Deep-sea mining may soon ease the world's battery-metal shortage

I think I said it in another post, but my only inspiration for writing about this is that I have been following DSM for years (I first wrote about it here https://www.economist.com/technology-quarterly/2018/03/19/si...), reading papers and talking to people. Based on what I knew when I started reporting this several weeks ago, I thought it worthwhile to try and compare the impacts of land vs seabed mining. I found a rough comparison was possible, and that's the heart of the piece

Might respond more fully later, but am clocking off for now. The final thing I'd say for now is that all the hype and narrative I see runs in the other direction, against DSM. Those who are against it are chock full of nonsense claims like this will disrupt the global carbon cycle or destroy fisheries, when basic science shows that it won't (or, if you don't like the casual use of certainty, that it is very very unlikley)

Thanks for getting in touch! While (of course) you're not being directly paid by the company, it remains puzzling how the article comes off so glossy for TMC and seabed mining. This positive tone is present throughout the article and seems to deliberately highlight the case for mining while diminishing the drawbacks and risks. Taken in aggregate, a reader could be left with the impression this is a miracle technology with nearly no problems. A few selections:

>>>> I would say that it comes off glossy because I have completed the reporting process and believe that the evidence I have collected points clearly to the sensibleness of DSM. again, TE style matters here, we are argumentative and analytical, not inverted pyramid news stories

"With the coming expiration, on July 9th, of an international bureaucratic deadline, that prospect looks more likely than ever." -- oh, those pesky bureaucrats! You've decided to present this as a "get going" or "next step" signal, but the reality may be the provisional approval comes with many more provisions that create further delays.

>>>> I used the word bureaucratic because that is literally what ISA is and I was tight on space, so had to find a short way to describe what is happening July 9th

"That date marks two years since the island nation of Nauru..." -- this paragraph omits that there are Draft Regulations that exist and studiously avoids comment on the issues considered and potential ramifications for TMC. It also generously leaves out that Nauru decided to trigger a 2-year timed condition during the pandemic. As a commercially interested party they have a vested interest in weaker regulation. Basic readings from the Journal of Maritime and Coastal Law (fun!) suggest the ISA is concerned about the enterprise.

>>>> draft regs which have existed for 12 years. I go into this in the forthcoming opinion article. Again, the reason I didn't go into it here is space. even though the piece went "online first" it still has to fit into its print slot this week

"(The firm itself says it hopes to wait until rules can be agreed)" -- Are you familiar with the phrase "talk is cheap"? This feels like a thumb on the scales for TMC as it exists with no assessment of TMC's trustworthiness on the topic.

>>>> I am familiar with the term. I spoke with Barron for quite some time about why they would like to wait (more legitimacy and buy in from broad church is good for them). but it is clear to me that if regs are not forthcoming they file an application. i felt this was summed up reasonably by "hopes to wait"

"tmc’s plan is about as straightforward as underwater mining can be." -- translation: "this is simple stuff" but it's actually not. Even the literature you've cited is replete with caution after caution that this is relatively unknown territory and requires more research to understand. Another thumb on TMC's side -- straightforward is good, right? What are these scientists and bureaucrats going on about?

>>> the technical act of collecting the nodules is relatively simple. it is the EIS and the comparison with alternatives that is complex

"a second ship which will ferry them back to shore for processing" -- You've picked "ferry" instead of "vessel/ship" which can imply small scale. It appears the destination is not known.

>>>> ferry is a verb

>>>> no, far below most ocean life is accurate. there is certainly life we don't know of below 1500m, but most ocean life, known and unknown, is above that mark. I know you already decried this research as "bought", but try explaining why the plume-destruction-by-turbidity findings do not matter https://news.mit.edu/2021/deep-sea-mining-sediment-plumes-07...

"Three Chinese firms—Beijing Pioneer, China Merchants and China Minmetals--are circling too" -- So we're using TMC's numbers, but do we expect these other firms to have the same level of performance?

