Deep-sea mining may soon ease the world's battery-metal shortage

Re:Deep-sea mining may soon ease the world's battery-metal s... by aurizon on Monday July 03, 2023 @04:45PM (#36578561)

We have all seen the hot vents, the large worms/crabs etc that subsist on the large sulfur bearing hot springs. Large colonies of bacteria live on these sulfur based nutrients. There is a large ecology from bacteria all the way to large worms/crabs/etc - an amazing diversity. These sulfur streams also carry cobalt/copper/zinc - all crustal minerals. Most of these sulfides are soluble at very high temperatures. They start to precipitate as soon as they exit the vent = black clouds of diverse sulfides = bacteria food = supports the whole food chain. These vents migrate and once they move away from the vent they cool, There is a zone of up to a kilometer or more within which the ecology lives. Once the live zone moves away = dead zone. The dead zone is full of the nodules and these zone are huge and dead. They can be mined for minerals = no need to mine the life zone. The nodules are hard and dense, They get covered by silt and deep ocean detritus that is easy to break and mine with zero harm to life-forms, tube worms etc. What is needed is a deep sea sieve with a separator/flusher connected to a conveyor to the surface. This what they do now. There are enough modules for mankind for 1000 years or more.

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=deep+sea+nodule...

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Re:Deep-sea mining may soon ease the world's battery-metal s... by JumpCrisscross on Monday July 03, 2023 @04:49PM (#36578607)

> no need to mine the life zone

We need to set up independent monitoring and enforcement before the Pulitzer-winning expose of mining trawlers blisfully wrecking through vents.

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Re:Deep-sea mining may soon ease the world's battery-metal s... by _Microft on Monday July 03, 2023 @04:54PM (#36578679)

> They get covered by silt and deep ocean detritus that is easy to break and mine with zero harm to life-forms, tube worms etc. What is needed is a deep sea sieve with a separator/flusher connected to a conveyor to the surface.

What effect does it have to disturb/stir up all that silt? Isn‘t that going to create huge plumes that might take ages to settle? Could that be using up the little oxygen left at these depths?

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Re:Deep-sea mining may soon ease the world's battery-metal s... by meepmorp on Monday July 03, 2023 @04:59PM (#36578762)

We have no idea, and it really doesn't matter because it's going to happen anyway; even if we do know, nobody's going to not do it because it might wipe out some ecosystems.

We'll wreck everything, carelessly, like we've always done.

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Re:Deep-sea mining may soon ease the world's battery-metal s... by samtho on Monday July 03, 2023 @05:05PM (#36578822)

Defeatist thinking is not what we need to actually solve problems.

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Re:Deep-sea mining may soon ease the world's battery-metal s... by meepmorp on Monday July 03, 2023 @05:19PM (#36579004)

We don't even take particularly good care of the parts of the earth we live in and directly need to survive, why are we going to get it right in a remote and hostile environment like that?

Sure, I'm all for trying, but I don't hold out a ton of hope. I'd love to be wrong.

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Re:Deep-sea mining may soon ease the world's battery-metal s... by galangalalgol on Monday July 03, 2023 @05:15PM (#36578961)

It isn't necessarily defeatist. We could expect human nature to prevail despite our best efforts to curb it, and use that expectation to be prepared with mitigations and backup plans.

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Re:Deep-sea mining may soon ease the world's battery-metal s... by littlestymaar on Monday July 03, 2023 @05:12PM (#36578909)

The only viable alternative is violence, and most of us aren't especially thrilled by this perspective either, so cynicism is all we've left…

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Re:Deep-sea mining may soon ease the world's battery-metal s... by halhod on Monday July 03, 2023 @07:34PM (#36580211)

We do in fact have an idea, and it’s improving all the time. See this paper by MIT team on the plumes from the collector

https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.abn1219

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Re:Deep-sea mining may soon ease the world's battery-metal s... by littlestymaar on Monday July 03, 2023 @05:09PM (#36578863)

> There are enough modules for mankind for 1000 years or more

At the current rate I suppose? But if we keep the current “growth” rate, we would consume 60 times more ressources by the end of the century… (I used 5% increase a year as an approximation, and we aren't that far off currently).

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Re:Deep-sea mining may soon ease the world's battery-metal s... by halhod on Monday July 03, 2023 @07:35PM (#36580222)

there’s enough nickel in the CCZ to get the world to 2040 on a path to net zero. not “1000s of years” worth

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Re:Deep-sea mining may soon ease the world's battery-metal s... by zerodensity on Monday July 03, 2023 @05:53PM (#36579303)

You make a valid point but if the last century has shown us anything it's that our global civilisation hates the ocean (all large bodies of water really, above or below ground) and we want them gone or poisoned and dead. So if this cost even 5% more I don't see it happening.

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