6 ms·

That article got dark, fast. "The robots will lumber across the ocean floor on mammoth treads, grinding and chewing the encrusted seabed, sending plumes of sed

That article got dark, fast. "The robots will lumber across the ocean floor on mammoth treads, grinding and chewing the encrusted seabed, sending plumes of sediment into the surrounding waters and killing marine life that gets in their way."

FullMtlAlcoholc 10y ago
Sounds like regular extractive mining to me. I guess it's not talked about as much but terraforming large parts of earth and setting off huge explosions tends to kill whatever was living in the vicinity or its habitat
- hueving 10y ago
  > I guess it's not talked about as much but terraforming large parts of earth and setting off huge explosions tends to kill whatever was living in the vicinity or its habitat A typical pit mine covers a smaller area than any kind of reasonable-sized farm. Farming is significantly worse when it comes to displaced things in the habitat. You could argue about bad mines that pollute downstream rivers, but that's not how all mines operate and has nothing to do with the precision explosions (I suggest you watch videos of how pits are mined to get a sense of how the explosions actually work) or the displaced wildlife.
FullMtlAlcoholc 10y ago
In this debate over climate change the pollution human activity causes gets lost in the debate. Extractive mining is terrible for the environment and ecosystems. One of the biggest reasons why I am supporter of SpaceX is that they will facilitate asteroid mining. It'd be kind of funny if Ridley-Scott retconned the origin the Weyland-Yutani Corp to make them eco-saviors for taking resource extraction completely off-world
- vkou 10y ago
  The energy requirements of getting things into space, and moving things in space around makes asteroid mining an unmitigated environmental disaster.
  - krasin 10y ago
    Not necessarily, if at some point a space colony is sustainable and mostly sends things down the gravity well, rather than up.
    - vkou 10y ago
      Still not the case, because they need to redirect asteroids into low earth orbit/the orbit of the colony. (And then expend a ton of energy to match orbits.) The economics of asteroid mining only make sense if you're: 1. Using the mined materials for space construction. But why are you doing space construction in the first place? So you can do more asteroid mining? So you can do more space construction? 2. You've found an asteroid made of pure unobtanium.
      - ericd 10y ago
        Not unobtanium, but 90 million tons of platinum is worth a decent amount. https://www.rt.com/news/310170-platinum-asteroid-2011-uw-158/ https://www.rt.com/news/310170-platinum-asteroid-2011-uw-158...
        sqeaky 10y ago
        I am so curious what will actually happen when someone tries to mine one of these. With they retain their mining rights and sell carefully, or will the price of platinum crash? With a government steal it and will there be wars over it?
        ericd 10y ago
        Heh yeah, interesting to ponder. I imagine that others will race off to mine other asteroids, and the price of platinum and other rare metals/minerals will plummet. Or maybe you'll get a resurgence of nation-state-level companies like the old Dutch East Indies company, as well as piracy.
      - krasin 10y ago
        >they need to redirect asteroids into low earth orbit/the orbit of the colony. (And then expend a ton of energy to match orbits.) Which basically means a sustainable colony must produce a ton of energy. Good news, producing energy in the space is actually cheaper than on Earth: you have a lot of solar, and nuclear is no longer a hazard.
- vtange 10y ago
  I wonder if we'll eventually see a day when people debate over the environmental consequences of resource extraction on Mars.
  - bbernard 10y ago
    The meaning of your statement isn't clear. Do you see resource extraction on Earth as something having no consequences whatsoever?
    - vtange 10y ago
      No, I just find it interesting how we only care about places we would inhabit. The parent comment suggested that asteroids are OK for unrestricted mining since it's, well, not a place people could inhabit and develop feelings for, like Earth or Mars.
