Undersea Mining: Wave of the Future or Spoiler of Earth’s Last Untouched Frontier?

‘America’s mineral dependence is reversible,’ Gerard Barron, CEO and chairman of The Metals Company, stated.

Activists take part at a "Look Down action" rally to stop deep-sea mining, outside the European Parliament in Brussels on March 6, 2023. Kenzo Tribouillard/AFP via Getty Images

Opinions are sharply divided regarding President Donald Trump’s initiative to spur undersea mining for minerals used in the production of batteries, electronics, and steel, which are deemed critical to U.S. national security. 

On April 24, Trump issued an executive order on “unleashing America’s offshore critical minerals,” which would accelerate the approval process for the exploration and extraction of minerals by deep-sea mining.

“Vast offshore seabed areas hold critical minerals and energy resources,” the order reads. “These resources are key to strengthening our economy, securing our energy future, and reducing dependence on foreign suppliers for critical minerals.” 

Deep-sea mining advocates say mining the world’s oceans is a cheaper and cleaner way to extract essential minerals, including copper, cobalt, nickel, zinc, silver, gold, and rare earth elements, reducing the United States’ dependence on China in the process.

Detractors say that deep-sea mining is not commercially viable and will cause lasting harm to the world’s last untouched regions, destroying aquatic organisms that have yet to be discovered by humans.

“Nothing pleases our foreign adversaries like China more than America surrendering to radical preservationists, NGOs, and foreign-funded donors who wage lawfare against sound, multiple-use resource-management policies,” Rep. Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.) told attendees at an April 29 hearing of the House Committee on Natural Resources.

Citing China’s control of approximately 60 percent of global critical mineral production and 90 percent of the processing, Gosar stated that “this outside outsized global influence has allowed China to cripple America’s access to critical minerals at a whim.” 

A Trump administration official said last month that undersea mining within U.S. coastal waters alone could add $300 billion to U.S. GDP over 10 years and create 100,000 jobs. And mining companies say that extracting minerals from seabeds will be significantly less damaging to the environment than mining on land. 

Under the sea, the sought-after minerals are “contained within slow-forming, potato-sized polymetallic ‘nodules,' as well as in polymetallic sulfides (large deposits made up of sulfur compounds and other metals that form around hydrothermal vents) and metal-rich crusts on underwater mountains,” according to an April 23 report by the World Resources Institute.

Using AI to Avoid Undersea Life

New technological developments have made it possible to mine these seabeds using underwater vehicles that hover over deposits with a suction device that works like a vacuum cleaner, extracting the nodules together with sediment and organic materials and piping them up to a surface vessel for processing. Once the mineral deposits are separated, the remaining sediment and organic matter would be pumped back down to the ocean floor.

“Our underwater robots hover to collect the mineral-rich nodules from the seabed,” Oliver Gunasekara, CEO and cofounder of Impossible Metals, told attendees at the hearing. “Through an AI-driven selective harvesting, we pick up modules individually, avoiding all visible life and leaving 60 percent of the modules untouched to preserve the marine biodiversity.”

Impossible Metals, according to its website, successfully completed a proof-of-concept trial run in 2022 of its patented autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) called Eureka I, selectively harvesting undersea rocks. The company’s second-generation AUV, Eureka II, completed a deep-water test run in April 2024.

“Today, a new land-based mine in the U.S. takes 29 years,” Gunasekara said. “Seabed mining is the vital alternative; we can deliver critical minerals at [a] commercial scale in just three years, 10 times faster, 10 times cheaper, 10 times lower impact, and without relying on China.”

Until the 1970s, the United States was “a mining and processing powerhouse,” but it has since surrendered that status to China, “leaving America dangerously dependent on adversaries,” Gerard Barron, CEO and chairman of The Metals Company, stated at the congressional hearing. 

“America’s mineral dependence is reversible,” Barron said. “And we can change this without sacrificing American landscapes or communities.”

The Metals Company is currently filing applications for exploration and extraction licenses in the high seas, which will be reviewed by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) under the existing U.S. seabed mining code.

