The Deep-Sea Gold Rush

In the global scramble for critical minerals to power the energy transition, some countries are racing to exploit a new, untouched frontier: the bottom of the ocean. 

The treasure they are eyeing is a trove of polymetallic nodules, small, potato-shaped formations that are rich in the minerals underpinning electric vehicles and solar panels: cobalt, nickel, copper, and manganese. Desperate to seize these resources, countries are jockeying for mining access despite a slew of unanswered environmental, regulatory, and economic questions—fueling fears of a catastrophic gold rush in a region that the world knows little about. 

“It’s not just the environmental regulations,” said Lisa Levin, a professor at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography and a founder of the Deep-Ocean Stewardship Initiative. “There’s financial agreements and regulations. There’s compliance and liability issues. There is enforcement and monitoring. I mean, it just goes on and on.”

But the clock is ticking. If the most aggressive proponents of deep-sea mining under the high seas had their way, they would be able to apply for permits starting Sunday, thanks to an obscure legal rule that the island nation of Nauru triggered in 2021 to jump-start commercial mining. To unlock the deep sea’s riches, the island has partnered with The Metals Company (TMC), a Canadian firm that has been at the forefront of deep-sea mining efforts. That decision gave the International Seabed Authority (ISA), the governing body established by the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea, two years to write the rulebook for deep-sea mining in international waters—effectively setting a timer for it to chart a new industry. 

Time is almost up, and the ISA appears set to miss that deadline, potentially leaving the door open for countries to apply for mining permits even without regulations in place. What happens next is unclear: The body is meeting on Monday for further negotiations amid mounting pressure for greater caution and more time. Hundreds of scientists have urged the ISA to hit the brakes, and a slew of countries and companies have also joined their calls.

“There’s a lot of inertia once you start mining the deep sea,” said Levin. “We need to be considering carefully whether we want to go into a relatively pristine ecosystem and create damage, which is likely to be extremely long lasting, certainly beyond a human lifetime.”

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The ISA’s ongoing negotiations will only shape the future of the high seas, or the international waters that lie outside of the 230-mile exclusive economic zones allotted to coastal nations where they can mine and extract resources at will. Some countries are already considering diving into their national waters; last month, Norwegian lawmakers proposed greenlighting deep-sea mining projects.

Thousands of feet below the ocean’s surface, life in the deep sea is largely a mystery. Untouched and overwhelmingly unexplored, the seafloor is teeming with life and species that have yet to be discovered: scientists have uncovered more than 5,000 new species in one swath of the seabed. Even as scientists scramble to assess the potential impacts of deep-sea mining operations, there remain scientific gaps in an underwater landscape so vast and unexplored, according to a paper published by 31 scientists in 2022.

Scientists are still making discoveries that require further investigation, said Andrew Sweetman, a deep-sea expert at the Scottish Association for Marine Science. “It takes time to gather the samples, it takes time to ship the samples, but it takes even longer to analyze the samples properly and interpret the data properly,” he said. “We can’t have a ticking clock just above our heads, saying you have to analyze it all by this time. That’s not how it works.”

Yet proponents are eager to open the floodgates—and soon. The company leading the charge is The Metals Company (TMC), the Canadian firm that is sponsored by Nauru and has poured $75 million into research efforts to unlock the ocean’s treasures. (Companies must be sponsored by a nation to seek mining permits). Since no commercial deep-sea mining operations have ever taken place, the economics and technology behind the potential industry remains largely speculative. But TMC projects sweeping returns once operations begin, citing the soaring demand in minerals and the quality of the resources.

TMC argues that deep-sea mining is necessary to meet the energy transition’s mineral demands at a lower environmental cost than onshore mining. But many scientists have pushed back against these arguments, warning of irreversible reverberations in an unexplored environment and pointing to the ever-evolving nature of battery technology. 

Contrasting deep-sea mining with terrestrial operations isn’t an apples-to-apples comparison, either. “The ocean is a giant, three dimensional, highly connected system,” Levin said. “When you do something in one place in the ocean, the impacts and changes are likely to travel and affect other places in a way that might not be the case on land.”

Pradeep Singh, a research associate at the Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies, warned that companies may double down on their terrestrial mining operations in order to compete with the influx of deep-sea mining minerals. “They are going to compete, and they are going to cut corners to compete,” he said. “They’re going to reduce environmental standards—they’re going to make cuts on labor requirements.” 

But it’s full speed ahead at TMC, which aims to begin commercial production in late 2024 or early 2025, according to Craig Shesky, its chief financial officer. The company is committed to submitting its application only after it completes a comprehensive environmental impact assessment, he said, which he believes will take “months, not years.” But TMC also won’t rule out applying for a permit—even if regulations aren’t set up.

“It is much our preference to wait until the final mining code is in place,” he said, “but we reserve our rights to potentially move forward using the draft regulations, which already exist.”