      - lazaroclapp 10y ago
        It also has to do a bit with whether or not other lifeforms inhabit the place. Mars is unlikely to have any life on it, and certainly no pluricellular life without some extensive terraforming. If we ever get to that point, the discussion over preservation of a biosphere we ourselves created is certainly going to be a bit different in its implications...
    - stdbrouw 10y ago
      The author wonders whether there will come a day when see Mars as not just something we exploit but as a home we must protect, just like Earth.
      - mirimir 10y ago
        Well, great efforts have actually been made to prevent contamination of Mars etc. But that's been for scientific reasons, in large part.
      - FullMtlAlcoholc 10y ago
- cgh 10y ago
  > Extractive mining is terrible for the environment and ecosystems. This depends on how and where it is done. For example, underground hard rock mining in a western country, eg Canada, is relatively benign. By far the biggest impact is caused by road building, and these are decommissioned after the mine's lifetime (which can be decades). Clearcut logging has much greater long-term repercussions. Mining is often maligned unfairly.
  - hueving 10y ago
    >Clearcut logging has much greater long-term repercussions. Mining is often maligned unfairly. Definitely. The biggest damage to the Amazon rainforest is the development of farms. People advocating for more inefficient farming (e.g. 'organic', 'local') are doing significantly more damage to the environment than extractive mining. One important caveat, I'm only applying this to modern mining operations like those in US/Canada that follow pollution regs.
    - deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
    - ergothus 10y ago
      > I'm only applying this to modern mining operations like those in US/Canada that follow pollution regs. I am by no means a mining expert, but most of my exposure comes from east-coast US, where a lot of the mines (well...a lot of the mines you hear about - there could a great many very nice mines that I never heard of) have problems with acidic wash off, strip mining, etc. I know SOME of the issues I've listed are impacted by modern environment regs (at least until those get rolled back under the current lawmakers), but I don't know if they all are. Can you expand your point?
    - caust1c 10y ago
      Organic, sure. Local? I disagree. I'm sure it's hard to measure, but I imagine the impact of transporting perishable foods long distances is pretty great. More than either of those things though, a heavy meat diet is much more inefficient than a vegetarian one. And if I'm not mistaken, a lot of the rainforest is becoming pastures for raising cattle.
nabla9 10y ago
Wast areas of deep sea floors (abyssal plains) are ecologically desert and they cover wast areas. Very little nutrition and life. Only small oasis like whale carcass is full of life. Of course there may be unintended consequences. Its unclear to me where these mining operations take place. It seems that these ventures are trying to mine at the depth of 1600 m. Continental shelf has more life than continental slope or abyssal plains.
bbernard 10y ago
Elon Musk has already said that burning fossils fuels and pumping it into the atmosphere is the "dumbest experiment in history". So I guess we've just found the second dumbest one. I just can't understand why some people think that this is a good idea.
- sqeaky 10y ago
  They already have government oversight. They already have a plan for minimizing pollution, which is wasted material that could be mined and therefore lost money. They come from a western country with a decent environmental track record. It doesn't seem intellectually honest to compare 1 company mining in a situation where polluting is economically disadvantageous and has the science to understand at least some of the risks to climate change. With climate change we built several giant industries cars, power, and others that burned huge amount of fossil fuels before we knew the risks. And generally polluting is economically advantageous.

