Could Deep-Sea Mining Fix The Global Minerals Shortage?
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 12 มิ.ย. 2024
- There are billions of tons and billions of dollars worth of critical minerals at the bottom of the ocean, including nickel, copper, cobalt and manganese. These metals are vital to electric vehicle batteries and the clean energy transition as a whole. But the debate over whether or not to extract them has become a global controversy, as many fear the potential ecological disruptions it could cause in a part of our planet that remains largely unexplored. What’s more, international regulations for deep-sea mining have yet to be finalized, and the United Nations-affiliated regulatory agency in charge, the International Seabed Authority, recently missed a key deadline to do so.
In the midst of this uncertainly, The Metals Company is forging ahead. The company plans to submit a mining application next year and begin extraction by 2025. But considering the absence of global governance, many remain concerned that this timeline is too aggressive. Major corporations including Google and Samsung, alongside automakers BMW, Volkswagen, Volvo, Renault and Rivian have lined up against deep-sea mining - promising not to source minerals from the ocean until the scientific uncertainties are addressed, and regulations are in place.
CORRECTION: At 5:43 we misstate the name of The Metals Company’s project area that is ranked as having the largest undeveloped nickel deposit in the world, and encompasses nearly 29,000 square miles of seafloor. This area is called NORI. NORI-D is a smaller subset of the full NORI license area.
Chapters:
00:00 - Introduction
02:10 - Minerals shortage
03:39 - The potential of deep-sea mining
07:39 - Great unknowns
12:31 - An uncertain future
Produced by: Katie Brigham
Edited by: Nic Golden Henry
Additional Camera: Liam Mays
Additional Reporting: Catherine Clifford
Animation: Jason Reginato
Supervising Producer: Jeniece Pettitt
Additional Footage: The Metals Company, Deep CCZ Expedition, University of Hawai’i, NOAA Ocean Exploration, Greenpeace, International Seabed Authority, Getty Images
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Could Deep-Sea Mining Fix The Global Minerals Shortage?
Destroy the bottom of the ocean like we’ve destroyed everything else? What could go wrong?
how else are you going to make batteries for clean cars, with fart ?
@@TheGercek53maybe we should learn to recycle the batteries for the cars better, because otherwise we are moving from one non renewable to another. With no end in sight for the amounts of precious minerals we will need. Just endless consumption
@@TheGercek53how are those cars "clean" as you claim if they are destroying forests today and the ocean tomorrow?
Google, Bmw, Volvo, Rivian, VW, Renault all gave the thumbs up to deep sea mining so it should be ok! Oh and they make EVs as well, how convenient! They're gonna drive those mining vehicles all over the seabed but it'll be great for the environment on land so you don't have to worry! How much did CNBC get from those companies to do this report?
@@johnc3351 we can smell the bias that comes from corruption or condoned methods of securing agreement. It’s not until the world is on fire and we end up with a planet that looks like Wall-E that they may say they messed up.
Yeah mining the deep sea for rare earth minerals sounds really ‘green’ 😂
It’s all relative. Is it greener than open pit mining, or chemical pump mining which are the two main ways that we currently get rare earth minerals and other metals for batteries? Perhaps.
Obviously the greener thing is for most people to give up vehicles and walk or bike, but that ain’t happening.
The biggest problem that threatens human existence is greed.. There is no shortage of anything....The greedy few are known to use corrupt media to raise false alarms about crisis that does not exist...Even the so called climate change agenda is driven by corporate greed. These greedy few have recently declared water a scarce resource when it is a well known fact that water makes up more than 60% of our planet...ANy water including ocean water can be converted to drinking water.....ANy economic activity that threatens our ecosystems is not even worth talking about
Exactly... that's why Gerard Barron, CEO of The Metals Company, tries to call it "harvesting" minerals... to avoid the negative connotations.
But that's misleading: the environmental impact of deep sea mining would be HUGE.
Find out more about The Metals Company's & Gerard Barron here: th-cam.com/video/x_NhLJPLGkY/w-d-xo.html
The quality of this video from CNBC is amazing.
