Re:Mining robot stranded on Pacific Ocean floor in deep-sea ...
by horsawlarway on Thursday April 29, 2021 @09:57AM
(#26981220)
> Nodules are never going to provide enough to meet demand
My understanding was that this one area is estimated to have more rare metals in these nodules than all land based deposits combined.
Deep sea mining doesn't really do much for either.
Nodules are never going to provide enough to meet demand, so mining nodules doesn't get rid of open cast mining. We don't know what the impact is of mining deep sea nodules, but it's likely to be pretty bad.
If open cast mining had a history of attempting to fix the mines (eg re-wilding) when they'd finished we could trust them a bit more when they want to mine new untouched wilderness. But they mostly don't have that history.
EDIT: for an example of the harm already caused: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-02242-y