Posted on July 11, 2023
Deep-sea mining would extract cobalt, copper, nickel, and manganese from potato-sized nodules which pepper the sea floor at depths of 4-6 kilometres. The nodules are an essential habitat for many species.
The total biosphere impacted by this mining in international waters alone would be up to 75 million cubic kilometres, a greater volume than all the freshwater in the world, according to the report by non-profit Planet Tracker.
“Sadly, the nodules… take millions of years to form,” said François Mosnier, head of Oceans Programme at Planet Tracker, which warned resulting biodiversity loss could be permanent.
Advocates say deep sea ecosystem restoration, such as installing artificial clay nodules to replace those lost, could mitigate these impacts.
But this would cost between $5.3 – $5.7 million per square kilometre, compared with $2.7 million price per square kilometre to mine them, according to the report.
