Latest news with #polymetallicnodules
Malay Mail
5 days ago
- Science
- Malay Mail
Deep-sea mining may harm marine life from seabed creatures to sharks, Aussie study finds
SYDNEY, July 4 — Deep-sea mining could impact marine life stretching from the tiniest bottom dwellers to apex predators like swordfish and sharks, a major piece of industry-funded research found yesterday. The Metals Company—a leading deep-sea mining firm—paid Australia's government science agency to pore through data collected during test mining in the remote Pacific Ocean. Huge tracts of Pacific Ocean seabed are carpeted in polymetallic nodules, bulbous lumps of rock that are rich in metals used in battery production—such as cobalt and nickel. The Metals Company is pushing to be the first to mine these nodules in international waters, striving to exploit a remote expanse known as the Clarion-Clipperton Zone. Australia's government science agency released a series of technical reports yesterday detailing how mining could be managed. Bottom-dwellers such as sea cucumbers, marine worms, starfish and crustaceans could see 'significant declines in abundance immediately following mining', research found. Some of these species would partially bounce back within a year, but filter feeders and other tiny organisms that feast on seabed sediments showed 'minimal recovery'. 'On the seafloor, our research shows that there are substantial local impacts from different mining operations,' scientist Piers Dunstan said during a briefing. Deep-sea mining companies are still figuring out the best way to retrieve nodules that can lie five kilometres (three miles) or more beneath the waves. Most efforts focus on robotic harvesting machines, or crawlers, which hoover up nodules as they rove the ocean floor. The Australian scientists looked at how sharks and fish might be harmed by plumes of sediment discharged as mining waste. In some scenarios, apex predators could see toxic metals start to build up in their blood after prolonged exposure to these plumes. 'Long-lived top predators, such as swordfish and large sharks, accumulated the highest simulated metal concentrations,' scientists noted in one report. Risk of harm Simulations showed blood metal concentrations would not exceed international health guidelines, and impacts were less pronounced if sediment was discharged at a greater depth. 'This project helps ensure that if deep-sea mining were to go ahead, there is a clear approach to understand potential risks and impacts to marine life and ecosystems,' Dunstan said. Canada-based The Metals Company is striving to start industrial deep-sea mining in the Clarion-Clipperton Zone within the next two years. The International Seabed Authority—which oversees deep-sea mining in international waters—has yet to adopt long-awaited rules governing the industry. The Metals Company has indicated it could forge ahead even without the authority's approval, pointing to an obscure US law that says American citizens can recover seabed minerals in areas beyond the nation's jurisdiction. The firm paid Australia's Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation—or CSIRO—around US$1 million to compile the reports. CSIRO stressed it was not for, or against, deep-sea mining—but that its work would help to measure and monitor impacts should it go ahead. Energy transition expert Tina Soliman-Hunter said it was one of the 'most comprehensive' pieces of research on deep-sea mining to date. 'Without such research, there is a risk of harm from mining activities that can persist for generations,' said Soliman-Hunter, from Australia's Macquarie University. Found in international waters between Mexico and Hawaii, the Clarion-Clipperton Zone is a vast abyssal plain spanning some 4 million square kilometres (1.7 million square miles). — AFP
Yahoo
28-06-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Jim Cramer Says TMC Is a 'Heavily Speculative Stock'
TMC the metals company Inc. (NASDAQ:TMC) is one of the 14 stocks Jim Cramer recently shared insights on. A caller asked for Cramer's opinion of the company. Here's what he had to say in response: 'Okay, heavily speculative stock, and as I said a couple of months ago, I've changed my view on this. If I think that a stock can go up on a headline, I'm no longer going to prevent people from doing, you can be what, you can be that, you can keep that speculative stock. I'm fine.' A tunneling machine underground, deep in the mine to extract the polymetallic nodules. TMC the metals company (NASDAQ:TMC) explores, collects, and processes polymetallic nodules from the seafloor, targeting resources such as nickel, cobalt, copper, and manganese. It holds rights to two contract areas for nodule extraction in the Clarion Clipperton Zone. On June 25, Wedbush upgraded TMC from Neutral to Outperform and raised its price target from $6 to $11. The firm cited 'significantly increased confidence' in the company's long-term growth following an executive order signed by President Trump in late April. The upgrade also reflected recent industry checks focused on expanding domestic critical mineral supply through deep-sea mining. While we acknowledge the potential of TMC as an investment, we believe certain AI stocks offer greater upside potential and carry less downside risk. If you're looking for an extremely undervalued AI stock that also stands to benefit significantly from Trump-era tariffs and the onshoring trend, see our free report on the best short-term AI stock. READ NEXT: The Best and Worst Dow Stocks for the Next 12 Months and 10 Unstoppable Stocks That Could Double Your Money. Disclosure: None. Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Malay Mail
06-06-2025
- Business
- Malay Mail
Deep-sea mining race heats up as Canada's The Metals Company bypasses UN rules, seeks US backing