Good quality, interesting information and interesting subjects!
Continue the good work!
If you were doing research on mining, you would know that this is dull of lies.
It's misleading as hell. Please watch "Just Have A Think" 's video on deep sea mining and the lies and vicious plans for exploitation.
@@stephenziga2319gotta get the masses to feel justified for it. LFG $tmc
Years ago I was involved in some of exploratory work for the now defunct Nautilus Minerals Solwara-1 project in Papua New Guinea. What I saw there gave a lot cause for concern and I don't think you can regulate this industry enough to make it safe. My biggest concern is that there are reckless players ( and nations ) in this field and they will do irreparable harm. Unfortunately a oil & gas services company I work with now wants to get into seafloor mining and they are very safety conscious. I'm not sure I even trust them to do it .
It will happen. Ecological destruction is not important
Except those kind of countries are going to do that regardless. Even against a Deep-Sea mining moratorium.
@@Veritas.0 That's what I am afraid of...
To give some context to your comment: the Solwara-1 project was for a different and more destructive type of mining of Seafloor Massive Sulphides (SMS) at 1,600 meters waterdepth than the harvesting of Polymetallic Nodules (PMN) in the Clarion Clipperton Zone at 4,000+ meters waterdepth that this documentary focuses on. The SMS zones are much richer in fauna than the PMN zones, where due to its depths no flora exists either. TMC and their sponsors take the research into environmental consequences very seriously (as they are obliged to by the ISA) and incorporate measures into their designs to reduce the impacts as much as possible (for instance by the hopper and membranes design on the collector vehicle to direct flow back to seafloor, keeping 98% of sediment plumes below 2 meter height in order to settle back to the seabed).
I I know I will drive environmentalists up a wall by saying this, but there really is very, very little life down there. And for all the conjecture and doomsday speak that make the shiny headlines, when you look at actual scientific studies and tests on nodule harvesting the impact is little compared to land-based alternatives. So until the world has enough critical minerals to recycle, one should really be daring enough to acknowledge the relativity of these bads.
@@markboon, even if that were all true, the nodules take millions of years to form, so it's a one and done type of thing, and while there is "little" life down there we just really don't know the complete picture of our oceans ecosystem. We know more about the moon and stars than we know about our oceans, and we're not doing a great job of taking care of the problems we KNOW we're already causing, I hate the hippie dippy people more than most so, if the entire company puts their, and their family's lives on the line I'd be ok with seabed mining. But if any damage is done we toss the whole lot, investors and their families included into the worlds largest woodchipper, feet first.
Isn't That metal machine will disturb the mineral and life rich upper layer of deep sea, make it worst?
We should look into it in the future but it should be done in an extremely regulated way with an extra focus with regards to impact on ecosystem but it shouldn't be an excuse to reduce recycling of the available metals.
There is no shortage of anything on the planet....The biggest problem in the world and the cause of all the crises we face as mankind in the world today is greed.....A few people want everything for themselves...
It will never be done by any corporation anywhere. "responsibly" is not in their playbook.
please dont promote dangerous ideas like these.
especially how secret all the licensing procedures are being conducted.
it will ruin us all
@@jarednovel A few people from the developed countries alright not having enough ever since colonial age when resources were taken from peoples lands like africa
Exactly. The main strategy must be recycing metals and switching to alternative materials when possible.
Land-based mining has a bad impact on the environment, but deep sea mining wouldn't replace traditional mining activities, but rather complement them. Deep-sea mining has the potential to disrupt natural habitats, reduce commercial fisheries & contribute to CO2 emissions.
Find out more about the past failures and shady practices of The Metals Company & Gerard Barron here: th-cam.com/video/x_NhLJPLGkY/w-d-xo.html
@@PigeonsSoapbox Even plastics that are everywhere now can be collected and converted into crude oil then distilled into various fuels through a well established method of Pyrolysis....We only need to start treating all waste as raw materials...Even sewage can be used to produce methane in digesters....It is actually possible to recycle all wastes on inn the world 100% without wasting anything
There’s a company called Impossible Metals and these guys are trying to solve the deep sea mining problem by introducing a new way of mining using autonomous vehicles and computer vision. Would love to hear the experts take on them!
