Given that they cost lass energy to refine than their
counterparts found on land, should we be mining the seabed for rare earth
metals?
By: Ringo Bones
The late eccentric billionaire Howard Hughes started an
exploratory venture of deep sea seabed mining during the late 1960s and early
1970s but didn’t prove to be economically viable at the time because technology
used for such an undertaking were still at its infancy. But given the advances
of autonomous undersea craft in the 21st Century, should we be
exploring the viability of deep sea seabed mining because minerals used in
renewable energy production like rare earth magnets used in wind turbines and tellurium
used in advanced photovoltaic solar panels costs less energy to process and
extract in comparison to their land-mined counterparts?
Recently, British scientists exploring an underwater
mountain in the Atlantic Ocean have discovered a treasure trove of rare earth
minerals in a Tenerife undersea mountain known as the Tropic Seamount located
more than 500 kilometers (300 miles) away from the Canary Islands. Samples
brought back to the surface contain not only a high concentration of rare earth
elements but also a scarce element called tellurium used in newfangled
super-efficient photovoltaic solar panels at concentrations 50,000 times higher
than in deposits found on land. Given that rare earth metals are used in
powerful magnets that made low carbon energy generation a reality, should we be
mining the seabed despite of the largely unknown ecological consequences?
Dr. Bram Murton, the leader of the expedition, told the BBC
that he had been expecting to find abundant minerals on the Tropic Seamount but
not in such high concentrations. Dr. Murton calculated that the 2,670 metric
tons of tellurium on this single seamount represents one-twelfth of the world’s
total supply. And Dr. Murton has come up with a hypothetical estimate that if
the entire deposit could be extracted and used to make solar panels, it could
meet 65-percent of the UK’s electricity demand. One major concern is the effect
of plumes of dust stirred up by the excavation of the ocean floor, spreading
for long distances and smothering all life whenever it settles. To understand
the implications, the expedition to Tropic Seamount conducted an experiment,
the first of its kind, to mimic the effects of mining and to measure the
resulting plume. The researchers hope that the environmental impact outweighs
the resulting carbon dioxide reduction as we intensify the shift to more
renewable energy generation.
