Name: Norway’s Plan to Mine Critical Minerals From the Deep Sea
Uploaded: 2024-07-29T04:01:00Z
Duration: 6 min 44 s
Description: The controversial race to mine the deep sea is ramping up around the world. Here’s why Norway is taking a leading role.

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The controversial race to mine the deep sea is ramping up around the world. Here’s why Norway is taking a leading role. Photo: Loke Marine Minerals

https://m.wsj.net/video/20240726/316a1734-f5f9-4c12-ad8e-e9e5b6c7585f/1/hls/manifest-hd-wifi.m3u8

The controversial race to mine the deep sea is ramping up around the world. Here’s why Norway is taking a leading role.

Norway’s Plan to Mine Critical Minerals From the Deep Sea 

Narrator: Deep inside this zone between Norway and Greenland, the seabed contains some of the most valuable minerals on the planet, from cobalt to rare earths, it holds the raw materials needed to drive multi-billion dollar industries such as electric vehicles, wind turbines, and other clean technologies. Currently land-based supplies of these lucrative resources are dominated by China, giving sites like this massive geopolitical significance. But extracting such reserves from the deep sea is both a huge engineering challenge and highly controversial with critics arguing, drilling here will cause irreparable damage to the largest ecosystem in the world. So here's how Norway is racing to tap into billions of dollars worth of rare minerals and why the US is intently watching developments. This remote operating vehicle, or ROV is around 6,500 feet below the surface in an area of largely unexplored ocean.

This ROV is going down to the sea mountain and drilling a core.

Narrator: It's one tool being used to try and map out and analyze Norway's vast underwater reserves.

Walter: So this is automatic and it can drill up to a hundred sites before it needs to go up to the surface again.

Narrator: Loke Marine Minerals is one of several companies working with Norway to establish how it could mine here in the future.

The main challenge at the moment is that we do need more knowledge. We're gonna also include private companies in the work. So by opening, we're also inviting them in so that we can do this together

Narrator: To better understand how it could mine its deep sea resources, the country has opened up an area roughly the size of Nevada, close to the Arctic Archipelago of Svalbard. Here, thousands of feet below the surface minerals are found in two forms, massive sulfide deposits created by magma heating seawater below the seabed, which then rises up depositing minerals on the ocean floor. And in manganese crust, which is formed where metallic compounds dissolved in seawater, adhere to the sides of sea mountains. Initial surveys of this area estimate there are 38 million tons of copper and 45 million tons of zinc contained within the sulfides. In addition to millions of tons of cobalt and hundreds of thousands of other materials in the manganese crust. One estimate puts the potential value of Norway's minerals at around $92 billion. But these precious resources sit right next to protected marine areas. Companies in Norway are developing technology they hope will balance the challenge of extracting these minerals with environmental risks.

We are looking at small robots that are scraping off the crust and vacuum cleaning all material that was scraping off. If you think about a robot is cleaning a swimming pool on the sides, all the crust will be pumped up to a vessel at the sea level.

Narrator: But critics fear smoke plumes made up of the modern debris disturbed by the process could damage fragile deep sea ecosystems.

We've tried to make the environmental impact as low as possible, but you cannot extract anything from the earth without making an impact.

But despite these concerns, the UN allows any coastal state, the rights to the resources on and under the seabed within its continental margin. This generally extends to around 200 nautical miles. Countries can apply to extend this territorial limit. In 2009, Norway gained an additional 90,000 square miles, and in 2024 passed a controversial bill seeking to explore part of it for deep sea mining activities.

First of all, it's important to say that what the parliament has opened for now is to explore, map, and gather more knowledge.

Narrator: Norway says environmental assessments and parliamentary approval must be in place before mining begins. Closely monitoring the developments in Norway is the US, which has one of the largest continental shelves in the world.

And that's not just because of the American mainland. You've got places like Alaska, Hawaii, and a smaller island, places like Guam, and American Samoa, which really give the US a very large continental shelf and a lot of ocean waters that it can exploit.

Narrator: But unlike Norway, US legislators have been slower to develop plans to extract deep sea minerals. While countries like China and private companies are vying for lucrative contracts to mine beyond their own continental shelf. Most of the attention has focused on the Clarion-Clipperton Zone or CCZ, positioned South of Hawaii. Unlike Norway's resources, the minerals in this area are found inside nodules, small rocks loosely scattered on the sea floor. It is believed there's more nickel, cobalt, and manganese here than in all land deposits. But legislative hurdles stand in the way of actually mining them. First, permission from the ISA, a UN body, must be granted and so far it's not handed out any exploitation contracts, although it has granted some exploration permissions.

China has access to five exploration sites where the US doesn't have access to any. The US hasn't ratified the UN Law of the Sea. That means it's not party to the ISA, and that means it can't actually legally gain exploration or exploitation contracts for deep sea mining in international waters. At the moment, the main option for it is to open up its own continental shelf.

Narrator: As the US scrambles to catch up on what many say is the ticket to a green future, all eyes remain focused on Norway's pioneering efforts.

I think it has also been important for us to talk honest about it, to say that we see the need for these minerals, but to also say that we don't know everything. But if we are ever gonna continue and be able to extract seabed minerals in a sustainable way, we have to start somewhere, we need more knowledge, and we need to invite private actors to play a part in it.

Narrator: But legislative hurdles, environmental factors, and profitability all leave this nascent industry with huge question marks over its long-term viability. Until there are clearer answers, these zones cram with billions of dollars worth of critical minerals may be left untapped.

The irony is that it could help society become greener, but remains hugely controversial because of the harm it could do to the rest of the environment.