I don't think that would "solve deep sea mining". The problem of deep sea mining is the destruction of ecosystems.
Countries should only mine where they fish therefore if there are any issues it'll hurt them and hopefully, the public would pressure them to stop it.
Do you use telephone? A computer? A TV? RTV AGD, electric scooter, bicycle, watch, ipods? Then stop, act now, as the society. Don't be surprised they are trying to get minerals from the seabed, while in exclusive economic zone there is none now. And these minerals that can't be found in these zones anymore are in deep seabed.
That's a horrible idea. Why purposefully cause harm? The area of interest for deep sea mining,the CCZ, is so deep that there is little to no life because it is so dark down there.
The Metals Company should make solid commitments in safety research.
@@pineviewcapI don’t think anyone thinks it’s okay, and I feel like governments have made progress on this issue in the past 5 years. Companies too are now incentivized to to address these issues in their supply chains due to the huge negative PR implications from the awareness of these atrocities.
Well, we can allow "The Metals Company" to try to do this somewhat sustainably or wait until the Chinese start deep sea mining in the cheapest manner possible with no regard for ocean life. Yet, at the same token land mining won't be reduced or stopped. Indonesia needs to profit from industry just like any other country, so the rainforest there will continue to disappear until the mines are petered out.
Recycle and reuse minerals can be more environmental friendly and much cheaper than mining in the fragile sea ecosystems.
We have to have the materials first before recycling them lol!!!
@@alanmay7929because we don’t have enough of them to practice on already?
I wish the conservationists would provide an alternative to deep-sea mining. We need these minerals for the green transition. We don't have enough of it. New terrestrial mines are opposed. Deep-sea mines are opposed. Where are the minerals going to come from? If you can't provide an alternative, and you just say "no" to everything, you're going to be left out of the solution.
The solution is eliminating the car dependency forced on us by the automakers through investment in electric rail and bus service plus accessible walking and cycling infrastructure. Also regulating vehicle size banning resource and energy wasteful large pickups and SUVs.
@@richardcampbell7255this is absolutely the answer, and people just don’t want to hear it because car culture has been institutionalized in the United States.
@@richardcampbell7255 Cars make up about 16% of US emissions. We could get rid of every passenger car on the road today and it would make a small dent towards Net Zero. This video mostly mentioned lithium ion batteries for cars, but these materials are needed for everything in an electrified grid. If we're going to electrify the grid (by making more public transport, for example), we're going to need more of these materials.
Welcome to the environmental hippie movement. Just ignore them and make the decision with the best trade-off.
Asteroids
Human desires to buy things they don't need, force corporations to harm environment.
Corporations desire to sell things humans don't need, force humans to harms the environment.
Sad reality. Then they will dump all these afterwards. These vicious people.
yeah those poor multibillion conglomerates can‘t do anything against it, you‘re right
@@penegedi They wouldn't be multibillion conglomerates if they wasn't producing what people want.
The world is stuck between a rock and a hard place 😮😢 when it’s comes down to the environment it’s a double edged sword
Can we all just agree that Greed is Bad!!!............can't wait to hear the sorry excuse that will be given when we then receive the collateral damage
I was a geology student back in the 1970s and ... in Oceanography class we knew then about manganese modules littering parts of the ocean floor. So I, for one, would love to see this challenging undersea mining operation become a fruitful endeavor.
Whyyyy???
So we can ruin yet another natural habitat irreparably?
We don't NEED those extra undersea minerals as much as companies are trying to make us believe.
Please don't side with dangerous corporate endeavors like these.
When are we going to learn to stop trusting corporations who just want to exploit?
Yes.
"we lift the modules to have a lower impact on the sea floor".
m8 you're driving a tank right behind your cute little lifting motion, the sea floor is gonna be rekt. It's like saying "we aim our cannon higher as to not break the windows of this house while we plow through it with our Abraham's".
