Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The Dubious Economics of Deep-Sea Mining

nautil.us

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 78 posts

Re: The Dubious Economics of Deep-Sea Mining

#61

Post by kiba »

collegeburner wrote: post #58
kiba wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We can use less cars and use more trains. Energy efficiency is also an addition in the crease of available energy source, since said energy sources can be deployed to more productive, less harmful processes. Walking is also good, and it would probably do us good to personally increase humans' basal metabolism.

trains are exclusively fixed point-to-point. many cities are not constructed for walking and/or are 110 in the summer. respectfully, screw walking.

trains are exclusively fixed point-to-point. many cities are not constructed for walking and/or are 110 in the summer. respectfully, screw walking.

Changing society is hard isn't an excuse to continue the status quo, nor some edge case you envisioned is an excuse to not encourage walking, cycling, or public transit whenever possible.

Re: The Dubious Economics of Deep-Sea Mining

#62

Post by RandomLensman »

kiba wrote: post #60
RandomLensman wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Middle housing is illegal? Where is that or rather what is that then? If you want to believe that humans are just misled in a way that is fine, but you might find that some of your ideas about the status quo turn out to be wrong or at least that the status quo has few thousand years in it you need to overcome.

Middle housing is illegal? Where is that or rather what is that then? Middle housing is a type of housing density that sits somewhere between high rises and single family housing. Vox media has a good article on it.[1] but you might find that some of your ideas about the status quo turn out to be wrong or at least that the status quo has few thousand years in it you need to overcome. Modern status quo is vastly diffe…

Not sure how much of an issue that is outside of the US.

For sure urban planning has changed all a lot in the last 2000 years, but I actually meant more human desires around "luxuries".

Re: The Dubious Economics of Deep-Sea Mining

#63

Post by collegeburner »

kiba wrote: post #61
collegeburner wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

trains are exclusively fixed point-to-point. many cities are not constructed for walking and/or are 110 in the summer. respectfully, screw walking.

trains are exclusively fixed point-to-point. many cities are not constructed for walking and/or are 110 in the summer. respectfully, screw walking. Changing society is hard isn't an excuse to continue the status quo, nor some edge case you envisioned is an excuse to not encourage walking, cycling, or public transit whenever possible.

no, i'm saying 1. transportation is only a certain amount of our infrastructure and the cars can be electrified, and 2. your paradigm assumes we hold the environment above people's quality of life. i do not.

Re: The Dubious Economics of Deep-Sea Mining

#64

Post by _heimdall »

kiba wrote: post #59
_heimdall wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait, are you arguing that eating junk food and not exercising aren't really choices? I hope I'm just misreading sarcasm there, but they are very much choices and that itself should be empowering because people can just as easily make a different choice.

I hope I'm just misreading sarcasm there, but they are very much choices and that itself should be empowering because people can just as easily make a different choice. If choice is so easy, anyone can pick up a textbook about mathematics, barring deficiency in cognitive capacity, become knowledgeable about mathematics. That doesn't happen not because people are stupid, but because the task is genuinely hard. If choi…

> If choice is so easy, anyone can pick up a textbook about mathematics, barring deficiency in cognitive capacity, become knowledgeable about mathematics. That doesn't happen not because people are stupid, but because the task is genuinely hard.

You're conflating choice with a much more complex situation that raises questions of how people learn, how skills relate to nature versus nurture, and personal interest and motivations. I'm not arguing that avoiding junk food or choosing to exercise are easy, only that they are choices.

Its really interesting to me that you take the view of choice as defeatist while I see the exact opposite, that the view of a lack of choice is defeatist. We both clearly have considered this in the past and feel strongly about our view, great reminder that people can seriously and genuinely consider the same situation and land on exactly opposite positions.

Re: The Dubious Economics of Deep-Sea Mining

#65

Post by _heimdall »

collegeburner wrote: post #34
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.

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 ener…

Quality of life is relative. I live on a piece of land on the scale of 50-100 acres and currently have a small herd of cows, a few pigs, and chickens. We don't have a tractor and have no intention of buying heavy equipment. Most people that notice this think we're crazy and need to get a tractor to make this work.

Sure some of our daily tasks would be easier, but we simply don't want to own or maintain a tractor and appreciate a hard day's work.

I can say first hand that my quality of life is greater by skipping the diesel-powered tool that most would consider a must, and I'm well aware that most in my position would consider having the tractor as a quality of life improvement. Neither view is wrong, they just require more context and a recognition that quality of life is relative.

Re: The Dubious Economics of Deep-Sea Mining

#66

Post by RecycledEle »

From the article: "Deep-sea ecosystems could be destroyed for metals that will only be needed for a few more years."

I doubt this.

Can someone please prove me wrong?

What metal(s) have we mined in the past that we no longer need? I'm looking for any metal that we used to use that now we no longer use because we do not need it with our ever-expanding population and industrial base.

I'm not referring to metals like lead and mercury that are limited in use due to their toxicity.

Re: The Dubious Economics of Deep-Sea Mining

#67

Post by mint2 »

gruez wrote: post #23
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?

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

That is wrong. There’s a line and it’s very simple.

The line being drawn is “we’ve messed up a bunch of ecosystems over the years mining on land, let’s not make the same mess in this new frontier.”

Simple line. Let’s not open yet another ecosystem up to mining. It hasn’t gone well for the others.

Re: The Dubious Economics of Deep-Sea Mining

#68

Post by gruez »

mint2 wrote: post #67
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.

That is wrong. There’s a line and it’s very simple. The line being drawn is “we’ve messed up a bunch of ecosystems over the years mining on land, let’s not make the same mess in this new frontier.” Simple line. Let’s not open yet another ecosystem up to mining. It hasn’t gone well for the others.

>Simple line. Let’s not open yet another ecosystem up to mining. It hasn’t gone well for the others.

That would only make sense if we sanctioned every other country for opening/expanding land mines, but that's not a practical proposal. Otherwise the justification seems awfully flimsy and arbitrary. Why is it not okay to disrupt deep sea ecosystems, but it's fine to disrupt land based ecosystems? Is the logic is that because Rhinos (or whatever other land animals) are already endangered, it's fine to drive them further into extinction?

Re: The Dubious Economics of Deep-Sea Mining

#69

Post by Cthulhu_ »

RecycledEle wrote: post #66

From the article: "Deep-sea ecosystems could be destroyed for metals that will only be needed for a few more years." I doubt this. Can someone please prove me wrong? What metal(s) have we mined in the past that we no longer need? I'm looking for any metal that we used to use that now we no longer use because we do not need it with our ever-expanding population and industrial base. I'm not referring to metals like lea…

I suspect they're thinking of cobalt, the amount of which needed in lithium batteries has been reduced by a lot thanks to advancements in that field. That said, that's possibly offset by the sheer increase in volume of battery development, although lithium is still the main component.

Re: The Dubious Economics of Deep-Sea Mining

#70

Post by nvm0n2 »

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…

Are these particular ecosystems all that sensitive? The places where you find nodules are mostly just empty "deserts", right? The seabed isn't continuous brightly colored coral reef.
Post reply on HN