>>> I do not say this, so know. very little is known about the Chinese firms

"It will also kick up plumes of sediment, some of which will drift onto nearby organisms and kill them (though research from mit shows these plumes tend not to rise more than two metres above the seabed)." -- What about the impacts from that sediment release at 1,500 metres? Further, who sponsored that MIT study (hint: quite a few people interested in deep sea mining)? There are multiple studies illustrating the problem of having science focused by sponsors with vested interests. You choose to present the results as-is without tempering them (e.g. "the first study", "an individual study") leaving it to the reader to think about how well developed this knowledge actually is.

>>> I suggest you actually engage with the data presented and explain what is wrong with it, rather than playing the man as you do here. what is erroneous or inaccurate about the MIT study?

"companies like tmc can be encouraged to choose locations where energy comes with low emissions. Indonesian nickel ore, in contrast, is uneconomic unless it is processed near the mines from which it was extracted" -- so TMC heeds this encouragement and is presumed to pick an environmentally responsible outcome at the cost of profits, but Indonesia does not have the same opportunity? A few years back Indonesia's polluting smelters didn't even exist. If this is a concern, could they not also be made clean? The article gives the benefit again to TMC and at this point one of the scales is moving through the table.

>>> yes, exactly, Indonesia does not have the same opportunity. shipping 1% nickel ore to renewable energy sources for processing would make the whole thing uneconomic, as I say in the piece. TMC's ore is already on a boat and has to go somewhere anyway. and, yes, you could attempt to make Indo's grid clean, but a) that doesn't help with the 30-90x biomass loss compared to CCZ nickel and b) it's really hard and no one thinks it will happen soon

Finally, and most amazingly, we get this gem two-thirds of the way in:

"The diversity of life is “very high”, says Dr Glover.

Yet in several respects, mining the seabed is more environmentally friendly than mining in Indonesia." -- what a pivot! Every paper cited repeats the same themes: "there's a lot of life down there", "we don't know enough about how important it is, or how to assess it", "more study is needed to understand this" and the article zooms right past to go: "Don't worry folks, we can go by weight per hectare!" No regulatory body in the world does this. Do you have any scientific backing for this ratio in environmental impact assessments?

>>>> unknowability and biodiversity are not the only metrics for environmental friendliness. I don't see what is wrong with quoting Glover on one metric, then pointing out that there are others. And, yes, we don't know much about what is down there. But we know approximately the same amount as we know about the contents of the Indo rainforest. Do you think mass of life per kilo of nickel is not a useful measure?

-- deep breath --

My central concern is that the article you've written is by itself relatively benign. It uses an interesting ratio (biomass disturbed) and a bit of fluff from TMC's public disclosures and the nickel market in general. Where it can cause damage is that people will read it and draw conclusions:

1. Sea mining is less harmful (30x!!!) than terrestrial mining. This is not true. The simple answer is that we don't know yet. Trying to model environmental impacts in a marine environment is orders of magnitude more difficult than terrestrial activity. On the surface we can see, instrument, and to some poor extent predict. Underwater it's a whole different ball game. We don't know the receptors. We don't know the transport mechanisms. Unknown after unknown.

>>> I don't make that claim. I say it's 30x less destructive of biomass. and that is a massive underestimate as a) it only counts plants in the rainforest and b) the actual mass of nickel per hectare is lower than the estimate I used from investigative reporting in Indonesia. The real multiple is likely worse than 90x more biomass destruction on land. You say there is unknown after unknown, but this is a fact. here are the papers for you to verify for yourself

>>> it is also not true that it's harder to model impacts in the marine environment. it is far easier to survey, and there is far more EIS data about NORI-D than there has ever been about any Indonesian mine. Here's the NORI-D data https://obis.org/dataset/bb0b9375-c875-4cb6-8889-6f783e1015b.... you find me an equivalent dataset for a prospective nickel mine in Sulawesi. I'll tell you now that it simply does not exist

2. We need sea mining now! Our back is up against the wall climate-wise and sea mining is what will get us the batteries we need. We don't, we really don't. There's a reason Indonesia is now the dominant supplier (and current temporary reserve leader) -- their government is quite happy to strip their country down for metals and sell them. Market dynamics in isolation often mean that if there is contestable supply and a market participant has a clearly lower cost of participation new supply will not come on. The world is moving in the right direction in so many areas: pricing in externalities like carbon and deforestation, changing to alternate materials (iron based batteries, sand/physical batteries), increased recycling. We don't need to go trash a sea bed because some company says it's a great idea (and look at that NPV).