After mining of the metal cores, can we just toss in like recycled iron back to help rebuild the deep sea ecosystem
An experiment was conducted on how much time it takes for the deep sea ecology to be restored back in 80s and even now it is not restored.
of course not.
No, it’ll just extend or slow the growth of the shortage.
Can I also would say if they're going to force the deep sea mining to stop then they should have all mineral strip-mined shut down because of how environmentally damaging to the ecosystem they are as a whole
An important question is what battery types are going to be used in the future. There are many different battery chemistry choices being researched, many of which have been shown to work, and a number of which may not use these minerals as much or at all.
Yes!
So many technologies are being developed that are moving away from conventional nickel and cobalt with great success.
We don't NEED to exploit yet another precarious habitat.
They just want to line their pockets while the rest of us burn
It'll be lithium batteries, idiot.
We need to create new regulations and understand all the environmental impacts of this new mining paradigm before making a decision
We also need to improve enforcement that is the second factor that goes unaccounted for as well. Too many bad players who just skirt even existing policies
@@dennisp8520agreed
Exactly! But The Metals Company & Gerard Barron have capture the International Seabed Authority & taken advantage of small island nations to lead us to this position.
You can learn more about this here: th-cam.com/video/x_NhLJPLGkY/w-d-xo.html
Why bother understanding the impacts if we're gonna do it anyway?
Exciting stuff.
6:55: ✅ Deep-sea mining could have a lower environmental impact compared to land-based mining, according to a lifecycle analysis.
9:27: ⏳ The International Seabed Authority (ISA) is under pressure to finalize regulations for deep-sea mining as private companies like The Metals Company push for expedited exploitation.
12:49: 🌊 The Metals Company is preparing to submit its mining application and begin production by the end of 2025, but deep-sea mining is not expected to have a significant impact on supply chains until the 2030s.
Recap by Tammy AI
Who tf is Tammy AI
Until the oceans are even more polluted and we start running out of minerals again
How about space mining?
space mine some bit coins
How do you easily restore a strip mine that's over eight hundred feet down and covers about 30 acres of land has a big pit house that fix anything the guy how much older to have to put back in there is totally economically unfeasible to refill in a strip mine
Imagine what miners could find in the Famous M Trench, perhaps whole new types of new elements that rival the classic 4 elements.
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Deep sea mining may be controversial, but your point regarding "the lesser of two evils" is very valid I think. Land mining in tropical biodiversity hotspots can be really damaging as you well point out.
So how much material is being pulled out per year? What if that stops due to mining?
This could be a good alternative but I will requested a special taxes or a profit portion to be distributed only for environmental purposes...
Mining the sea or ocean floor caused the war about the Mariana trench. Also caused nuclear war.
Do it. It will be better than land mining. For one I won't see it. And this will help the USA economy
The seabed robot scraping along the bottom of the seafloor like a vacuum cleaner seems... not great to me. It would be better if the robot "walked" along the floor the way the robot spot from boston dynamics works, and used robotic arms to grab the nodules instead. Even better would be if it left every other nodule on the floor, so that there are at least some nodules in a harvested location just in case they serve some environmental function. A robotic arm can grab some and leave some undisturbed in a way the vacuum cleaner method can't.
By buoyancy control the seabed robot (nodule collector vehicle) is hovering just above the seabed with just enough force (traction) on its tracks to manoeuvre. The nodules are lifted and sucked into the collector by a jetstream around a curved surface according to a principle called the coanda effect. No more than a layer of 4 inches deep is touched. Leaving every other nodule on the floor by collection of robotic arms would unfortunately not be economically viable or technically recommended as for the potential of breakdown of moving parts at 4,000 meter depth and the immense water pressure such instruments would endure.
For your information; already 43% of the Clarion Clipperton Zone is prohibited from any mining activities by the ISA. My guess is that much of the remaining areas will never be mined due to excessive depths, sloping surfaces or uneven terrain, making nodule collection just not economically feasible there.
this was shown in Black Panther Wakanda forever. So the next big industry is deep sea mining. Interesting. Apart from ecological concerns the question is also of mining rights. Who owns the rights to the ocean bed.
