Including Rare Earths and Mg, Deep-Sea Gold Rush Could Cause Irreversible Harm

According to the Guardian, trillions of potato-sized nodules of rare ears have been discovered on the Pacific seabed, and mining companies are planning a deep-sea gold rush for rare metals, including rare earths and Mg. Mining companies hope to set global rules to open up industrial-scale deep-sea mining as early as July 2023.

However, environmental campaigners warn that mining these metals would be "dangerous", "reckless" and cause "irreversible damage" to the ecosystem.

Greenpeace activist Louisa Casson criticized the industry for hosting the conference, saying, "This destructive new industry wants to tear down an ecosystem that we are only just beginning to understand. These actions are designed to make a quick profit while our oceans and the billions of people who depend on them bear the cost."

The UN-affiliated organization overseeing the controversial new industry has issued licenses to companies to explore the Pacific, but full-scale mining has yet to begin. The small Pacific island nation of Nauru has initiated a "two-year rule" that gives the International Seabed Authority (ISA) two years to implement regulations governing the industry. This sets a deadline of July 9, 2023 to adopt a roadmap.

"The two-year deadline seems pretty tight, and if there is no agreement, there will be problems with the next step," said Daniel Wilde, a marine economics adviser at the Commonwealth Secretariat. Ebbe Hartz, a geologist at Aker BP, a Norwegian oil exploration company owned by BP, said, "Extracting metals from the seafloor may eventually surpass oil drilling, but the problem is finding the metals, and we don't have a lot of supporting data at the moment, and machine learning data collection will be the key to successful seabed mining."

Eleanor Martin, a partner at law firm Norton Rose Fulbright who advises banks on financing offshore projects, said global banks are "very eager" to invest in deep-sea gold rush because they predict the cost of lithium and cobalt for electric vehicle batteries will continue to spiral upward. “We're going to need more of these metals in order to make electric cars."

Katherine Reece Thomas, associate professor of law and director of public international law at City University of London, warned that "the industry needs to do more to win public opinion before it plans to start mining the ocean."

Jessica Battle, who leads WWF's "Ban Deep Seabed Mining" campaign, said, "Deep seabed mining is highly dangerous and will cause irreversible harm to the ocean, its life, and its ability to help mitigate climate change. It is irresponsible to invest in such a highly unsustainable industry at a time when we need to reduce our impact on the natural world."

(Credit: blickwinkel/Alamy)

“Deep-sea gold rush for rare metals, including rare earths and Mg, will cause further harm to our planet," said Greenpeace's Casson. “We are pleased to see that the biggest players in electric cars and technology, including Microsoft, Google, Volvo, BMW and Samsung, are calling out the green fraud of deep sea mining companies and pledging not to use minerals mined from the deep sea in their products."

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