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The Dubious Economics of Deep-Sea Mining

nautil.us

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Re: The Dubious Economics of Deep-Sea Mining

#31

Post by jakozaur »

Currently, there seems to be no tech that allows economical deep-sea mining.

It is challenging, yet I can't see a compelling tech demo or explanation of why it nailed tech breakthroughs. There is not yet a shale oil moment.

Looking at The Metals' top staff is also not encouraging: https://metals.co/company/ Most executives are not related to underlying tech. Most are not related to their hardest problem. Even the CTO has experience just with pure software plays. I found just one person who previously did some novel underwater robots as a principal. It is not professional due diligence, but it does not sound like a solid plan.

I'm not sure why there is so much discussion about the environment, given that tech is not ready. Maybe after raising a lot of money, it's easier to blame regulations than admit challenges with execution?

Re: The Dubious Economics of Deep-Sea Mining

#32

Post by collegeburner »

_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…

"just use less" is a very prescriptive line that i rarely find accompanied by concrete ideas on how to do so without huge reductions in welfare and quality of life. past some point, we must consider how highly we value the habitat of a rare lemur or something weighed against the benefit to conscious beings

the above does not exclude a reduction in our hyperconsumerist tendencies. i live in a pretty minimalist fashion and 90% of what i own was passed down from relatives or picked up secondhand. i am somewhat baffled that more people don't do this, if for no other reason than cost savings

Re: The Dubious Economics of Deep-Sea Mining

#33

Post by pi-e-sigma »

dboreham wrote: post #21
gottorf wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There still one good choice, just use less power. All of civilization has basically been about allowing higher per capita energy usage. To say "just use less power" means going to a lower level of human development. If our goal is human flourishing, then our focus should be on enabling yet higher levels of energy usage per person, preferably with as few side-effects as possible. Fossil fuels have been (and will con…

> To say "just use less power" means going to a lower level of human development. This sounds like an assumption without obvious proof.

This sounds like you don't know anything about history of human civilization. All improvements to the standard of living come from using more power per capita.

Re: The Dubious Economics of Deep-Sea Mining

#34

Post by collegeburner »

dboreham wrote: post #21
gottorf wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There still one good choice, just use less power. All of civilization has basically been about allowing higher per capita energy usage. To say "just use less power" means going to a lower level of human development. If our goal is human flourishing, then our focus should be on enabling yet higher levels of energy usage per person, preferably with as few side-effects as possible. Fossil fuels have been (and will con…

> To say "just use less power" means going to a lower level of human development. This sounds like an assumption without obvious proof.

a barrel of oil is equivalent to around twenty-five thousand man hours of work. sacrificing that would result in a colossal hit to quality of life. and ironically, the additional people needed to mitigate that might actually result in more ecological impact, to say nothing of broadening a global underclass of widget producers

we can and should use our limited hydrocarbons to bootstrap our way to higher-potential energy sources. but "using less" is a misguided assumption

Re: The Dubious Economics of Deep-Sea Mining

#35

Post by collegeburner »

mint2 wrote: post #13
paganel wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

“Oh yeah totally. the west really should be more like the BRIC and draw no lines, lines are bad.” What?!? Must we find any reason possible to knock the west?

nitpick, BRICS now that south africa joined. which is frankly baffling given that the other members were only too happy to continue doing business with the apartheid regime, excepting only india: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:International_sanctions...

Re: The Dubious Economics of Deep-Sea Mining

#36

Post by gruez »

elmomle wrote: post #27
gruez wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem isn't that lines are being drawn. It's that they're being drawn arbitrarily.

To rephrase: "We humans have already messed things up badly, why stop now? That would be arbitrary."

I'm not sure how you got the idea that the arbitrariness over when the mining took place. It's pretty obvious from the above comments that the arbitrariness was over which particular method of resource extraction (eg. land mining vs undersea mining) was being sanctioned/condemned, when both are devastating to the local ecology.

Re: The Dubious Economics of Deep-Sea Mining

#37

Post by pi-e-sigma »

collegeburner wrote: post #35
mint2 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“Oh yeah totally. the west really should be more like the BRIC and draw no lines, lines are bad.” What?!? Must we find any reason possible to knock the west?

nitpick, BRICS now that south africa joined. which is frankly baffling given that the other members were only too happy to continue doing business with the apartheid regime, excepting only india: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:International_sanctions...

There is nothing baffling, it's just politics as usual. The was West was perfectly fine with Apartheid in South Africa when SA was fighting communists in Africa. Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Regan publicly called Nelson Mandela a terrorist. When South Africa wasn't need anymore all of sudden Western countries started to care about Apartheid.

Re: The Dubious Economics of Deep-Sea Mining

#38

Post by deadly-penguin »

jvanderbot wrote: post #20
adhesive_wombat wrote: post #3

Makes 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.

Oh a deep water robot that can manipulate rock sized objects on the seafloor, map environment, and return heavy things to the surface? I, government agent, would like to buy 100.

Those sorts of things are currently available and aren't much like a mining rig.

Deep sea mining rigs don't really manipulate the nodules so much as hoover them up - there wouldn't be as much backlash if it was just picking nodules up.

There's a picture of an early rig here: https://blogs.noc.ac.uk/jc241-smartex/prologue-smartex

Re: The Dubious Economics of Deep-Sea Mining

#39

Post by kiba »

_heimdall wrote: post #26
gottorf wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There still one good choice, just use less power. All of civilization has basically been about allowing higher per capita energy usage. To say "just use less power" means going to a lower level of human development. If our goal is human flourishing, then our focus should be on enabling yet higher levels of energy usage per person, preferably with as few side-effects as possible. Fossil fuels have been (and will con…

Your argument hinges on two assumptions, both that I'd argue are flawed. First, you're assuming that our current use of power is efficient and there isn't enough unnecessary or inefficient use of power to make a difference. Do you believe that there aren't changes we could make to reduce power use without noticeably reducing human well-being? Second, you're assuming that increased growth is always a good thing and de…

Walking would improve lifestyle of most humans on Earth.

Re: The Dubious Economics of Deep-Sea Mining

#40

Post by kiba »

pi-e-sigma wrote: post #33
dboreham wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> To say "just use less power" means going to a lower level of human development. This sounds like an assumption without obvious proof.

This sounds like you don't know anything about history of human civilization. All improvements to the standard of living come from using more power per capita.

It can also be true that improving energy efficiency will be good, and forgoing harmful energetic activity is also good, such as reducing the number of cars on the road.
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