This is very exciting technology!
Incidentally, there's also an ongoing race to ban deep-sea mining in sensitive regions. Mining is still mining and exploitation of the Earth - in my opinion anyway.
It would be nothing but a bandaid & likely cause more issues. The answer & greatest focus should be on asteroid mining.
TMC to the mooooon Baby
🚀🚀🚀🚀
The more i hear about resources needed for batteries, the more i feel there should be research to reduce cost of of green hydrogen and fuel cells. Destroying ecosystems on land and at the sea is nor right to reduce carbon emissions.
Hydrogen is not a replacement for batteries.due to storage costs hydrogen is not suitable for e.g. cars. Maybe freight shipping or so...
5000 species seems like an extremely lowball estimate for new species in the deep sea oceans
And there is always a massive C block to every great idea.. Recycling used battery it's the best choice for the future.
You can't see it because of the scale, but there was a smaller bump in the share price earlier in the year. In late January I saw I tiktok about TMC, then later the same day, a youtube videos about them. I looked on my investment app, and bought 50 shares at $1 each. The price increased by 80% over the weekend and I sold on the Monday. I didn't think any more about it until I saw this video and the much bigger spike over the summer lol. It seems every time they get some publicity it's cash out time. I've bought 50 shares off the back of this video and I'll sell them on Monday.
why not mine junk yards and land fills ?
Because everything is mixed up. Very hard to recycle
I don't know how the Metkayina clan will feel about this.
No.. the anwer is NO!
свободная экономика всегда найдёт выход 💙
Use hydrogen instead of batteries
Re: It's easier to restore a land mine than an ocean mine. I completely disagree. Land mining often produces toxic spoil piles or toxic liquid leachate that can never be reduced to safe levels.
The Roman hydraulic gold mines in Spain have not been restored after two thousand years.
What the hell do you know about the deep sea ecosystem that makes you so sure it's so easy to restore?
So we don’t know how to manage toxic spoil on land yet, how do they plan to manage it in an ocean?? Oh just let the ocean deal with right!
The nodules are right on the surface of the bottom of the ocean. You're just engaging in the physical act of picking something up from the ocean floor. How is there going to be a toxic spill? @@jordane7249
Mined minerals to depleted deep seas to disrupted aquatic life to unknown consequences
I heard that crumbs and chunks and scraps cannot become much in regards to ore or rocks which is needed to create metal. Yet synthetic forms of say marble or glass or liquid forms of mineral vitamins may. Yet as a space and defense companies creator and owner and engineering legend I'd say noone will benefit from activities like these but nation state's or terrorist in control of them.
the metals company's plan is to stop mining in 30-40 years and fully support their closed loop program (reuse and recycle mined metals).
No use postponing more, adopt the rules and mine!
Isn’t this literally the plot of Wakanda Forever? Do you want Atlantians? Because this is how you get Atlantians
Could lower ocean levels
No. What can fix it is eliminating the car dependency forced on us by the automakers through investment in electric rail and bus service plus accessible walking and cycling infrastructure. Also regulating vehicle size banning resource and energy wasteful large pickups and SUVs.
Recycling used battery it's the best choice for the future
#6 🎉
Whats it matter if some deep sea fish die? It wont affect anything
Most of the battery manufacturers have moved away from those minerals. I have my doubts they'll go back to them unless there's significant cost savings.
Wrong!!!!!! Most of the battery is still using those minerals and it's only going to increase! From higher performance to longer range batteries.... we are still yet to make any bigger EV like semi trucks and much more.
LFP is good but definitely not the best for all applications.
LMFAO you have absolutely no idea what you're babbling about.
They want an energy transition but dont want to mine for it.
What an interesting concept, but about all the things that are currently on the sea bed? Like fiber optic cables....
Well they developed this new technique in recent years that compensates for that. It's called, "Not digging there."
