The Dubious Economics of Deep-Sea Mining

Post by unglaublich » Sat, Jan 06, 2024, 2:34 PM UTC

bglazer wrote: post #8

andrewstuart wrote: post #5

And 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.

Post by mint2 » Sat, Jan 06, 2024, 2:43 PM UTC

paganel wrote: post #7

spacebanana7 wrote: post #6

Even 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.

Post by _heimdall » Sat, Jan 06, 2024, 2:53 PM UTC

unglaublich wrote: post #11

bglazer wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Especially since this will be completely hidden from the public, and complex and expensive to check by governments, and even harder when on international waters. That means there's hardly any penalty or price for polluting and destroying sensitive ecosystems. And since companies treat fines like operational costs, these companies will be financially incentivized to mine, pollute, and destroy the seabed, even for ques…

Post by t43562 » Sat, Jan 06, 2024, 3:17 PM UTC

CyanBird wrote: post #14

t43562 wrote: post #10

The 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.…

And the counter argument to the "amount of area '' not being big ''" is that the zones that will be mined are precisely the richest in ecological interactions and less understood ones, they are the zones with underwater volcanic chimneys If someone came and said that they want to drag mine/open pit mine the Yellowstone geysers bc of how rich they are with minerals and said as an argument "hey it is just a small part…

Post by gottorf » Sat, Jan 06, 2024, 3:27 PM UTC

_heimdall wrote: post #16

t43562 wrote: post #10

The 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.…

There still one good choice, just use less power. We're collectively running in circles trying to find a replacement for oil that allows us to continue to increase our energy use. That's an extremely difficult challenge and one that paints us into a corner. The underlying problem is that energy use and GDP are directly correlated, and modern economics don't allow for a possibility of decreasing GDP. As long as we ref…