Sustainability
It is hoped that this more subtle robot can help to quell concerns around deep-sea mining’s effects on the underwater ecosystem.
plausible aspiration given what else is happening across the industry. Pliant Energy, for instance, is a New York company that’s developed stingray- shaped nodule extractors to suck up minerals. Firms from the UK to China, for their part, are making similar moves.
believes there is. Fundamentally, his solution involves a shift in extraction technique. Rather than the traditional dredging strategy – sucking up nodules indiscriminately, ravaging ecosystems along the way – Impossible Metals is using undersea robots for a more subtle approach. First, autonomous robots are dispatched to the ocean floor. They then gather up nodules, before returning to the surface with their loot. Crucially, the process should theoretically keep environmental disruption to a minimum.
“We’re not claiming zero impact – all extraction has an impact. But our design goal was to absolutely minimise that.”
Oliver Gunasekara 37.1%
The estimated annual compound growth for the deep-sea mining sector from 2020–2030.
Global Mining Review 42
Trained to avoid nodules that have coral or other lifeforms attached, Gunasekara says Impossible Metals is working with marine scientists to perfect the relevant code. Just as importantly, Gunasekara’s robots don’t dredge. Rather, they use independent motors to hover above the seabed, avoiding the sediment storms other operations can bring. Lacking other accoutrements of traditional deep- sea mining, notably the pipes and surface vessels that can cause so much disruption, it’s clear that Gunasekara is excited by the project. “We’re not claiming zero impact – all extraction has an impact,” he says. “But our design goal was to absolutely minimise that.” Not that industry insiders should expect to see full-scale Impossible Metals robots scouring the ocean immediately: so far Gunasekara and his team have only developed prototypes suitable for depths of up to 25m. Even so, the aim is to have a full fleet ready by 2026, a
All the same, it’d be wrong to suggest everyone is enthusiastic about this robot-inflected future. For one thing, Thompson points out that even if machines are discerning enough to only harvest certain nodules, that’ll still disrupt an underwater environment shaped over literally millions of years. “Those areas,” she argues, “will never recover.” Like other environmentalists, Thompson has broader problems with deep-sea mining too. Rather than starting a new industrial revolution – albeit one with stronger green credentials – she suggests that humanity should instead address “fundamental issues” around resource use and management. Thompson is similarly sceptical of the argument made by many mining advocates, Gunasekara among them, that undersea extraction is better than wrecking the dry-land habitats of animals like orangutans. “We ignore these deep-sea creatures at our peril,” she says, “because we don’t understand how important they are for ecosystem structures.”
Deal or nodule? Perhaps unsurprisingly, Gunasekara gives these claims short shrift. “The rail line has to be built, the power plant needs to be built,” is how he puts it, adding that from a geopolitical perspective, an added advantage of deep-sea mining is that it helps drag Western countries away from Chinese dominance of rare earth and other minerals. And if these philosophical disputes seem set to continue, there’s a similar lack of agreement around practical next steps. Currently, the International Seabed Authority (ISA), the body tasked with organising rules around mining in international waters, has until July 2023 to come up with new guidelines. But in March, diplomats from a range of countries accused the organisation of rushing proposals through.
And while Gunasekara and Thompson agree that what the ISA ultimately decides is important – especially as, in Thompson’s telling, what companies can and can’t do isn’t “rigorously formulated yet” – there’s a familiar sense of disagreement around what nation states are doing domestically. On the one hand, countries like France are electing to ban deep-sea mining off their coastlines. On the other, the Cook Islands, a self-governing Pacific archipelago linked to New Zealand, recently approved mineral exploration licences in its territorial waters. To put it differently, it seems clear that the battle over deep-sea, both legally and rhetorically, is destined to rage on, even as firms like Impossible Metals get closer to their gold. ●
World Mining Frontiers /
www.nsenergybusiness.com
Impossible Metals
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