“Four days sailing from San Diego lies the Clarion-Clipperton Zone, where poly metallic nodules sit 2.5 miles deep on the sea floor, and they’re rich in nickel and cobalt and manganese and copper,” Barron said.

“These nodules hold more of these four minerals than all known land-based reserves combined, and just 1 billion tons of the 21 billion tons of nodules in the [Clarion-Clipperton Zone] could supply over 450 years of the United States manganese needs, 150 years of cobalt needs, and 80 years of nickel needs developed over 20 years.”

While some valuable mineral deposits can be found within U.S. coastal waters, much of the deposits lie in international waters, such as the Clarion-Clipperton Zone, a region in the central Pacific Ocean spanning 3,100 miles with depths of 12,000 to 18,000 feet.

“This mineral-rich region already hosts exploration contracts for 17 deep-sea mining contractors, with their combined exploration areas covering approximately 1 million square kilometers (about the same area as Egypt),” the World Resources Institute reports.

Critics Say ‘Math Does Not Add Up’

Critics of deep-sea mining argue that the technology is unproven, not commercially viable, and that undersea mining will harm fragile aquatic environments.

“[Deep-sea mining] carries grave risks to our oceans and communities with no credible evidence of return on investment,” Rep. Maxine Dexter (D-Ore.) said at the congressional hearing.

“Supporters of deep-sea mining argue it will meet an urgent demand for minerals like cobalt, nickel, copper, and manganese—currently essential for electric vehicles and renewable energy—but the math simply does not add up.”

Dexter argued that China is discontinuing the use of cobalt in electric vehicle (EV) batteries, as automakers consider transitioning to cobalt-free batteries, and that mining companies have overestimated the volume and variety of critical minerals they can extract from seabeds. 

“Claims that deep-sea mining will solve supply chain needs for rare earth elements or national security critical materials are exaggerated and grossly misleading,” she said.

“These minerals are not found in significant quantities on the ocean floor, and extracting them from nodules is inefficient and environmentally devastating.”

Duncan Currie, legal adviser at Deep Sea Conservation Center, testified that undersea mining is “unnecessary” because only four metals—copper, cobalt, nickel, and manganese—can be practically extracted through deep-sea mining, and the market for these minerals is volatile, with prices currently at a low point.

“EV batteries are moving rapidly to lithium-ion phosphate technology, which uses no cobalt or nickel,” Currie said.

“Terrestrial deposits will meet foreseeable future demands, especially as technological advances in battery chemistries continue to move away from critical minerals. 

“It will be monumentally expensive to build all of the ships, mining equipment, and monitoring systems necessary for this [deep-sea mining] industry. “The junior companies before you today have weak financing and sub-scale, unproven technology that cannot be relied on.”

Some analysts are confident that, despite objections, deep-sea mining technology is the wave of the future. 

“Commercial deep-sea mining is presently in an exploratory phase, but is certain to occur because of the expected need for minerals that are rapidly being depleted from terrestrial sources,” reads a report coauthored by Hawaii Undersea Research Laboratory biologist Christopher Kelley, published in April by NOAA.

“The deep sea is a rich source of these minerals, which can be found on the seafloor in the form of polymetallic nodules, polymetallic sulphides, and cobalt-rich ferromanganese (Fe-Mn) crusts.”

But concerns about the environmental impact remain.

“The deep seafloor of the Pacific Ocean is one of the most poorly explored regions on Earth with very little known about the benthic animals that live beyond 1,000 meters (3,000 feet) in the PCZ,” the report reads.

“Recent surveys of crust communities in the Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands have found dense beds of corals, sponges, and other invertebrates living on crusts at these depths, many of which are new to science and are thought to be long-lived and fragile.”

However, Gunasekara told hearing attendees that alternatives to mining, such as recycling, would fall short of meeting U.S. manufacturing needs as the demand for critical minerals accelerates.

“We can meet the shortfall, but only with new minerals, because recycling, substitution, or demand reduction fail to meet America’s needs,” he said.

“There just is not enough material in circulation for recycling to move the needle in the next 25 years ... the only remaining option would be a diminished economy.”