OSU professor explains pitfalls and uncertainties of deep-sea mining amid Trump administration’s push for critical minerals

A veritable gold rush appears to be opening up, not in the dusty hills of California but in the deep seabeds of the Pacific Ocean that’s being driven by an insatiable global demand of critical minerals that power our electric cars, smartphones, computer chips and more. While manganese, nickel, cobalt and other critical minerals are currently being mined on land, they could also be extracted by mining seabeds in locations like Gulf of Alaska seamounts or near the U.S. territories of American Samoa and the Mariana Islands. 

Last April, President Trump issued an executive order directing federal agencies to fast-track the review and issuing of exploration licenses and commercial recovery permits for seabed minerals.

The Metals Company, based in Canada, has applied for an exploration license and commercial recovery permit in the Clarion-Clipperton Zone, a massive band of the Pacific Ocean stretching between Hawai’i and Mexico that is thought to be rich in deposits of critical minerals. Last May, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management approved a request from California-based Impossible Metals to begin a leasing process to explore for deep-sea minerals off the coast of American Samoa. 

Despite these companies’ claims that deep-sea mining is a more ethical and environmental alternative to terrestrial mining, it is rife with uncertainty and poses grave risks to the health and biodiversity of the deep ocean, according to Astrid Leitner, an oceanographer and assistant professor in the College of Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences at Oregon State University. She joins us to share more details, including the research she has done on deep sea ecosystems in areas the Trump administration is now interested in opening up to mining.