Interface News Reporter | Wang Yong
Interface News Editor |
Despite concerns about deep-sea mining, Norway has decided to go deep.
On January 9, local time, the Norwegian parliament approved the government's proposal to open part of Norway's continental shelf for commercial seabed mineral exploration and production, and agreed to explore the Arctic seabed of about 108,000 square miles (about 280,000 square kilometers) between Norway and Greenland, and the final resolution will be announced in the form of a royal decree.
This makes Norway the first country in the world to open up commercial deep-sea mining.
On January 1 this year, the Norwegian Petroleum Authority officially changed its name to the Norwegian Offshore Authority, and the first news released after its name change was the above matters.
Deep-sea mining refers to the mining of so-called "polymetallic nodules" from the seabed at depths of 4,000-6,000 meters, which are rich in key battery materials such as cobalt, copper and manganese.
Land-based mining has played an important role in Norwegian industry since the early 17th century and is one of the oldest export industries in the country.
Collecting, managing and providing data on the Norwegian continental shelf is one of the most important tasks of the Norwegian Offshore Authority. Since 2011, the Norwegian Offshore Administration has been working with the University of Bergen to collect data in the deep waters of the Norwegian and Greenland Seas, with the University of Tromsø joining since 2020.
Between 2018 and 2021, the Norwegian Offshore Authority conducted four missions to collect high-resolution seabed data on seabed deposits, as well as drilling operations and mineral sample collection.
There are three main types of mineral deposits on the seabed that are of mining value: manganese nodules, manganese crusts and sulphides. According to the Norwegian Offshore Authority, all three types contain a variety of metals, and they are located in the deep sea, mainly between 1,500-6,000 meters. Manganese crusts and sulphides have been found at a depth of about 3,000 metres on the Norwegian continental shelf, and it is initially believed that no manganese nodules have been found due to the sedimentation rate.
According to the survey results, the prospective area of manganese crust is expected to cover more than 8,500 square kilometers of the study area, and the expected value of the total resource is: 185 million tons of manganese, 3.1 million tons of cobalt, 24 million tons of magnesium, 8.4 million tons of titanium, 1.9 million tons of vanadium, 230,000 tons of lithium, 80,000 tons of tungsten, 73,000 tons of niobium, 19,000 tons of gallium and 15,000 tons of hafnium.
Total sulphide resources are expected to be 45 million tonnes of zinc, 38.1 million tonnes of copper, 1 million tonnes of cobalt, 85,000 tonnes of silver and 2,317 tonnes of gold.
During the investigation, the Norwegian Offshore Authority also discovered a large number of rare earth minerals, including 1.7 million tons of cerium, 420,000 tons of neodymium, 370,000 tons of lanthanum, 300,000 tons of yttrium, 100,000 tons of praseodymium, 100,000 tons of gadolinium, 86,000 tons of dysprosium, 56,000 tons of scandium, 23,000 tons of europium and 15,000 tons of terbium.
The EU's fifth list of critical raw materials, revised in 2023, includes 34 raw materials. The Norwegian Offshore Authority has found 14 listed resources on its continental shelf, including lithium, cobalt, manganese, magnesium, copper, vanadium, scandium, gallium, hafnium, niobium, titanium, tungsten, some light rare earth elements (lanthanum, cerium, praseodymium, neodymium, europium) and some heavy rare earth elements (terbium, dysprosium).
Many of the above metals can be used in emerging industries such as lithium batteries and wind turbines, as well as key industrial fields. Norway's push for deep-sea mining is based on the fact that these key raw materials can drive a low-carbon economy faster.
However, the advancement of deep-sea mining, especially in the Arctic region, has raised concerns about environmental issues.
"This is a big step in the wrong direction, and we don't know what we might lose because we don't know if there are unknown species in the deep sea," CNN quoted Frode Pleym, head of Greenpeace Norway. ”
In November 2023, more than 100 European politicians wrote an open letter to the Norwegian parliament, urging it to vote against deep-sea mining. The letter mentions the risks faced by marine life and the potential to accelerate climate change by disturbing the carbon sequestered on the seabed.
On June 8 last year, the Scientific Advisory Committee of the European Academy of Sciences (EASAC) released a report stating that support for deep-sea mining is often justified by a shortage of metals needed for the energy transition and the inability of land-based resources to meet the growing demand for renewable energy technologies. At present, there is still great potential for the world to prioritize the development of circular economy, technological innovation, and reduce the extraction of raw raw materials from nature.
Special species known to be in Norway's deep-sea mining areas include the Dumbo octopus, long-tailed butterfly ginseng, ping-pong sponge, and many more. The report notes that there are still significant knowledge gaps about the mechanisms, functions, and species that exist in deep-sea ecosystems, as well as how they interact with each other, tolerance, and resilience.
Based on available information, the most immediate impacts of deep-sea mining are the extinction of the biota in the mining area, the remaining sediment discarded by mining on the site will be difficult to handle in the coming decades or even centuries, the loss of hard substrate habitat may lead to a wireless reduction in biodiversity, the collateral ecological damage caused by sediment plumes will expand the scope of impact, noise and fiber optics are other factors that may affect the biota around the mining area, and the extent of the impact on microorganisms is not known.
But the Scientific Advisory Board of the European Academy of Sciences has not completely dismissed the possibility of deep-sea mining. It noted that the International Seabed Authority (ISA) has a responsibility to ensure "effective protection of the marine environment from the harmful effects of seabed mining activities" and that no national standard in the assessment of mining in the EEZ by a country represented by Norway shall be lower than that of the internationally applied.
According to a report released by Accenture, the number of critical minerals needed for global decarbonization will increase by 4-6 times in the coming decades. Although deep-sea mining offers a promising new source of these minerals, it may carry the risk of destroying deep-sea species. Some experts predict that direct contact with heavy mining equipment, disruption to the marine food chain, and impacts on the ocean's ability to absorb atmospheric carbon could pose a risk to ocean health.
Still, the attraction of deep-sea minerals is enormous. According to the EY report, scientists at the U.S. Geological Survey estimate that deep-sea mining could account for 35-45% of critical minerals supply by 2065.