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A secret on the ocean floor
- arikalmen 9y agoThis is still a CIA plot. Don't be fooled by the geology
- ccozan 9y agoIn short: a almost romantic cold-war story of a mission to recover a sovier submarine triggers an interest of mining the deep ocean floor. Not actual until the whole world is moving to an electrical future where raw materials such as copper, cobalt, zinc, etc are in shortage, or suspect of child work, thus an option of mine the ocean floor. This has other drawbacks, such as destroying the ecology of the deep ocean floor, possibly wiping out species that we might not even know.
- eisvogel 9y agoI like how the eco footprint is compared to a graphical depiction of Prominent Hill mine in SA. I used to code telemetry on site there.
- binarray2000 9y agoI wonder, if USIC (US intelligence community) has used billionaires in the 1970s to cover up their secret operations, if they do it today?
- garmaine 9y agoLike the removal of dependence on foreign oil thanks to solar power, and development of inexpensive large-payload space launch systems for national intelligence payloads?
- adventured 9y agoNo, like digging under Washington DC to build a fake transport tunnel, when you're really providing cover for putting new construction in place under the capitol that the US Govt doesn't want their enemies to know exists. (I'm not saying that is occurring, just that that would be the more likely example)
- chatmasta 9y agoI would imagine this is very common. I also wonder if there are "billionaires" who aren't even actual billionaires, just CIA operatives with legends slowly built up around them through the years.
- jacobush 9y agoNow you put a thought I just can't get out of my head. Trump?
- lawlessone 9y ago> Trump If that's the case it's not going well.
- adventured 9y agoHe got the Presidency, a massive spending increase for the military, corporate tax cuts, net neutrality abolished, as well as further espionage enhancements signed into law. It's going tremendously well.
- thinkling 9y agoWhat are you implying about SpaceX and BlueOrigin...? What's really in that Roadster? :)
- megy 9y agoWas that actually a car sent to mars?
- sandworm101 9y agoSo those vents, the ones covered in crabs, worms and all the other living things, are going to be ground up into slurry? Didn't Monty Burns try something like this? A mile down might seem far, but that's where sperm whales and elephant seals feed. This will come back to haunt us.
- Finnucane 9y agoWhy do you say that? Mining companies have a long and honorable history of responsible environmental stewardship.
- jacquesm 9y agoI'm going to go out on a limb here and assume you meant that sarcastically. https://www.google.com/search?q=rio+tinto+environmental+damage https://www.google.com/search?q=rio+tinto+environmental+dama... For just one example. Resource extractors of all kinds are among the worlds biggest polluters and destroyers of habitats and entire eco systems.
- marcosdumay 9y agoI don't think there is any other interpretation possible for the GP. I don't think we should adopt the habit of postpending a "\s" everywhere, at least not on HN.
- whicks 9y agoI agree wtr to the GP, but in general I disagree. You can never really be certain. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe%27s_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe%27s_law
- Finnucane 9y agoNow I have to wonder if the downvotes are people not getting the sarcasm or are offended that I might be snarky about the mining industry.
- ideonexus 9y agoIt's hard not to see this from all sides: the saddening loss of biodiversity, the world's desperate need for these metals, and the needs of poor countries to exploit their natural resources to rise up in the world. At first I was horrified by the mining technique being described here, and then the article got into all the United Nations protections and regulations surrounding this process. It's encouraging to know the world will be monitoring this as it happens. Often forgotten about American history is how badly we had to destroy our own environment before we took action to make things better. Much of our country was turned into barren wasteland as all the trees were cut down for industry, and it took FDR deploying a literal army of tree-planters to bring the forests back. I think we are watching the same history repeat in China now as they deploy tree-planters along their growing deserts. So we'll watch this new environmental front. We'll read stories about companies breaking the rules and listen to pundits decry government regulations that protect snails over jobs. Hopefully we'll strike a balance and survive long enough to make asteroid-mining profitable and maybe take all of this off-world where such environmental conflicts don't exist.
- deanCommie 9y agoI'm much less optimistic than you. The amount of willful cognitive dissonance on display here is staggering. > “Where we’ll be operating, it’s cold and dark,” says one senior Nautilus executive. “There are no tuna there, they need entirely different conditions near the surface of the ocean.” I expect nothing less from the mining executive to dismiss concerns that the ocean's ecosystems are directly connected. > "For Michael Lodge, secretary general of the International Seabed Authority, a UN body set up to manage deep sea mining, there’s a clear case for pressing ahead. “Are we going to continue to develop huge mines that destroy villages, alter rivers, pollute water courses, take thousands of years to restore, remove whole mountains? You don’t have any of that with deep seabed mining.”" But this one is from the UN body itself that you are talking about monitoring this. This man just finished saying "pollute water" in the previous sentence then proceeded with the claim that this doesn't occur with deep seabed mining? How can people claim this with a straight face? I don't want to come off as naive. The article is very good at explaining the consumer needs driving this development. 8 billion people with smartphones and 4 billion electric cars does not scale. On the other hand, there are also hundreds of millions of people that rely on fish for their protein. Are we willing to risk destroying our oceans to save our land?
