When you think about the deep sea, what images come to mind? Darkness, a sense of the unknown, perhaps fear of the creatures looming in its depths. These images that arise in our minds are justified. We have, after all, only explored 5% of our oceans. Contrary to the common conceptions, however, we have not found beasts on the ocean floor. Instead, we struck gold.
Deus ex abysso
Two rows up in the periodic table from gold, there are metals such as manganese, cobalt, nickel, copper and zinc. Venturing to the north-west, you can also find lithium. All these minerals have one thing in common: They are incredibly valuable and can be found in abundance throughout the deep seas.
Climate change is still widely recognized as one of the most pressing issues of our time despite the current media landscape portraying a different narrative. What has not been established, however, is a common way to deal with this enormous problem. There is an ongoing debate across the ideological spectrum on how to address the issue. The dominant argument is that of the green transition – retrofitting the economy with environmentally sustainable technologies that do not rely on fossil fuels, where possible, and finding other ways of decarbonizing sectors where abatement is difficult. This has the added benefit of leaving the underlying organization of the economy untouched. To do this, copious amounts of raw materials are needed. The attentive reader will have figured out by now, where they may come from. According to S&P Global, the demand for critical minerals found in the abyss will jump by 286% in the case of lithium or 96% for cobalt by 2035 alone.
It almost seems like a divine blessing that the materials we need to survive the climate crisis appear to be lying around, ripe for the taking. As with many ‘too good to be true’ scenarios, however, there are significant drawbacks.
The riches at the bottom of the sea
“How do we get these minerals?”, would be the first question to ask. Mining on land is incredibly destructive to the environment and surrounding communities, yet the mining sector continues to expand in response to the growing demand. The minerals on the seafloor have a distinct advantage compared to traditional mining – they are tightly packed in nodules, exposed in the water instead of being hidden within tons of rocks. These nodules are about as big as potatoes and comprise multiple crucial metals, most importantly manganese. Others are located within hydrothermal vents or in the crust of the seabed.
Machines such as excavators used in traditional mining are of no use in the depths. Moreover, economically viable deep-sea mining can only be done in certain areas of the oceans, where the density of minerals is high enough, such as the Carion-Clipperton Zone. Specialized machines, outfitted with vacuums and chainsaws, need to be deployed. It’s here that trouble arises. These machines are expensive to use, so the return must be great.
Ruining the most fragile ecosystem
Lowering these massive machines onto the seabed has major consequences. Sediment at the bottom of the oceans, depending on the location, settles over thousands of years – but it would be a mistake to label the seabed in the deep seas as lifeless. The seafloor provides a habitat for microbes and other small, often sedentary, lifeforms. Around hydrothermal vents, the biodiversity is even more abundant. These organisms are instrumental to the balance of the seafloor ecosystem. Some even inhabit the nodules which have the most potential for mining. Furthermore, mining these zones has more wide-reaching consequences than the immediate destruction of habitat and disturbance of species.
Studies are regularly done to check both the economic and environmental viability of deep-sea mining. For the latter, small areas are mined and later revisited to assess the ecosystem’s regeneration. In all cases so far assessed, decades after mining, regeneration has been limited at most and usually nonexistent. This is especially worrisome when realizing that the oceans’ ecosystems work hierarchically. This means that the biggest organisms – large fish, mammals and humans – rely on smaller ones. The smallest ones, found on the seafloor, lay the basis of the entire marine food chain. Crucially, the marine food chain includes us as human beings. More than three billion people depend on the ocean as their primary source of protein, particularly in developing countries.
Moreover, there are other unintended consequences. Because the ecosystems in the abyss develop at a slow rate, we have yet to know to what extent large-scale commercial mining would affect the planet’s wider ecosystem.
A glimmer of hope
Faced with the mounting pressures of the climate crisis, as well as states and businesses wanting to capitalize on the riches at the bottom of the sea, it is difficult to be optimistic. There are, however, some positive developments. The International Seabed Authority, the United Nations organ responsible for issuing mining licenses on the seafloor, has recently appointed a new Secretary-General with a strong track record in environmental issues. Moreover, international pressure has been mounting with over 30 states, including Austria, calling for a precautionary pause on deep-sea mining. The future of the industry remains uncertain – and that may be a good thing.
There are only a few ways to handle the climate crisis. Technological fixes like deep-sea mining are alluring, not least due to their harmlessness to the current economic structure. They are also politically facile. But they pose more dangers and variability than other, more radical ideas. Traditional mining is destructive, and we have no idea how destructive deep-sea mining would be. A “business as usual” approach will not allow us to overcome the climate crisis. Deep-sea mining won’t save us. We must think even farther outside the box to face humanity’s greatest challenge.
Written by: Konstantin Philipp, Edited by: Sergio Uribe Henao
