The seabed is full of critical raw materials, but scientists and green groups warn extracting them could cause irreversible damage. Europe is preparing to ramp up local mining of critical raw materials, but some say it’s overlooking a far richer source of minerals – the deep sea. The bloc’s climate transition will require vast supplies of minerals such as lithium and rare earths to produce green technology like electric car batteries and wind turbines – but most of these come from China, creating a dependency that the EU is now desperate to shake. As part of that effort, Brussels is slated to unveil a package of measures this month that will make it easier to extract raw materials at home – a move that has already sparked local pushback over environmental concerns. That’s prompting calls from mining companies that the EU should be looking elsewhere; more specifically, the bottom of the ocean. Several thousand meters below sea level, the deep-sea bed is scattered with millions of nodules, each roughly the size of a large potato, that contain key minerals like manganese, iron, nickel, copper and cobalt. Extracting those resources from the seabed is less harmful to the environment than mining above ground, according to Oliver Gunasekara, CEO of the U.S.-based mining company Impossible Metals, which is working on a robot that uses artificial intelligence to harvest nodules without disturbing undersea life.

‘We need massive quantities of metals as we move away from fossil fuels ... so the question is where should we get them that has the least impact,’ said Gunasekara. ‘I am convinced [the impact of deep-sea mining] is significantly less than the alternatives on land’. The International Energy Agency has predicted that by 2040 the demand for copper and rare earth elements could rise by 40 percent, while demand for nickel and cobalt is set to increase by 60 percent and lithium by 90 percent. But some scientists, environmental groups and politicians are slamming the brakes, warning that extraction activities risk damaging fragile marine ecosystems and contributing to climate change by releasing CO2 stored in the seabed. ‘It would be an absolute mistake to try to fight the climate crisis by worsening the biodiversity crisis. That doesn’t make sense at all,’ said Monica Verbeek, executive director of the ocean protection group Seas At Risk in Brussels. The EU should explicitly rule out deep-sea mining in its new Critical Raw Materials Act, she argued, adding that it was “worrying” that it has not yet done so.

Most deep-sea reserves of critical raw materials are located in waters beyond national jurisdiction – known as the high seas – and they often overlap with vulnerable ecosystems. The EU has a number of potential reserves in its own territorial waters, including off the coasts of Finland, Sweden, Greece, Italy and the Azores, and in the French overseas regions of Guadeloupe, La Réunion, New Caledonia and Polynesia. France and Germany have lent support to domestic research institutes investigating the deep sea, while Belgium backs a project by the Global Sea Mineral Resources to explore mining in the Clarion-Clipperton fracture zone in the Pacific. But even these countries have shied away from actively supporting the idea of deep-sea mining as a solution to the EU’s scramble for critical raw materials. In part, that’s due to a successful campaign by environmental groups, which have been sounding alarm bells for years about how little is known about the deepest parts of the ocean and how difficult it would be to scrutinise companies’ activities. On Monday, they protested in front of the European Parliament, calling on the bloc to ban deep-sea mining.

Among the potential risks is that industrial- scale mining could disrupt the ocean’s carbon cycle, releasing CO2 trapped in sea floor sediments, according to Verbeek. Harvesting these nodules alters the sea floor and has “a permanent impact,” including potential species extinction, said Patricia Esquete, a marine biologist at Portugal’s University of Aveiro. A paper published last month also found that noise pollution from mining activities could pose a major threat to marine mammals like whales and dolphins.

Some also fear that, rather than replace or reduce the need for mining on land, deep-sea mining could actually encourage more of it ‘because you are adding a new form of competition,’ said Pradeep Singh, a fellow at the Research Institute for Sustainability in Potsdam, Germany. A great deal more scientific research needs to be carried out before countries can allow companies to launch into deep-sea mining, he added. ‘Allowing mining to happen this year, next year? No, that’s not feasible. I think it’s very clear that we need a significant more time if we are going to take the environment seriously,’ said Singh. ‘The body of knowledge that we have [doesn’t enable] us to make an informed decision on whether or not to allow mining activities to happen’. Impossible Metals’ Gunasekara rejected that argument, calling it “disinformation”. ‘These nodules were discovered 150 years ago, they have been researched since then... So, to say we have no data is actually completely false,’ he insisted. He added that international regulators currently require environmental impact assessment and baseline studies before they award exploration permits.

So far, Europe is erring on the side of caution. France is pushing for an international ban on deep-sea mining, a call echoed by the Greens in the European Parliament. Spain and Germany, meanwhile, have asked for a precautionary pause on any deep-sea mining activities until scientists can prove it’s harmless. The Council of the EU – which represents all member countries – has called on the International Seabed Authority to ‘establish a sound regulatory regime’ that would ensure any such activities ‘would not cause harmful effects to the marine environment’. That new regime has been under discussion for over a decade, and there’s pressure to finalise the new rules at the ISA’s next meeting in July. ‘We cannot say: “We don’t even look at what options there are,” but at the same time, we cannot close our eyes to the potential dangers that deep-sea mining could have,’ said Franziska Brantner, parliamentary state secretary at the German federal economy and climate ministry.

The Commission is also in favour of a moratorium until there is sufficient proof that deep-sea mining does ‘no serious harm to the environment’, and companies like carmakers and tech giants have committed to exclude minerals sourced in the deep ocean from their supply chains. Environmentalists warn that, even with more research, deep-sea mining simply isn’t worth the risk. There are enough critical raw materials on land to satisfy growing demand, they argue. Green groups are also banking on the idea that demand for the materials will decrease as the EU’s economy becomes more circular and recycling improves. But these are long-term solutions, said Kestutis Sadauskas, deputy director general of the Commission’s marine affairs department. In the short term, ‘do we source [cobalt] in Africa, in the worst human conditions possible? Do we go elsewhere looking for it? ... That’s really the difficult question we have to pose’.

This article was first published on 9 March 2023 by POLITICO. It can be accessed at: www.politico.eu/ article/the-unchartered-waters-of-deep-sea-mining. By Rhiarna Dhaliwal