>>> I don't think we need to mine the CCZ because TMC says so. I think we need to do it because the enviro and carbon impacts are much lower per unit of metal. with battery passports and carbon pricing, CCZ nickel will just become more attractive. i hope that LFP etc goes as fast and deep as possible, obviously, but even if IEA is off by 2x the world still needs 175m tonnes of nickel to be mined by 2040. oh btw TMC says its floor price is $6000 per tonne. current price is about $20000

3. I (the reader) am educated, I know there are risks and unknowns, but for a short while the CCZ seems like an ideal solution to our problems. Maybe, we don't know. What we do know is that once this door is open it's not going to shut. It won't be confined to nickel. It won't stay in the CCZ. Mining as an industry has already learned this lesson -- strong regulation based on well developed science is in the public interest to ensure minerals are fairly priced for the long terms costs they incur.

>>> "What we do know is that once this door is open it's not going to shut" how on earth do you know this? and where in the piece do you see me arguing against regulation. I want ISA to finish the regulations it has been working on for 12 years so that mining can, cautiously, go ahead. I think there's strong evidence to suggest that DSM will have a dramatically lower enviro foot print than land based nickel

-- other thoughts --

Can you share any insight in how this article was suggested for research? Was it driven by the recent share price run, timing of ISA decisions, or general interest in battery materials? Either way, it looks like it has contributed to some very positive gains for TMC shareholders (~+20% since July 2).

>>> I dealt with this in my comment last night. I'd just add that the reason for doing this now was the July 9th peg. but I have been working on it and thinking about it for several years.

Thanks very much for sharing sources -- I concur with other discussion posters that these are increasingly useful in public consumption of analysis. I hope the policy at the Economist changes in this regard, particularly for online content.

I'm also fully aware that folks from HN probably won't even see this thread as it's well off the front page. If you've read this far your blood might be a bit up as well. Sorry. My original post was hyperbolic in the extreme and was unprofessional. I'm an engineer, economist, and environmental scientist. I care a lot about the role professionals have to play in guiding an increasingly untrusting public and I also know about balancing industrial and environmental outcomes. I'm telling you to suck eggs, but in the future I hope you can have robust conversations with your editor about tonality and neutrality in publishing rather than falling into the latest hype and narrative that sells. The future of this crazy world might just depend upon tens of thousands of small actions like that. All the best.

>>> i don't believe I have "fallen into the latest hype and narrative that sells". all the hype I see runs the other way, tens of thousands of copypasta tweets on DSM through a Greenpeace campaign; world leaders saying things that are flat our wrong about the CCZ (like nodule collection will disrupt global carbon cycles and fisheries); endless articles on the dangers of deep sea mining and none even attempting to compare the impact to that on land. I have attempted to do that by examining available evidence.

>>> I'd very much welcome you doing the same and providing your own reasoned, evidenced arguments on the following: why is it better to take a tonne of nickel from Sulawesi rainforest than to take it from the CCZ?

https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.abn1219

What is conjectures in this thread is that it hasn't happened yet (debatable) but that doesn't mean it can only happen one more time.

Is it though? There is no law in economics that I’m aware of that bars steady state. Exponential growth seems to be nothing more that a (possibly shortsighted) preference

But living in a world with industrial pollution is better than living in a pre-industrial world.

Population, Kardashev scale, literacy rates, child mortality rates, sexual equality, the very definition of poverty, per-capita frequency of violent death, great-power war frequency, vaccine and medical sophistication, education rates, patent filings…

It takes a cantankerous set of blinders to see us as being in anything but a golden age. Much of the hand wringing arises precisely from the fact that we don’t want to lose what we have.