Metals to make clean energy batteries can be extracted from the land, sea or recycling. Scientists are researching and developing models to determine how far this sediment will spread across the seafloor. Marine and climate scientists counter that there's scant data on the deep sea to gauge potential consequences for oceanic biodiversity and carbon sequestration, and that it would take decades of study to get a holistic assessment.Ī sediment plume (above in the foreground) created by deep sea mining vehicles unfurls over a field of deep sea polymetallic nodules. Industry proponents say deep sea mining is more environmentally friendly than land-based mining, making it the best option in the face of looming mineral shortages for electric vehicles and a tight timeline to decarbonize transit. The industry's first commercial mining applications may be filed in as little as two years despite incomplete regulations and unsettled science about mining's effects. A nascent industry of deep sea mining is growing to harvest these rocks. Below miles of ocean, these nodules burst with copper, nickel, manganese and cobalt, all key to building batteries for electric vehicles.Īs the global push for electric transportation grows, these metals have converted a remote underwater plain into a battleground over the hard decisions required to address climate change. Sprawling fields of rocks about the size of your fist coat the Pacific seabed. NOAA Office of Ocean Exploration and Research Polymetallic nodules coat fields of the ocean floor and are rich in critical minerals needed to make batteries for electric vehicles.
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