A method has been put in place to allow mining on the ocean floor
Deep-sea mining on the ocean floor is dangerous, but does not violate the U.S.’s hard mineral resources treaty
In his executive order, Trump instructed federal agencies to expedite the process for reviewing and issuing permits for mining on the seafloor in both U.S. and international territory. It will use a U.S. law from 1980, the “Deep Seabed Hard Mineral Resources Act.”
There is currently no commercial-scale deep-sea mining anywhere in the world. But companies have long eyed the ocean floor as a potential source of metals like nickel, cobalt, manganese and copper, which are used in batteries for electric vehicles and other technologies.
These metals can be found in potato-sized nodules lying on the ocean floor. Many of the nodules are in the middle of the Pacific ocean, beyond the legal territory of individual countries.
The International Seabed Authority has usually been in charge of those regions. Talks have taken place for years to try and come up with a rules to govern a potential mining industry. The U.S. did not ratify the treaty that governs the seabed, and is not a voting member of the ISA, though in the past under previous administrations it has respected the ISA process.
“The harm caused by deep-sea mining isn’t restricted to the ocean floor: it will impact the entire water column, top to bottom, and everyone and everything relying on it,” Jeff Watters, vice president for external affairs at the nonprofit Ocean Conservancy said in a press release.
“This is being planned on some of the least resilient ecosystems on the planet,” says Douglas McCauley, professor of ocean science at the University of California Santa Barbara. “It would have catastrophic biological consequences.”
The Georgia Institute of Technology assistant professor of energy and chemical systems says that there are important questions about whether or not we actually need to be mining the sea to get enough minerals.
“People said we were going to be cobalt-limited and then we found a bunch of alternative chemistries that use less [or no] cobalt,” Ziegler says. “Traditional technologies are rapidly changing and they’re being explored.”
China’s response to the Trump-Russia decision to ban deep-sea mining without international laws: A science reporter in the early 1990s
More than 30 countries have called for a ban or a moratorium on deep-sea mining until international rules are put in place to minimize the potential damage.
The Metals Company announced in March that the Canadian company had already “met with officials in the White House” and planned to apply for permits under existing US mining code to begin extracting minerals from the high seas.
China responded on Friday: the BBC reported Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Guo Jiakun as saying that Trump’s move “violates international law and harms the overall interests of the international community.”
The senior science reporter has been covering energy and the environment for ten years. Hell or High Water: When Disaster hits Home was a show she hosted.