Wow let’s disrupt ocean ecosystem to get precious metals for new electronics, sounds smart
One solution dont buy any of battery powered regular cars just make publick transportation as train and electric Buses as much as needed .
Hmmm. Preparing for climate change seems to be a double edged sword...
Human greed is destroying the planet.
Go for it. Better to dig up the bottom of the ocean vs blowing up a beautiful mountain in the Rockies or bulldozing a forest
They can start deep mining for minerals after they clean all the trash out of the oceans!
Asteroids asteroids asteroids
That sounds like a recipe for disaster.
We shouldn’t disturbed the ocean like this.
We can’t handle the impact i bet.
This guys has has done some shady things in the past. He lost 500$ million dollars of investor money at a previous company along with destroying sensitive seadbed habitat. That company ended up going broke....
8:55 - They are literally ignoring the importance of creatures at the bottom of the ocean, but removing them can seriously hurt our planet. These little-known creatures actually do a lot to keep the ocean healthy. They help with recycling nutrients, support the food chain in the ocean, and even influence the Earth's climate. When we lose these creatures, it messes up the whole ocean ecosystem. It can also mess with the way carbon is handled in the ocean, which could make climate change worse. So, taking care of the diversity in the deep ocean isn't just about saving sea life; it's about looking out for our whole planet. Not just the “Indonesian rainforests”
These companies are spending a lot of money to create reports that say it's not a big deal to harm these creatures. It's a bit like how oil and gas companies used to downplay their impact on the environment, and we've seen the problems that caused. These companies are trying to convince us that the harm isn't that bad, but any harm to our environment matters. And they’re paying off small island countries to allow them to start the mining, when these small islands will be the same ones facing the worst possible outcomes of climate change.
I’m tired of 60 year old white men who will die soon keep making decisions like this to fill their pockets before being 6ft underground, to where the next generations will have to suffer.
GREED
Because we need the minerals for ev car batteries is not a good enough reason.
derp.
And there is always a massive C block to every great idea.
Google, Bmw, Volvo, Rivian, VW, Renault all gave the thumbs up to deep sea mining, oh and they make EVs as well, how convenient! They're gonna drive those mining vehicles all over the seabed but it'll be great for the environment on land so you don't have to worry! How much did CNBC get from those companies to do this report?
Instead of destroying the land, we want to destroy the oceans. Good idea
Probably not it will probably just f##k up the ocean even more
#defendthedeep
NO MINING!!!
Let's wait for science first and not jeopardize the deep sea ecosystem. Also we cannot have both, land mining and deep sea mining. One has to go, and I don't believe we need Depp sea mining
If drilling deep sea for clean energy than I vote for gas powered vehicles.ev already destroy many sites for lithium battery
What about the sea life that lives on the ocean floor????
This is another case study on going back to a horse and buggy or coverd wagon these day's. That would be better for the earth can switch to solar power and wind power. Just the wind that is coming from the GOP could power a city or two. 😮
They must use golf balls. Be here all week. 😊
Mining the sea floor would lead to mass extinctions just like the gold rush and the revolutionary war of America and the world wars.
ask OceanGate, they have control everything with a Xbox controller
No and will cause so much damage to the ocean just crazy
Next? The moon.
Can we stop being the plague of the Earth. Why do we need more? How about less, simple times!❤❤❤
So how quickly humanity wants to die?
This is a big red flag. NO CHANCE this is a regulated, and eco friendly job. Leave the ocean alone.
僕は英語が読めないので、字幕が一瞬で消えてしまうので見にくかったです。
内容が素晴らしくなければ最後まで見れなかっただろう
You don't have a submarine you can't deep sea mine.
But crude oil and natural gas rigs are fine for the ocean, what a bunch of codswallup
6:18 except vehicles are switching to lithium iron phosphate.
@1:01 I never knew that Sean Penn was a scientist!🤡
TMC diamond hands lol.
Sorry but why don't we make the same mess about the trawl nets that have been making the same mess for decades!! 😂All the same, all smells