Researchers are looking for new materials to use for batteries, and they are considering exploring the depth of the ocean. However, a new report warns that doing so might only lead to "irreversible" damage.
Mining Battery Materials Under the Sea
Battery is the future of gadgets and vehicles. So, there's a race to find the best material to produce a sustainable battery. Currently, they use nickel, cobalt, and copper to make batteries.
Next year, mining batteries could invest in harvesting materials from the deep sea for the first time. However, a new report warns that it could do irreversible damage to the ethereal ecosystem on the ocean floor.
This week, tense discussions over a new "mining code" for the deep sea are taking place in Kingston, Jamaica. According to Rory Usher, PR and media manager for mining startup The Metals Company, in an email to The Verge, the mining code will ensure the continued protection of the marine environment while setting out the conditions for the responsible access and use of the resources crucial to the fight against climate change.
However, proponents argue that the seafloor is still too mysterious for us to comprehend the effects of our actions there completely. The scant information we currently have painted a gloomy picture of certain potential consequences. Thus, for them, mining on the deep seafloor should be avoided entirely.
According to Catherine Weller, global policy director of the conservation group Fauna & Flora, scientists know more about Moon's surface than the deep sea floor. So it makes no sense to go down there and destroy it as it could only cause irreparable harm.
Vice Presidents Judi Dench and David Attenborough are among the prominent individuals who support the group. Prince William is one of the group's patrons as well.
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Why Mine the Seafloor for Battery Materials?
Between Hawaii and Mexico is called the Clarion-Clipperton Zone, where the seafloor is covered in rock-like polymetallic nodules rich in nickel, copper, cobalt, and manganese.
The researchers also note that the zone is rich in biodiversity. Up to 90% of species collected there for study are completely new to science, and some are so rare that they may only thrive within tight ranges less than 200 kilometers large.
The conservation organization is concerned that the area could face an existential threat after Nauru, an island in the southwestern Pacific Ocean, plans to sponsor The Metal Company's mining efforts in the Clarion-Clipperton Zone. The move triggered a clause in the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, requiring the International Seabed Authority (ISA) to craft new regulations for mining the nodules by July.
The experts stressed that noise pollution during mining would disturb the animals in the area.
Weller argued that those animals are confined to the dark, chilly, and generally silent area where they reside. She stressed that sending loud, light-producing, sediment-churning devices down there could affect the species' ability to survive.
The Fauna & Flora's new report was published Monday.
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