The Dubious Economics of Deep-Sea Mining
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Re: The Dubious Economics of Deep-Sea Mining
#2pfft, sometimes they are very successful: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glomar_Explorer
Re: The Dubious Economics of Deep-Sea Mining
#3Makes good cover for naval intelligence activities though. Just don't assume because you see a ship "mining manganese nodules" from the seabed that you should build your own ship with your own money.
Re: The Dubious Economics of Deep-Sea Mining
#4If interest rates remain high, economically non-viable business will be far more self-limiting than in than in years before. Which in turns means that ecological damage might be more limited because doing it is just not worth it.
Re: The Dubious Economics of Deep-Sea Mining
#5And if you think they ruin the environment above sea level, I’ll bet the miners really fuck things up underwater.
Re: The Dubious Economics of Deep-Sea Mining
#6Even with dubious economics, deep sea mining could make sense for China for political reasons.
Securing supplies of key industrial commodities under de facto Chinese sovereignty may be worth the cost of whatever subsidies are required to encourage entrepreneurs & investors.
It’s very hard for anyone, even the US/UN, to sanction Chinese companies that only seek to import ocean materials into the Chinese domestic market.
Re: The Dubious Economics of Deep-Sea Mining
#7Even with dubious economics, deep sea mining could make sense for China for political reasons. Securing supplies of key industrial commodities under de facto Chinese sovereignty may be worth the cost of whatever subsidies are required to encourage entrepreneurs & investors. It’s very hard for anyone, even the US/UN, to sanction Chinese companies that only seek to import ocean materials into the Chinese domestic marke…
Of course it’s hard to sanction them, because the environmental-conscious way of extracting lots of minerals out of the Earth is by destroying jungles and other pristine land-based ecosystems, the underwater habitat is where the West draws the line.
Re: The Dubious Economics of Deep-Sea Mining
#8And if you think they ruin the environment above sea level , I’ll bet the miners really fuck things up underwater.
Yep these operations are going to be disasters. Huge plumes of waste silt, noise pollution, and permanent destruction of ecosystems whose role were don’t understand.
Re: The Dubious Economics of Deep-Sea Mining
#9Even with dubious economics, deep sea mining could make sense for China for political reasons. Securing supplies of key industrial commodities under de facto Chinese sovereignty may be worth the cost of whatever subsidies are required to encourage entrepreneurs & investors. It’s very hard for anyone, even the US/UN, to sanction Chinese companies that only seek to import ocean materials into the Chinese domestic marke…
Of course it’s hard to sanction them, because the environmental-conscious way of extracting lots of minerals out of the Earth is by destroying jungles and other pristine land-based ecosystems, the underwater habitat is where the West draws the line.
This is intended as satire, right?
Re: The Dubious Economics of Deep-Sea Mining
#10The argument I've seen is that the amount of seabed that has the required minerals is not big and the surface of the earth is predominantly covered by water so as a percentage of what's there the mined area is small.
I would like to know how bad mining that area is compared that to the damage we will do continuing with internal combustion engines if we don't solve the climate issue, or mining the same things on land. To me it seems we're entering a time when no choice is a nice one.