in offshore technology based in Switzerland. Allseas specializes in laying offshore pipelines, moving heavy goods and building subsea structures.
At the end of 2021, together with The Metals Company, the company presented the first 228-meter-long ship for deep-sea mining. The “Hidden Gem”, a former drilling ship that has been converted into the world’s first ship for collecting manganese nodules in the deep sea, has been in the port of Rotterdam since September from The Metals Company, Gerard Barron (55), is confident that the Hidden Gem could still bring the first nodules from the depths in 2022. “We will revolutionize the extraction of raw materials”, he said to the mirror
. Investors, however, have doubts about how lucrative the business really will be – the share price has fallen by more than 90 percent.
With The Metals Company, a total of 17 mining companies have currently received a license for initial research drilling from the International Maritime Administration (IMB) in the tropical Northeast Pacific – in addition to private companies, some state-owned companies from Pacific island states such as the Cook Islands or Nauru are also trying, if possible soon to start extracting raw materials from the sea. In June 2021, Nauru applied to the IMB to accelerate the approval and research time. So far, they are only allowed to use the licenses to carry out the first test drillings, but not to start with the commercial mining of the manganese nodules.
BMW advocates a postponement
It is a high-risk business – also because it is completely unclear how high the demand for the controversial deep-sea treasures will really be. Example BMW: The massive research gaps are at the German car manufacturer bmw been the reason, together with the environmental protection organization WWF a global alliance for a moratorium on deep-sea mining. “We wanted to send a signal from the industry that we can only use minerals once their mining has been adequately researched and the consequences for the environment are known,” says Claudia Becker, an expert in sustainable supply chain management at BMW. In 2020, Becker had the first talks with the WWF. The official signing of the global alliance for a moratorium on deep-sea mining was in 2021. In addition to BMW, corporations such as Google, Samsung SDI or Volvo the alliance.
Ukraine-War, the consequences of the pandemic and a ban on combustion engines from 2035 would have complicated and increased the need for raw materials for car batteries, but not changed opinion on the subject. “Our position on deep-sea mining hasn’t changed since then,” says Becker. The company continues to support the required moratorium.
How long BMW supports the postponement depends on the research time required. “We would only use raw materials from the deep sea if their sustainable extraction is possible,” says Becker. So far, the raw materials on land would be sufficient for the construction of their batteries. BMW commissioned two suppliers from Morocco and Australia to supply the cobalt. The company was also able to reduce the share of the silver-grey metal to less than ten percent.
Profit promise for developing countries
Tim Packeiser, marine ecologist at WWF, hopes BMW’s corporate initiative will further delay the decision on whether to start deep-sea mining projects. “It is an important signal from business to speak out in favor of more research time,” he says. However, a postponement may not be enough. “So far there is no evidence that there can be sustainable deep-sea mining,” he says. “The terms sustainability and deep-sea mining just don’t go together.”
Packeiser fears that individual countries interested in deep-sea mining could put increasing pressure on economically weaker countries with access to the ocean. “Developing countries could give in to this pressure because the deep-sea miners promise them high profits if they are allowed to use their ocean areas for mining.”
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However, at the end of June at the United Nations Ocean Conference in Lisbon, the first three ocean nations spoke out in favor of postponing deep-sea mining. European countries are not among them. French Prime Minister Emmanuel Macron (44) surprisingly announced that he would not currently support deep-sea mining. He dares to go much further than they do G7-States in their Ocean Deal published at the end of May, in which stricter environmental regulations for deep-sea mining are called for.
The Federal Environment Minister is still reluctant
And Germany? Plays for time. “At the meeting of environment ministers of the G7 countries, we took a skeptical position on deep-sea mining. I’m sure that going into commercial deep-sea mining is out of the question in the long term,” said Federal Environment Minister Steffi Lemke (54) to manager magazin. “Certainly we have problems with the procurement of raw materials in various areas due to the collapsing supply chains due to the Ukraine war. The solution to be independent of Russia to become, but it cannot be deep-sea mining,” said the minister. Germany cannot engage in deep-sea mining as long as there are significant gaps in knowledge about the ecosystem and negative environmental impacts cannot be assessed.
Should deep-sea mining come anyway, scientists demand that only one or two mines be in operation at any one time. If all 17 companies are allowed to work at the same time, this could not only raise dust plumes underwater, but also lead to extreme noise disturbances under water, as a study shows. The noise could cause problems for living beings in an area of more than five million square kilometers – an area larger than that European Union.