Saint Helena Virtual Forum
Deep Sea Mining: Much To Gain...Much To Lose.
The UN’s International Seabed Authority (ISA) has jurisdiction over international water, for permits to explore deep-sea mining where the bulk of the ocean’s critical minerals are found. They will soon finalize regulations that will dictate whether and in what manner countries could pursue deep-sea mining in international waters. However, in spite of the potential opportunity and despite years of research, little is known about the deep ocean. Many individuals fear extracting minerals from it could pose grave consequences for both marine life and planetary health. The particular area now in question spans 4.5 million square kilometers (1.7 million square miles) between Hawaii and Mexico.
With the future of deep-sea mining still under debate, The Saint Helena Forum will explore the proposed practice and its potential impacts. The forum has invited three key individuals to discuss the opportunities and the challenges involved in this endeavor.
Gerard Barron, Chairman & CEO of The Metals Company, whose company has ambitious plans to harvest the polymetallic nodules in the Clarion-Clipperton Zone. Mr. Barron is a seasoned entrepreneur with a track record of building global companies in battery technology, media and future-oriented resource development both as a chief executive and strategic investor. He became involved in the early strategic development and financing of DeepGreen during its formation in 2011 and stepped into the role of Chairman & CEO in 2017. (more about Mr. Barron and The Metals Company)
Dr. Lisa Levins, Professor Emeritis of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography and co-founder of the Deep-Ocean Stewardship Initiative. Dr. Levin has participated in over 40 oceanographic expeditions. She monitored cold seep sediments, checking the interaction of fauna with flow and reporting the first review of the different size groups of organisms. The Deep-Ocean Stewardship Initiative, which she founded, is a group that seeks to integrate science, technology, policy, law and economics to advise on the management of resource use in the deep ocean in order to maintain the integrity of deep-ocean ecosystems. In 2017 Dr. Levins founded the Deep Ocean Observing Strategy (DOOS), which outlines the requirements for future deep ocean observations. (more about Dr. Levins)
James A.R. McFarlane, subsea vehicle developer, pilot, and former Head of the Office of Resources and Environmental Monitoring for the International Seabed Authority in Kingston, Jamaica. His background includes international ocean policy development, undersea systems design and manufacturing, oceanographic research, marine operations, training, and business management. His experience in all facets of subsea development, research, and operations has provided him with a unique perspective on the marine environment and the stewardship of this natural resource. Mr. McFarlane is an experienced ROV pilot and has logged over 10,000 hours of piloting time, primarily for oceanographic research.
Topic Background
In our race to cut greenhouse gas emissions and address climate change, there is tremendous demand for critical minerals like lithium, cobalt and graphite which are essential components of EV batteries, wind turbines, and solar panels, as well as other low-carbon energy technologies. While we currently mine these materials on land, demand pressures have some looking to tap the sea floor for its metal ores much of which lie in potato-sized polymetallic nodules .
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A conservative estimate is that 21.1 billion dry tons of polymetallic nodules lie in the Clarion-Clipperton Zone manganese nodule field, the largest in area and tonnage of the known global nodule fields. The Zone spans 4.5 million square kilometers (1.7 million square miles) between Hawaii and Mexico, an abyssal plain as wide as the continental United States and punctuated by seamounts. Lying atop the muddy bottom or embedded just beneath it are trillions of potato-size polymetallic nodules.The nodules sit on the sediment surface across abyssal plains in a region in a zone spanning 5,000 kilometers across the central Pacific Ocean, at depths of ~4,000 - 5,500 meters (12,000 - 18,000 feet) undisturbed in waters of unusual clarity.
Based on that estimate, tonnages of many critical metals in these nodules are greater than those found in global terrestrial reserves
Some nations are already applying to the ISA for permits to explore deep-sea mining where the bulk of the ocean’s critical minerals are found. The ISA now has until 2025 to finalize regulations that will dictate whether and in what manner countries could pursue deep-sea mining in international waters.
The Clarion-Clipperton Zone
Our three guests will be interviewed by David Freed. Those of you familiar with The Saint Helena Forum know of the direct and frank questioning by this former investigative journalist for The Los Angeles Times. As you will remember David served as The Times' lead police reporter, was an individual finalist for the Pulitzer Prize’s Gold Medal for Public Service,
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the most prestigious award in American journalism, and he shared in a Pulitzer Prize for the newspaper’s coverage of the 1992 Rodney King riots.
Beside interviewing our Forum guests, David has reported from Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Iraq during Operation Desert Storm, and later worked in the intelligence community for the CIA and Defense Intelligence Agency, among other federal agencies. An active instrument-rated pilot, he is a frequent contributor to national magazines, including Air & Space Smithsonian, where he is a contributing editor, and the Atlantic, where his story, “The Wrong Man,” was honored in 2011 as a finalist in feature writing by the American Society of Magazine Editors.