FullMtlAlcoholc 10y ago

Sounds like regular extractive mining to me. I guess it's not talked about as much but terraforming large parts of earth and setting off huge explosions tends to kill whatever was living in the vicinity or its habitat

hueving 10y ago
> I guess it's not talked about as much but terraforming large parts of earth and setting off huge explosions tends to kill whatever was living in the vicinity or its habitat A typical pit mine covers a smaller area than any kind of reasonable-sized farm. Farming is significantly worse when it comes to displaced things in the habitat. You could argue about bad mines that pollute downstream rivers, but that's not how all mines operate and has nothing to do with the precision explosions (I suggest you watch videos of how pits are mined to get a sense of how the explosions actually work) or the displaced wildlife.

FullMtlAlcoholc 10y ago

In this debate over climate change the pollution human activity causes gets lost in the debate. Extractive mining is terrible for the environment and ecosystems. One of the biggest reasons why I am supporter of SpaceX is that they will facilitate asteroid mining. It'd be kind of funny if Ridley-Scott retconned the origin the Weyland-Yutani Corp to make them eco-saviors for taking resource extraction completely off-world

vkou 10y ago
The energy requirements of getting things into space, and moving things in space around makes asteroid mining an unmitigated environmental disaster.
- krasin 10y ago
  Not necessarily, if at some point a space colony is sustainable and mostly sends things down the gravity well, rather than up.
  - vkou 10y ago
    Still not the case, because they need to redirect asteroids into low earth orbit/the orbit of the colony. (And then expend a ton of energy to match orbits.) The economics of asteroid mining only make sense if you're: 1. Using the mined materials for space construction. But why are you doing space construction in the first place? So you can do more asteroid mining? So you can do more space construction? 2. You've found an asteroid made of pure unobtanium.
    - ericd 10y ago
      Not unobtanium, but 90 million tons of platinum is worth a decent amount. https://www.rt.com/news/310170-platinum-asteroid-2011-uw-158/ https://www.rt.com/news/310170-platinum-asteroid-2011-uw-158...
      - sqeaky 10y ago
        I am so curious what will actually happen when someone tries to mine one of these. With they retain their mining rights and sell carefully, or will the price of platinum crash? With a government steal it and will there be wars over it?
        ericd 10y ago
        Heh yeah, interesting to ponder. I imagine that others will race off to mine other asteroids, and the price of platinum and other rare metals/minerals will plummet. Or maybe you'll get a resurgence of nation-state-level companies like the old Dutch East Indies company, as well as piracy.
    - krasin 10y ago
      >they need to redirect asteroids into low earth orbit/the orbit of the colony. (And then expend a ton of energy to match orbits.) Which basically means a sustainable colony must produce a ton of energy. Good news, producing energy in the space is actually cheaper than on Earth: you have a lot of solar, and nuclear is no longer a hazard.
vtange 10y ago
I wonder if we'll eventually see a day when people debate over the environmental consequences of resource extraction on Mars.
- bbernard 10y ago
  The meaning of your statement isn't clear. Do you see resource extraction on Earth as something having no consequences whatsoever?
  - vtange 10y ago
    No, I just find it interesting how we only care about places we would inhabit. The parent comment suggested that asteroids are OK for unrestricted mining since it's, well, not a place people could inhabit and develop feelings for, like Earth or Mars.
    - lazaroclapp 10y ago
      It also has to do a bit with whether or not other lifeforms inhabit the place. Mars is unlikely to have any life on it, and certainly no pluricellular life without some extensive terraforming. If we ever get to that point, the discussion over preservation of a biosphere we ourselves created is certainly going to be a bit different in its implications...
  - stdbrouw 10y ago
    The author wonders whether there will come a day when see Mars as not just something we exploit but as a home we must protect, just like Earth.
    - mirimir 10y ago
      Well, great efforts have actually been made to prevent contamination of Mars etc. But that's been for scientific reasons, in large part.
    - FullMtlAlcoholc 10y ago
cgh 10y ago
> Extractive mining is terrible for the environment and ecosystems. This depends on how and where it is done. For example, underground hard rock mining in a western country, eg Canada, is relatively benign. By far the biggest impact is caused by road building, and these are decommissioned after the mine's lifetime (which can be decades). Clearcut logging has much greater long-term repercussions. Mining is often maligned unfairly.
- hueving 10y ago
  >Clearcut logging has much greater long-term repercussions. Mining is often maligned unfairly. Definitely. The biggest damage to the Amazon rainforest is the development of farms. People advocating for more inefficient farming (e.g. 'organic', 'local') are doing significantly more damage to the environment than extractive mining. One important caveat, I'm only applying this to modern mining operations like those in US/Canada that follow pollution regs.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - ergothus 10y ago
    > I'm only applying this to modern mining operations like those in US/Canada that follow pollution regs. I am by no means a mining expert, but most of my exposure comes from east-coast US, where a lot of the mines (well...a lot of the mines you hear about - there could a great many very nice mines that I never heard of) have problems with acidic wash off, strip mining, etc. I know SOME of the issues I've listed are impacted by modern environment regs (at least until those get rolled back under the current lawmakers), but I don't know if they all are. Can you expand your point?
  - caust1c 10y ago
    Organic, sure. Local? I disagree. I'm sure it's hard to measure, but I imagine the impact of transporting perishable foods long distances is pretty great. More than either of those things though, a heavy meat diet is much more inefficient than a vegetarian one. And if I'm not mistaken, a lot of the rainforest is becoming pastures for raising cattle.

nabla9 10y ago

Wast areas of deep sea floors (abyssal plains) are ecologically desert and they cover wast areas. Very little nutrition and life. Only small oasis like whale carcass is full of life. Of course there may be unintended consequences. Its unclear to me where these mining operations take place. It seems that these ventures are trying to mine at the depth of 1600 m. Continental shelf has more life than continental slope or abyssal plains.

bbernard 10y ago

Elon Musk has already said that burning fossils fuels and pumping it into the atmosphere is the "dumbest experiment in history". So I guess we've just found the second dumbest one. I just can't understand why some people think that this is a good idea.

sqeaky 10y ago
They already have government oversight. They already have a plan for minimizing pollution, which is wasted material that could be mined and therefore lost money. They come from a western country with a decent environmental track record. It doesn't seem intellectually honest to compare 1 company mining in a situation where polluting is economically disadvantageous and has the science to understand at least some of the risks to climate change. With climate change we built several giant industries cars, power, and others that burned huge amount of fossil fuels before we knew the risks. And generally polluting is economically advantageous.