They've got nickel, cobalt, and manganese, but mining them probably isn't great for ocean ecosystems.
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Finding ways to get hold of the metals and minerals to make electric vehicle batteries is a big problem. And it's only going to get bigger, as more and more automakers announce their gigafactory intentions. One barrier keeping this from happening on the massive scale we need it to is the fact that it can be critically environmentally destructive. Also, an awful lot of places containing what's needed are famously tricky to mine. or require towns to be built on sheer cliffs and roped together with cable cars, like the Chiatura manganese mine.
Wouldn't it be great, given that, if there were potato-sized chunks of exactly the dang metals we need just lying around all over the sea bed, ready to get picked up? That sounds fake but it isn't—polymetallic nodules are a real thing that just kind of chill out on the ocean floor. They're formed in a concreting process (well, the ones we're talking about here are) that just smushes 'em up together like important mineral rocky road.
There are polymetallic nodules in a bunch of places across the world's oceans, including the Arctic, but one Canadian company thinks it's hit—well, not gold, but cobalt, which might be better—off the coast of Mexico. The Clarion Clipperton Fracture Zone is covered with the nodules and The Metals Company has permission to start looking into getting down there and picking these little nugs up.
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Read Full Story: https://www.thedrive.com/news/43162/these-ocean-rocks-have-pretty-much-everything-needed-for-ev-batteries
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