Tag Archives: polymetallic nodules

The Battle for the Ocean Floor

Mining rare minerals and metals from beneath the ocean could avoid the environmental damage of on-shore mining, and fuel our sustainable transition. In the most common version of deep-sea mining, huge excavation robots scour the seabed for polymetallic nodules, small potato-sized clusters of key minerals such as cobalt and nickel. Resources like these are in high demand for building technologies like new batteries, which will be crucial to electrifying our society. These mining activities, however, might damage deep-sea ecosystems we know very little about. Which is why NGOs such as Greenpeace and even some companies, like BMW, are calling for a moratorium on deep-sea mining. >click to read<16:14