Rare metals found on seabeds could be key to green technology, but mining them could wreak ecological havoc on the ocean floor

The nodules form on the ocean floor over millions of years. A bit of organic material, like a shell or a shark tooth, will fall to the floor, where it will aggregate metals from the ocean and sea floor.

Nodules may help provide more metals for green energy, but they don't fully alleviate the need for metals from the land and their harmful practices.

The Clarion-Clipperton zone is reserved for developing nations. The Metals Company, a Canadian mining start-up, partnered with three Pacific Islander countries — Tonga, Kiribati, and Nauru — to explore their section of the zone.

Nearly 20 other companies and countries are racing to work with the three island countries for access to the Clarion-Clipperton zone, which is about as wide as the continental United States.

Two years ago, Nauru officials asked the International Seabed Authority for permission to mine in the Clarion-Clipperton zone and invoked the "two-year rule." It states that if a state makes a request, the ISA will finalize regulations within two years.

If the ISA fails to do so, it must give provisional approval to the application.

Each vehicle has four nozzles and sensors to adjust its position and vacuum up nodules and sediment. The nodules and sediment are filtered out via internal pumps on the vehicle.

The nodules, sediment, and seawater are sent back up through tubes that can extend up to 2.5 miles, reaching the surface after about 12 minutes.

The nodules will be used to create materials necessary for green technology like solar panels, wind turbines, and lithium batteries for electric vehicles.

For now, the nodules will stay in storage until the company can scale up production. The Metals Company can only scale up mining once it is granted approval from the ISA, potentially after its meeting this month.

Mining for cobalt in the Democratic Republic of Congo has been linked to dangerous working conditions and has been known to use child labor. The DRC holds 70% of the world's cobalt known as the "blood diamond of batteries," and the working conditions for mining it are harsh, dangerous, and unregulated.

An estimated 200,000 people in the DRC work in the mines with millions more involved in the larger process. The 200,000 miners — thousands of whom are children — work for an estimated 35 cents an hour.

Though, that's far from certain.

Terrestrial mining has waste material known as "tailings" that can leach dangerous chemicals into the ground and groundwater.

"We generate zero waste and zero tailings," Barron told Insider. "We don't have the risk of any child labor. We can commercially pick up these rocks and help stop some of the horrible deforestation of our most biodiverse habitats on land."

Terrestrial mining has waste material known as "tailings" that can leach dangerous chemicals into the ground and groundwater.

"We generate zero waste and zero tailings," Barron told Insider. "We don't have the risk of any child labor. We can commercially pick up these rocks and help stop some of the horrible deforestation of our most biodiverse habitats on land."

Germany, France, Spain, and others are among the countries that have called for a moratorium, pause, or ban on the practice of deep-sea mining. New Zealand, Costa Rica, Chile, Panama, Palau, Fiji, and the Federated States of Micronesia have also made similar calls.

Even corporations like BMW, Samsung, and Volvo have pledged not to use minerals from deep-sea mining in their technology.

The Metals Company responded to the videos, saying that it was a temporary overflow from the whirlpool which ran over the deck and into the pipes.

Sediment has the potential of impacting wildlife on the floor of the seabed, experts say.

"Somebody dumping a lot of sediment in there, that the animals aren't used to, probably will have some impact," Jesse van der Grient, a marine biologist and project manager with the South Atlantic Environmental Research Institute, told Insider.

In an analysis of seabed ecology, scientists found a decrease in marine life a year after drilling tests for cobalt in Japan in 2020.

Researchers found a "43% drop in fish and shrimp density in the areas directly impacted by sediment pollution," Science Daily reported.

They also found a 56% drop in the surrounding areas of sediment pollution.

The nodules give some animals something to hold onto among the soft sediment on the sea floor. Even if miners avoid stirring up sand, the removal of nodules would take away habitats and shelter for animals.

In September 2022, the International Union for Conservation of Nature called for a global moratorium on deep-sea mining. In March 2023, Bruno Oberle, Director General of the IUCN sent an open letter to the ISA urging them to uphold the moratorium.

"Bio­diversity loss will be inevitable if deep-sea mining is permitted to occur," the IUCN Congress said during a 2021 conference in France. "This loss is likely to be permanent on human timescales, and that the consequences for ocean ecosystem function are unknown."

Nodules provide a new source of untapped metals that could help achieve that goal, but it doesn't come without its risks.

"Deep-sea mining would not provide many of the critical materials needed for the green transition and other high-tech sectors," Michael Norton, the environment director of the European Academies' Science Advisory Council, said. "In addition, recycling rates can be vastly improved."