Introduction

The transition to clean energy is going to have the effect of radically raising demand for a key set of minerals. Currently, those minerals are mined in often environmentally and socially destructive ways using exploited or even child labor. In recent years, more attention has turned to an alternative place to find those minerals: the ocean floor. Huge caches of these minerals are simply lying on the seabed of the Pacific Ocean waiting to be plucked up and processed.