We need those cheap metals for the transition to renewable energy and electric cars. The transition needs to be affordable for many people. Otherwise, nothing will change, and we'll get fried by climate change. We might miss an opportunity to facilitate abandoning fossil fuels. Deep sea mining is far less harmful than mining on land and should be used as an alternative. 1. If deep sea mining is allowed, we could reduce mining on land, which is much more harmful in terms of killing ecosystems and species. If we get enough of these metals from the seabed, there will be less incentive/profit to take them from land. You can't just say this isn't true without explanation. If we can forbid seabed mining, we should also be able to politically limit mining on land and replace it with minerals from the ocean floor. 2. I also have sympathy when I see pictures of those animals on the ocean floor, but in reality, the seabed is a rather vast desert with almost no life. You have to search for quite some time to find any. To me, that sounds more acceptable than demolishing rainforests, which are habitats for many animals and humans. 3. One argument is that we can learn from organisms on the seabed to invent medical products. However, the area considered to be mined is tiny compared to the entire ocean. We will never run out of bacteria from the ocean bed, as long as there is human life on this planet.
Did you not watch the whole video? She addressed how there is a false dichotomy of land vs sea mining. Instead of either or we should reduce our need of metals in general by using what we already waste. Recycling and innovating away from the use of these metals.
Regarding the metals for the energy transition, it's worth noting that if we built nuclear reactors in as many places in the Free World as possible, as cheaply and quickly as the Canadan province of Ontario did in the 80s, we wouldn't be facing this dilemma as much. Nuclear power requires a third as much mining as wind or solar (including 40 years of uranium minging) - one-sixth as much if you include the materials required for battery storage. It could also be used for district heating, removing the need for natural gas furnaces or even heat pumps. We couldve had this, but many people who considered themselves environmentalists stood in the way. On another note, electric passenger rail is much more material-efficient than battery-powered cars. Imagine how things would be different if the US had different public transit. My point is not that you're wrong (I'm slightly inclined to believe your right) I just wanted to point out that there are ways to have the energy transition which would be involve less mining that trying to power all electricity with renewables and also trying to electrify almost everything at the same time.
@@jeffbenton6183 too late. We can built them now but we will see breakthroughs before they are done or quickly after. Fusion and room temperature superconductors aren't thst far away.
The other option is the regular mining, that we know if far worse to the enviroment than just colect rocks from seabed. Also, if we want to transition to clean energy anytime in this century, we need these metals. Where do you think car batteries will come from!?
Her knowledge on this subject is really poor. Its not informed with the actual data theyve generated from pilot studies. 1) the plumes with the current tech being used go up 2 meters and settle within 48 hours. 2) the density of organsisms per hectare is less than 1% vs land/shallow waters. 3) not all the land is actually mineable, the idea is to make the most of the useful regions and then leave it alone. 4) the prices of minerals is what incentives land mining. Companies want to mine the floor BECAUSE its valuable. If this severely less damaging way of resource harvesting (compared to land based operations, if you don't know how damaging and inefficient those are you should honestly ahut the **** up about this topic). If you make land based operations comparatively leas profitable THEY STOP HAPPENING.
1) you ignore the slurry that needs to be dumped back into the ocean and the sound and light pollution 2) 1% is a lot when you’re talking about deep sea organisms. Obviously there will be less because the floor is pretty bare, but taking away the only structure in the area will kill everything that lives there. 3) “leaving it alone?” you mean taking everything, irreversibly destroying the environment until it is no longer of use? 4) all forms of mining are criticized here, she addressed this point.
Irreversibly destroying? How exactly? You people keep saying this like picking up nodules is disturbing the oceans everywhere. I don’t see any science behind this opinion but if so see science from MIT et al that say dep seabed harvesting of nodules is safe.
There are A LOT of unqualified statements in this presentation. Also it's important to understand that there are only a few areas on the sea floor throughout the world that have these polymetalic nodules. The entire ocean floor is not being targeted.
You're right, to some extent. The CCZ for example, is the prime target because it has the largest concentration of nodules. So yes, not the whole ocean is being targeted. But, nodules are indeed found throughout most of the abyssal plains, and those plains do constitute half the surface of the Earth. The main issue is that marine ecosystems are much more fluid and connected and so damaging one part of the ocean can have lasting effects on other parts, thousands of kilometres away, including processes that occur on the surface.
@betweenthelightsdowntown8086 IT'S focus is engineering, not biology or oceanography. I'll look into the study at some point - I won't dismiss it out of hand, but it's not necessarily low-impact just because MIT said so - that's an argument from authority, and it's not entirely clear that MIT is an authority on this particular matter (though, to be fair, I expect them to be academically rigorous at the very least).
I don't have a strong opinion either way on this subject, but there is something I want to clear up: If mining is intended to be concentrated, wouldn't that be worse for ecosystems? By that, I mean most of the burden would be born by one specific area with modules, destroying that whole ecosystem. If it were spread out more, only a few modules would be plucked from any specific area. That said, I think I get where you're coming from. I think you mean to say that it's not as if the root of the whole ocean's ecosystems are targeted for destruction here (much less the oceanic component of the Earth's carbon cycle). That specific argument seems correct to me.
