CRITICAL MINERALSCould Deep Sea Mining Break China's Grip on Critical Minerals?
Mining companies have proposed to use remote-controlled robots or seabed crawlers tethered to surface ships to bring up nodules. The International Seabed Authority has wrestled for more than two decades with how to regulate seabed mining. The Trump administration has promised no such delay. It plans to use an existing U.S. regulatory framework.
Miles beneath the surface of the Pacific Ocean lies a vast stretch of seabed littered with what look like dull, dark rocks.
Those rocks are actually polymetallic nodules, rich in the minerals that drive modern economies. They could help the United States break its reliance on China, which otherwise controls the market. But nobody has ever mined seabed nodules at scale, much less processed them for industrial use.
The United States is about to try. But as a recent RAND study found, getting those nodules to the surface is only part of the challenge.
“We need to find alternative sources of these critical minerals that don’t involve China,” said Tom LaTourrette, a senior physical scientist at RAND. “This is an all-of-government, all-hands effort. Seabed mining is one way we might accomplish it.”
Dirty potatoes: That the seabed is pebbled with rocky nodules has been known for a very long time. The HMS Challenger dredged them up by the hundreds during its voyage of discovery in the 1870s. “When rolled on the deck,” an expedition scientist wrote, “they looked like a pile of dirty potatoes.”
Those dirty potatoes contain a fortune in nickel, cobalt, manganese, and copper. Those minerals are critical components in everything from batteries and electric engines to advanced weapons. And for now, the global market for them runs through China. The government there has not hesitated to pinch supplies when it wants to make a point. Seabed mining could give the United States a new and much more secure source.
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“Those minerals are critical components in everything from batteries and electric engines to advanced weapons.”
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But the Pacific seabed is one of the hardest-to-reach places on earth. The area identified as the best bet for mining is around 2.5 miles down, deeper than the wreck of the Titanic.
Immediate action: Mining companies have proposed to use remote-controlled robots or seabed crawlers tethered to surface ships to bring up nodules. They have begun to seek approval not from the International Seabed Authority, but from the United States. The seabed authority oversees resources in areas of the seafloor beyond national jurisdictions. But it has wrestled for more than two decades with how to regulate mining. The Trump administration has promised no such delay. It plans to use an existing U.S. regulatory framework.
