4 ms·

Not that I have a better solution, but won't this suck up and kill seabottom creatures and denude their habitat?

by devindotcom 4y ago

eloff 4y ago
Doesn’t surface mining also do that?
- SECProto 4y ago
  > Doesn’t surface mining also do that? No, surface mining doesn't "suck up and kill seabottom creatures". :) More sympathetically: yes, surface mining can have habitat loss issues (i.e. land use changes), but the bigger issue erosion and sediment control, the management of which is a major component of any modern mine in a well regulated country. Maybe there are ways to mitigate subsea sediment migration, but they definitely haven't been studied to nearly the same extent as surface issues and mitigations
  - eloff 4y ago
    The sediment migration was part of what was being studied here, so maybe they will mitigate it somewhat. I’m not super optimistic given our mining record on land. Still the deep ocean is mostly a desert, and it’s massive, so I think we can afford to damage it a little. The alternative is land mining, which is also damaging.
bglazer 4y ago
Not only that, it also creates an enormous amount of underwater noise which distresses whales and dolphins. Further, it creates plumes of silt and tailings. All of this in a very poorly understood ecosystem. We have no idea what consequences this activity will have.
- tastyfreeze 4y ago
  No sound from a machine can come close to 235dB naval sonar pulses. Cetaceans voices can reach 180dB, 40dB more than a jet taking off. A machine may be annoying to cetaceans but it isn't going to kill them. Silt and tailing plumes made by mining aren't going to come close to the silt dumped into the ocean by rivers or disturbed by submarine landslides. I say forge ahead and make corrections as we learn more.
  - JonChesterfield 4y ago
    The ocean was always a desert, right? No animals ever known to live there, even before we set about industrial scale mining in the name of ecology, so no harm done.
UncleOxidant 4y ago
These deep sea species tend to be very slow growing. It could take centuries for a mined section to recover.
sp332 4y ago
Yes, but the alternative is having fewer batteries.
- mrguyorama 4y ago
  No, the alternative is manufacturers paying a dollar more for a battery made using more careful mining processes. Obviously that's a no go, because then I can't sell $3 "one time use" lithium ion battery packs as a "quick charge on the go" and literally throw away a reusable product.
hanniabu 4y ago
But the alternative is less profit, think about the economy!
billbrown 4y ago
It's taking place in 4000m deep abyssal zones. Aside from these nodules, there's barely any flora there and even less fauna. They've got a research vessel trailing them measuring all of the effects, which the researchers will publish in scientific journals.[1] I think of it as sifting economic value from seafloor cat litter. [1] https://metals.co/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/NORI-D-SIA-Scoping-Dec_2022.pdf https://metals.co/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/NORI-D-SIA-Scop...
- goodsoul 4y ago
  [flagged]

Not that I have a better solution, but won't this suck up and kill seabottom creatures and denude their habitat?

eloff 4y ago

Doesn’t surface mining also do that?

SECProto 4y ago
> Doesn’t surface mining also do that? No, surface mining doesn't "suck up and kill seabottom creatures". :) More sympathetically: yes, surface mining can have habitat loss issues (i.e. land use changes), but the bigger issue erosion and sediment control, the management of which is a major component of any modern mine in a well regulated country. Maybe there are ways to mitigate subsea sediment migration, but they definitely haven't been studied to nearly the same extent as surface issues and mitigations
- eloff 4y ago
  The sediment migration was part of what was being studied here, so maybe they will mitigate it somewhat. I’m not super optimistic given our mining record on land. Still the deep ocean is mostly a desert, and it’s massive, so I think we can afford to damage it a little. The alternative is land mining, which is also damaging.

bglazer 4y ago

Not only that, it also creates an enormous amount of underwater noise which distresses whales and dolphins. Further, it creates plumes of silt and tailings. All of this in a very poorly understood ecosystem. We have no idea what consequences this activity will have.

tastyfreeze 4y ago
No sound from a machine can come close to 235dB naval sonar pulses. Cetaceans voices can reach 180dB, 40dB more than a jet taking off. A machine may be annoying to cetaceans but it isn't going to kill them. Silt and tailing plumes made by mining aren't going to come close to the silt dumped into the ocean by rivers or disturbed by submarine landslides. I say forge ahead and make corrections as we learn more.
- JonChesterfield 4y ago
  The ocean was always a desert, right? No animals ever known to live there, even before we set about industrial scale mining in the name of ecology, so no harm done.

UncleOxidant 4y ago

These deep sea species tend to be very slow growing. It could take centuries for a mined section to recover.

sp332 4y ago

Yes, but the alternative is having fewer batteries.

mrguyorama 4y ago
No, the alternative is manufacturers paying a dollar more for a battery made using more careful mining processes. Obviously that's a no go, because then I can't sell $3 "one time use" lithium ion battery packs as a "quick charge on the go" and literally throw away a reusable product.

hanniabu 4y ago

But the alternative is less profit, think about the economy!

billbrown 4y ago

It's taking place in 4000m deep abyssal zones. Aside from these nodules, there's barely any flora there and even less fauna. They've got a research vessel trailing them measuring all of the effects, which the researchers will publish in scientific journals.[1] I think of it as sifting economic value from seafloor cat litter. [1] https://metals.co/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/NORI-D-SIA-Scoping-Dec_2022.pdf https://metals.co/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/NORI-D-SIA-Scop...

goodsoul 4y ago
[flagged]