Nauru, lying about halfway across the vast expanse of the Pacific Ocean between Australia and Hawaii, is the world’s smallest island nation. But in the emerging industry of deep-sea mining, it punches far above its weight.
This June, Nauru gave notice to the International Seabed Authority (ISA), the UN agency charged with regulating mining in international waters, that it was triggering the so-called two-year rule: The agency will have to consider any application for a deep-sea mining license two years from now, under whatever regulations are on the books at the time. This effectively forces the ISA’s hand to finalize a regulatory mining code before that deadline. With this latest development, a once-fanciful idea may soon become a global industry.
Ironically, while critics worry about deep-sea mining’s environmental impacts, proponents are offering up the urgency of climate change and the need to transition to a clean-energy economy as the reason to press ahead.
What Nauru is hoping to pull from the depths are potato-sized chunks of metals and minerals called polymetallic nodules, which contain elements vital to the clean-technology components needed for the transition away from fossil fuels, particularly lithium-ion batteries, but also solar panels and wind turbines.
The lumps are formed when something — like a shark’s tooth, perhaps — falls to the ocean floor, and minerals and metals build up slowly on its surface over millions of years. These nodules dot the ocean...
Read Full Story: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/science/the-race-for-electric-vehicle-parts-leads-to-risky-deep-ocean-mining
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