Companies are gearing up to begin mining of the seafloor where there is a vast amount of valuable metals such as manganese, nickel, cobalt and copper, important to electric battery production, a key component of the transition to a clean energy economy. VIDEOGRAPHIC
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00:00Companies are gearing up to begin mining of the seafloor, where there is a vast amount
00:11of valuable metals such as manganese, nickel, cobalt and copper, important to electric battery
00:18production, a key component of the transition to a clean energy economy.
00:23Seabed mining could start by 2025 in one of the current seabed exploration areas known
00:28as the Clarion-Clipperton Zone on an abyssal plain in the Pacific Ocean stretching between
00:33Hawaii and Mexico.
00:38Mining techniques include the use of machines like small tractors which are lowered to the
00:42seafloor.
00:43Here they suck up the potato-sized minerals known as polymetallic nodules and sediment
00:49which are pumped up by pipeline to the ship.
00:52The machines create clouds of sediment on the ocean floor known as collector plumes.
00:58On arrival at the ship the nodules, which were probably formed millions of years ago,
01:03are separated from the sediment which is pumped back into the ocean, forming a second cloud
01:07of sediment known as the dewatering plume, higher up the water column.
01:15Environmental groups and scientists say that mining the deep seas could destroy habitats
01:20and species that may still be unknown or potentially vital to ecosystems.