M. David Campbell, Founder of MarineBio and the MarineBio Conservation Society, reports that the idea of Deep Sea Mining has been floating around since the 1960s, the cost and technical difficulty of extracting metals and minerals from the ocean floor once kept this habitat safe but this time has come to an end. The demand for cobalt, a key component in the lithium-ion batteries common in portable electronics, and other precious metals alongside technological developments are making deep sea mining an increasingly attractive prospect.
Indeed, the race to harvest the resources of the deep has already begun with Japan Oil, Gas and Metals National Corporation (JOGMEC) mining the Izena cauldron (a hydrothermal vent field in the Okinawa Trough) in 2017, the Cook Islands passing the Sea Bed Minerals (SBM) Act of 2019, Sea Bed Minerals (Exploration) Regulations Act (2020) and the Sea Bed Minerals Amendment Act (2021) in preparedness for exploiting the estimated 12 billion tons of polymetallic nodules within their Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) and 18 different contracts with governments and private companies held by the International Seabed Authority (ISA) for exploring polymetallic nodule mining in the Clarion-Clipperton Fracture Zone (4.5 million square kilometres of the Northern Pacific Ocean between Hawaii and Mexico).
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