NEW YORK, June 7 — The head of submarine mining pioneer The Metals Company told AFP he had 'no doubt' the Canadian firm would be the first to to extract coveted minerals from the deep seas, with help from Donald Trump. Metal-containing deep-sea nodules, which have the appearance of potato-size pebbles and typically contain nickel and cobalt, are highly sought for use in electric vehicle batteries and electric cables, and the race is on to be the first to extract them from the untapped deep sea. TMC's chief executive Gerard Barron told AFP in an interview in New York that his company was sure to win the race. The company turned its back on the International Seabed Authority (ISA), which has jurisdiction over the international seabed, complaining over its slow pace in adopting a mining code that establishes the rules for exploiting seabed minerals. Instead, TMC surprised everyone when its US subsidiary submitted a request to Washington, which is not an ISA member, to grant it the first commercial mining permit in international waters. TMC has asked to harvest so-called polymetallic nodules – deposits made up of multiple metals – in 9,700 square miles (25,200 square kilometers) of the Pacific's Clarion-Clipperton Zone. Here is what Barron said about what might lie ahead. Q: When is your target to start mining?A: 'With the help of the executive order from President Trump,... we're expecting an expedited permitting process. And that hopefully will mean that within this next year, maybe even by the end of the year, we'll see the permission from the US government to move forward.' 'We do have our first production vessel, the Hidden Gem,... We've finalized how we turn these nodules into the intermediate nickel and copper and cobalt and manganese products. So we're all set.' 'We haven't formally told the market when we'll be seeing first production. But what I'm confident of is that it'll be sooner than people expect.' 'If you would have suggested me 2027, I'd say I hope so.' Q: Do you need to first modify the Hidden Gem to increase its production capacity?A: 'The original plan was that we were going to make quite extensive modifications to suit a much higher production number. But (expecting) an expedited permit, our thinking is, let's get the boat into production as quickly as possible, and then focus on the bigger production scale for boat number two, three, four and five.' Q: When do you expect to reach the hoped-for full-scale production of 12 million tonnes of nodules per year?A: 'I hope by 2030-2031.' Q: How important is it to be the first to extract minerals from the deep sea?A: 'It's not important, but it's a fact that we will be... No doubt.' Q: Do you expect this to be seen as a historical step?A: 'I think time will be the judge of just how important ocean metals are going to be to society.' 'The people that oppose us are pretty (much) the same people that oppose nuclear... They dramatized the potential impacts. They lied about the facts. We ended up burning a whole heap of fossil fuels. We contributed a lot of greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere. That didn't need to happen, and now the world is waking up with the fact that we need nuclear energy. So shame on those people that created that situation. And I think ocean metals will be the same.' 'I know based on the environmental research and the more than a petabyte of data that we've gathered to support our claims that the impacts of picking up these rocks and turning them into metals are a fraction compared to the land based alternatives.' Q: Would you consider going back to ISA if it adopts a mining code for deep sea mining?A: 'Not the way it stands now, no. Because the mining code has been overtaken by activists.' 'There are many ways that you can frustrate the process if you're Greenpeace. One way is to get countries to sign on to moratoriums... Another way is to get your countries to do the bidding for you by resisting language in the mining code that makes it practical.' 'China (has) five licenses more than any other nation, they have state-owned enterprises controlling those licenses. And they can afford to be more patient... They play the long game, whereas private contractors like ourselves, our shareholders won't sit around waiting for that.' — AFP
Globe and Mail
23-05-2025
- Business
- Globe and Mail
Trump's lunge for critical metals could come at a huge environmental cost by churning up the seabed
The Metals Company, a Canadian deep-sea minerals exploration business that trades on Nasdaq, was a penny stock in December. Today, its shares are worth about US$4.40 apiece, giving it a market value of US$1.6-billion even though it has no profits. What happened? Donald Trump is what happened. By now we know that the U.S. President is obsessed with 'critical' minerals, a catch-all term that is generally defined as those minerals considered essential for the latest technologies, among them cobalt for electric-vehicle batteries, gallium for LED lights, and rare earth metals for guided missiles. Mr. Trump knows that China has pretty much locked up the global market for these minerals, including the smelters that cast them into usable products. His 'minerals deal' with Ukraine, signed in April, was billed as a critical metals triumph but seemed more about exploiting fairly abundant metals such as titanium, lithium and graphite that you can find pretty much anywhere, plus resources such as oil, natural gas and coal that are a glut on the market. (The U.S. Geological Survey does not list Ukraine as having any rare earths, a subset of critical minerals). So Mr. Trump's hunt for the most critical of critical metals continued and, for that, he put on his metaphoric bathing trunks, grabbed a scuba tank and plunged underwater. There, at the bottom of the ocean, lay vast tracts of polymetallic nodules the size of potatoes that are stuffed with nickel, cobalt, copper and manganese. But how to extract them from international waters? No problem. He bypassed the United Nations-mandated International Seabed Authority (ISA), which was established in the 1980s under the UN Convention of the Law of the Sea. The ISA, which has legal authority over seabed resources, has issued a few exploration licences but no commercial licences to churn up the seabed and squirt the nodules to the surface. The United States is one of the few countries that is not a member of the ISA but is described by it as a 'reliable observer and significant contributor to the negotiations' of the agency. Mr. Trump's workaround took the form of an executive