Rare Earth Seabed Mining: Renewable Energy Conundrum?

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 21^st 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.