5 ms·

Things are a little more complicated than that. 1. Surface mining also has environmental consequences which have to be weighed against the costs of deep sea mi

by elil17 4y ago

Things are a little more complicated than that. 1. Surface mining also has environmental consequences which have to be weighed against the costs of deep sea mining. An area impacted by surface mining can recover in just a decade, but it takes intensive environmental restoration efforts on the part of humans (https://news.ucsc.edu/2021/05/mine-remediation.html https://news.ucsc.edu/2021/05/mine-remediation.html). If similar techniques could be developed for deep sea applications, it could reduce the impact of deep sea mining. 2. Researchers are developing robots with advanced propulsion systems which could dramatically reduce the disturbance to sea-floor sediment by mimicking the ways that rays move. (https://interestingengineering.com/culture/new-autonomous-sustainable-robots-could-mine-the-deep-sea https://interestingengineering.com/culture/new-autonomous-su...) Of course, this is still an active area of research, and it would probably take regulation to force deep sea mining companies to adopt these measures. 3. Nodules are much easier to process, reducing the carbon footprint of deep sea mining vs. surface mining by up to 80% for some metals. (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0959652620338671 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S095965262...) This study even tries to account for the secondary effects of mining such as the different impacts that surface and deep sea mining have on carbon sequestered in the ecosystem. 4. Surface mining is more harmful to humans than deep sea mining is because it can leach dangerous chemicals into fresh water supplies. (https://www.usgs.gov/special-topics/water-science-school/science/mining-and-water-quality https://www.usgs.gov/special-topics/water-science-school/sci...) The effects of deep-sea mining on ocean ecology are much less well understood than the effects of surface mining. While I do think there's good reason to be optimistic about the benefits of deep-sea mining, especially if it can displace surface mining, we shouldn't assume we understand what will happen. I hope the industry continuous to be forced by regulators to move forward cautiously and allow time for environmental studies to take place. edit: These people are trying to build a deep sea miner that doesn't destroy the seafloor: https://impossiblemetals.com/ https://impossiblemetals.com/

cgh 4y ago
Point 4 is mostly confined to old abandoned sites, as mentioned in your link. Modern tailings aren’t left to leach acid all over the place, at least not in North American mines. I get that all bets are off in eg Africa, however.
- elil17 4y ago
  Sure, but a lot of surface exploitation is planned globally. Africa and Asia are certainly going to be seeing new mines opening due to demand for solar/batteries.
  - cgh 4y ago
    For sure, I was taking issue with the absoluteness of the assertion that all terrestrial mines are leaching from their tailings piles/ponds. It’s not true of many (most?) modern mines.
    - elil17 4y ago
      I didn’t mean it as an absolute assertion, but I can see that I didn’t make that clear.
orbital-decay 4y ago
>Surface mining also has environmental consequences which have to be weighed against the costs of deep sea mining. What will actually happen is both types will be happily used at the same time, so there's little point in weighting one against the other. Any other rationalization misses the fact that this is an extremely poorly understood environment (especially if we do compare with surface mining). It's never a good idea to tinker with unknown at scale without understanding it first, let alone commercializing it. Mining history is practically written in mistakes like that.
- culi 4y ago
  Right. Especially as we ramp up our reliance on solar panels (and therefore batteries). These operations are now heavily subsidized and we'll likely be making 100% use of every avenue available to mine as much as possible as soon as possible sigh. If only we put this much funding into solving our exploding e-waste crisis which could also help alleviate the problems of rare metals
  - jeffbee 4y ago
    We don't need weird elements to support solar with batteries. Grid stabilization can do fine with lead-acid batteries. Both lead and sulfur are readily available. There are also iron batteries and other emerging battery chemistries, as well as non-battery storage like pumped liquids or pressurized gases.
    - Robotbeat 4y ago
      Don’t need manganese or any rare minerals for batteries. Lithium iron phosphate batteries are used in the least expensive Teslas (base Model 3 and Y), and although lithium is very abundant, you can even substitute it for the even more abundant Sodium with only a slight weight increase. That’s superior to Lead based batteries in nearly every way.
      - pfdietz 4y ago
        Manganese is not a rare mineral. One does not mine manganese nodules for the manganese. Mining them would create an enormous surplus of manganese that would get dumped in waste piles.
ulrashida 4y ago
Sea floor mining is widely ridiculed by both environmental and mining professionals as having more risk than equivalent and better understood efforts on land. At least its close cousin, space mining, has the benefit of taking place off planet. I hope we never see this activity occur commercially in our lifetimes: we barely have gotten a handle on surface and underground mining, why do we run off to scrape the ocean as well? On 1: The study you have referenced refers to the difficulties of remediating historical abandoned sites, often run under inadequate regulations typically in the 1850's - 1960's. Modern sites are no joke to remediate, but regulators are beginning to pick up on what causes problems to occur and how to ensure these costs are factored into the mining operation. The difficulty of applying effective regulations to international undersea areas is enormous. On 2: That's great -- lots of things could happen to improve technology in both terrestrial and submarine mining. On 3: Carbon footprint is not everything when determining the appropriateness of mining. The study cited by the Science article assumes tailings deposition at sea -- mines are not permitted to do this. The article also swans repeatedly over how "high grade" nodules are, but makes no direct reference to their actual grade. The underlying paper suggests a grade of 1.3-1.4 weight percent which is on the bottom end of mid-grade. On 4: This point can not be concluded without further study. While terrestrial mining has had more historical impacts to humans, this does not allow for comparison on future terrestrial mining vs. a relatively unknown ecosystem impact from aquatic mining. Mining is also not assessed on purely anthropocentric impacts. We've begun to appreciate that systems are interconnected and humans are only one receptor. Enormous caution is required, certainly more than "lower emissions = good".
- elil17 4y ago
  I'm not sure that sea floor mining is widely ridiculed. I've seen it taken about as seriously by grantmakers as other emerging technologies. That said I’m not in the mining space. I'm don't disagree with your points - there's a lot of uncertainty around all of this research. But, from what I can see, regulators are doing the right thing and being very cautious to do environmental studies at each step of the way. Maybe I'm way off about that.