order last month that saw him direct the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), with the U.S.'s Deep Seabed Hard Resources Minerals Resources Act at its side, to grant permits to mining companies to operate in both international and U.S. waters. The ISA objected but was ignored by the White House. The Metals Company, which had lobbied the Trump administration to grant deep-sea mining rights, cheered and submitted applications for two exploration licences and one commercial recovery permit. They will cover a portion of the Clarion-Clipperton Zone – a seabed plain that spans 4.5 million square kilometres between Hawaii and Mexico. The company's shares soared. In a statement, the Metals Company said it believed its exploration areas contained 15.5 million tonnes of nickel, 12.8 million tonnes of copper, two million tonnes of cobalt and 35 million tonnes of manganese. Gerard Barron, chairman and CEO, said the application for the permits 'marks a major step forward … for America's mineral independence and industrial resurgence.' What is equally true is that it marks a potential major step backward for the health of the oceans. The deep-ocean depths are largely unexplored; they are among the last virgin wildernesses on the planet. Scientists have not catalogued many of the otherworldly creatures found in the cold, dark depths. Recent deep dives with robotic submarines have found what the BBC called a 'living constellation' of animals, from organisms flashing with bioluminescence to a 'walking' fish – actually a sea toad – with googly eyes, bright-red spiky skin and sturdy fins that allow it to crawl on the sea floor. How would these creatures, and thousands of other species, survive the enormous tank-like machines – the biggest weigh about 300 tonnes – that would grind their way along the seabed to scoop up the nodules and shoot them along tubes to the surface? They probably wouldn't. Scientists have warned about noise and light pollution from the machines, sediment plumes from the grinding action, loss of biodiversity, and the release of massive amounts of carbon from the ocean floor. Some 700 marine scientists have signed a petition calling for a 'pause' in the rush to mine the seas until the extent of the environmental damage can be determined. David Attenborough, the English broadcaster and biologist, has urged governments to ban deep-sea mining. A 2023 study by Fauna and Flora International warned that churning up the seabed could cause significant loss of biodiversity and the microbes that store carbon. Batteries for EVs, phones and other products are driving the rush to find critical metals. The demand for batteries is rising fast as the internal combustion engine retreats from the car market. The 'green' transition is laying waste to entire landscapes, from the Indonesian rainforests, where nickel mines are proliferating, to the carbon sinks of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the source of most of the world's cobalt. Strip-mining the oceans is now almost certainly next and could go down as Mr. Trump's darkest legacy.
TechCrunch
21-05-2025
- Business
- TechCrunch
Trump administration may sell deep-sea mining leases at startup's urging
The U.S. Department of the Interior said Tuesday it's beginning the process of selling deep sea mining leases after a request from startup Impossible Metals. The agency said the process would 'evaluate a potential mineral lease sale in the waters offshore American Samoa.' The administrative procedure requires a publication in the federal register and the solicitation of public feedback before considering any sales. Given the tone of the Secretary of the Interior's statement on the matter, the lease sale might be a foregone conclusion. 'Critical minerals are fundamental to strengthening our nation's resilience and safeguarding our national interests,' Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said. 'By providing opportunities to responsibly access deep-sea mineral resources, we are supporting both American economic growth and national security.' Impossible Metals, a deep-sea mining startup, submitted a formal request for the leases in April. The company has developed an underwater autonomous vehicle that's lowered by crane to the ocean floor, where it uses robotic claws to grab polymetallic nodules rich in minerals. Impossible Metals claims that its UAV is less disruptive to the fragile deep-water ecosystem than its competitors, many of which use vacuums to hoover up the nodules. Polymetallic nodules form over the course of millions of years, accumulating minerals that are dissolved in seawater, including manganese, iron, cobalt, nickel, and copper. As the world electrifies, demand for such critical minerals has skyrocketed. China's dominance over key mineral markets like cobalt have also sent companies and governments searching for alternative sources. Techcrunch event Join us at TechCrunch Sessions: AI Secure your spot for our leading AI industry event with speakers from OpenAI, Anthropic, and Cohere. For a limited time, tickets are just $292 for an entire day of expert talks, workshops, and potent networking. Exhibit at TechCrunch Sessions: AI Secure your spot at TC Sessions: AI and show 1,200+ decision-makers what you've built — without the big spend. Available through May 9 or while tables last. Berkeley, CA | REGISTER NOW The lumps of metal have caught the eye of prospectors because they contain incredibly high concentrations of minerals, far higher than terrestrial mines typically recover. Ecologists and oceanographers have warned that mining operations in regions rich with polymetallic nodules risk disrupting fragile ecosystems. Life down deep grows slowly, and any disruption there would take decades to bounce back. One recent study found that microbial communities would need 50 years to recover from mining operations. Sponges and other creatures growing on the floor could be directly harmed by the mining robots, and those that are passed over would still have to cope with sediment plumes polluting the normally clear water. What's more, the nodules themselves produce oxygen, suggesting they may help researchers find life on other planets.