- pasta 9y ago"We’ve drilled the ocean floor for oil and gas, scarred it with trenches for communications cables, poisoned it with old radioactive waste and chemical weapons, and polluted its remotest corners with a blizzard of discarded plastic. So, is mining a step too far?" "I put that question to Sir David Attenborough at the launch of his series Blue Planet II. When he sees our video of the giant machines being readied in Papua New Guinea, he is aghast. “It’s heartbreaking,” he says." This sums it up for me. Our greed is sad.
- JoeAltmaier 9y agoI'm not so sure. What's happened to the ocean floor is a tiny, tiny fraction of what we've done to the land. Its just invisible, which in my mind lets people's imaginations run free. A few cable trenches? We've got two or three crossing the lot my house is on, not to mention 3 billion other people's lots. Mining? This ocean-floor stuff won't be a patch on what the US has done to the southwest, nor what Russia's done in the Arctic. As for landfills, every city, town and berg has one. I can't dig a shovel of dirt from my field without finding a plastic fragment. So, not to say its all good, but its just so remote from what should be our true concerns.
- nerdponx 9y agoBut the hydrothermal vents host thriving communities of marine life - snails, worms and shrimp that have evolved to cope with very specific conditions. In some cases these creatures are extremely rare, which is why the prospect of deep sea mining is highly controversial. You can't say the same for the earthworms and dandelions harmed by digging a trench in the yard in New England.
- JoeAltmaier 9y agoWe're largely unaware of the millions of extinct insects etc that humanity extinguished in our conquest of the 7 continents. Suffice it to say, all those that evolved on land for very specific conditions are long gone. Except for those we're bulldozing today without noticing.
- 9y ago
- Pigo 9y ago"Bram Murton, a geologist with the UK’s National Oceanography Centre, says that if all the cars on Europe’s roads are electric by 2040, and if they use the same kind of batteries as the Tesla Model 3, that would require 28 times more cobalt than is produced right now." "At the moment more than 60% of all cobalt comes from the Democratic Republic of Congo. For decades allegations of corruption and human rights abuses have swirled around parts of its mining industry." "And with renewable power like wind and solar being installed at a frantic pace, every turbine and every panel also requires key metals." I'm always wondering why more people aren't concerned about the production of these materials we need for all the clean energy, electric cars, and more iPhones. Is it just that it's not as bad as the oil production? Or do people really think we'll be mining asteroids in a few years?
- phlowbieuq 9y agoI'm hardly ever an optimist, but I believe that this kind of situation is exactly what the saying "Necessity is the mother of invention" applies to. I am 100% confident that Elon has an entire team of material scientists at Tesla working on alternatives to these rare materials.
- Pigo 9y agoI sure hope so. I'm definitely not against these new technologies. I'm just honestly not that informed on where these materials come from generally, and if there are any reasonable plans to source them better or replace them.
- PretzelPirate 9y agoDo you think Elon built the Falcon Heavy so he can get an alternative supply of the materials he needs from asteroids (I have no idea if cobalt can be found on asteroids)?
- codeulike 9y agoHere's an in depth analysis of the cobalt situation: https://techcrunch.com/2017/01/01/no-cobalt-no-tesla/ https://techcrunch.com/2017/01/01/no-cobalt-no-tesla/ Tesla are claiming they will only use cobalt mined in North America, the article examines that and find that it might be possible.
- graycat 9y agoWith all the concerns in the OP, the many questions, many calls for more research, the speculations of disasters, the lack of lots of solid, detailed information, etc., where the UN, etc. can be involved doing much of anything on the ocean floor will be blocked for decades. But there is an alternative: Use the TIFO method -- try it and find out. So, pick some spots on the ocean floor. It's a huge ocean with lots of candidate spots. At some of these spots, take a census of what is there. Gather some worms, crabs, shrimp, nodules, parts of hydrothermal vents, etc. Admit that these are not exhaustive or comprehensive but just samples. Then at some of these spots where took the census, do the mining. Leave the other spots as controls. Then take another census. Compare the mined spots with the controls. See what the changes and upsides and downsides are. Since some of the candidate spots for mining are in the waters of sovereign countries and, thus, largely out of the control of the US, likely some of this TIFO work will be done and not blocked by the UN, etc. Maybe then we will begin to find out.
- bubbleHead 9y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_submarine_K-129_(1960)#Alternative_theories_on_Project_Azorian https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_submarine_K-129_(1960)#...
- megy 9y ago> But the US had given the command and control system for nuclear weapons to the Russians But what does this mean? Why would they give it to the russians, and why would the russians accept it?
- el_don_almighty 9y agoHumans do not need to mine the ocean. The proven reserves of existing mines and future projects are more than enough for decades. Anyone who says otherwise is only looking to save a dollar and will cut costs on environmental sustainability. The USA is sitting on millions of tons of copper while watching other countries mine it out of theirs. We could supply the whole world for decades on our own if we wanted to restore our mining industry. But there's no real economic need for US minerals. I would argue there might be a strategic need for them, but not an economic one. There is certainly no economic imperative to mine the ocean floor in the face of the potential environmental harm it may cause. I question it's morality on the basis of balancing mankind's needs versus our calling to manage our resources properly. Wouldn't this money be better spent recycling e-waste where the copper and gold content is significantly higher and the environmental impact is demonstrably positive?
- nhylated 9y agoRelated: Radioloab episode on the Glomar explorer and how the Glomar clause ('neither confirm nor deny') was born out of it. http://www.radiolab.org/story/confirm-nor-deny/ http://www.radiolab.org/story/confirm-nor-deny/