by elil17 4y ago

cgh 4y ago

Point 4 is mostly confined to old abandoned sites, as mentioned in your link. Modern tailings aren’t left to leach acid all over the place, at least not in North American mines. I get that all bets are off in eg Africa, however.

elil17 4y ago
Sure, but a lot of surface exploitation is planned globally. Africa and Asia are certainly going to be seeing new mines opening due to demand for solar/batteries.
- cgh 4y ago
  For sure, I was taking issue with the absoluteness of the assertion that all terrestrial mines are leaching from their tailings piles/ponds. It’s not true of many (most?) modern mines.
  - elil17 4y ago
    I didn’t mean it as an absolute assertion, but I can see that I didn’t make that clear.

orbital-decay 4y ago

>Surface mining also has environmental consequences which have to be weighed against the costs of deep sea mining. What will actually happen is both types will be happily used at the same time, so there's little point in weighting one against the other. Any other rationalization misses the fact that this is an extremely poorly understood environment (especially if we do compare with surface mining). It's never a good idea to tinker with unknown at scale without understanding it first, let alone commercializing it. Mining history is practically written in mistakes like that.

culi 4y ago
Right. Especially as we ramp up our reliance on solar panels (and therefore batteries). These operations are now heavily subsidized and we'll likely be making 100% use of every avenue available to mine as much as possible as soon as possible sigh. If only we put this much funding into solving our exploding e-waste crisis which could also help alleviate the problems of rare metals
- jeffbee 4y ago
  We don't need weird elements to support solar with batteries. Grid stabilization can do fine with lead-acid batteries. Both lead and sulfur are readily available. There are also iron batteries and other emerging battery chemistries, as well as non-battery storage like pumped liquids or pressurized gases.
  - Robotbeat 4y ago
    Don’t need manganese or any rare minerals for batteries. Lithium iron phosphate batteries are used in the least expensive Teslas (base Model 3 and Y), and although lithium is very abundant, you can even substitute it for the even more abundant Sodium with only a slight weight increase. That’s superior to Lead based batteries in nearly every way.
    - pfdietz 4y ago
      Manganese is not a rare mineral. One does not mine manganese nodules for the manganese. Mining them would create an enormous surplus of manganese that would get dumped in waste piles.

ulrashida 4y ago

Sea floor mining is widely ridiculed by both environmental and mining professionals as having more risk than equivalent and better understood efforts on land. At least its close cousin, space mining, has the benefit of taking place off planet. I hope we never see this activity occur commercially in our lifetimes: we barely have gotten a handle on surface and underground mining, why do we run off to scrape the ocean as well? On 1: The study you have referenced refers to the difficulties of remediating historical abandoned sites, often run under inadequate regulations typically in the 1850's - 1960's. Modern sites are no joke to remediate, but regulators are beginning to pick up on what causes problems to occur and how to ensure these costs are factored into the mining operation. The difficulty of applying effective regulations to international undersea areas is enormous. On 2: That's great -- lots of things could happen to improve technology in both terrestrial and submarine mining. On 3: Carbon footprint is not everything when determining the appropriateness of mining. The study cited by the Science article assumes tailings deposition at sea -- mines are not permitted to do this. The article also swans repeatedly over how "high grade" nodules are, but makes no direct reference to their actual grade. The underlying paper suggests a grade of 1.3-1.4 weight percent which is on the bottom end of mid-grade. On 4: This point can not be concluded without further study. While terrestrial mining has had more historical impacts to humans, this does not allow for comparison on future terrestrial mining vs. a relatively unknown ecosystem impact from aquatic mining. Mining is also not assessed on purely anthropocentric impacts. We've begun to appreciate that systems are interconnected and humans are only one receptor. Enormous caution is required, certainly more than "lower emissions = good".

elil17 4y ago
I'm not sure that sea floor mining is widely ridiculed. I've seen it taken about as seriously by grantmakers as other emerging technologies. That said I’m not in the mining space. I'm don't disagree with your points - there's a lot of uncertainty around all of this research. But, from what I can see, regulators are doing the right thing and being very cautious to do environmental studies at each step of the way. Maybe I'm way off about that.