Instant Genius - Why the next gold rush is happening at the bottom of the ocean

Episode Date: July 30, 2023

We now know that the deep sea is full of bizarre creatures, and these have found a special place in our imaginations. But some people have their eyes on a different sort of ocean riches: the rare minerals and metals embedded in underwater mountains and rocks for use in everything from phones to electric cars. At the time of recording, representatives from countries around the world have just decided to delay a decision on deep sea mining laws by two years. So what’s the deal with the seabed, and why is everyone talking about it right now? Marine biologist Dr Helen Scales joins us for today’s podcast to talk about deep sea mining, the lures of the ocean’s resources, and the fine balance between exploration and exploitation. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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This podcast is sponsored by name, audio, and focal. Streaming has made music more accessible than ever, but true listening is about more than ease. It's about quality. British audio experts name audio, alongside French acoustic specialist focal, combine handcrafted tradition with cutting-edge innovation and high-end materials,

delivering digital precision with analogue warmth. So you can experience exceptional sound at home. Music just as the artist intended. Visit name audio.com to learn more. From BBC Science Focus, this is Instant Genius, a bite-sized masterclass in podcast form. I'm Noah Leach, the news editor at BBC Science Focus magazine. We now know that the deep sea is full of bizarre creatures

and these have found a special place in our imaginations. But some people have their eyes on a different sort of ocean riches, the rare minerals and metals embedded in underwater mountains and rocks for use in everything from phones to electric cars. At the time of recording, representatives from countries around the world have just decided to delay a decision on deep sea mining laws by two years. So what's the deal with the seabed?

And why is everyone talking about? about it right now. Marine biologist Dr. Helen Scales has been on the podcast before to tell us about seashells, but today we talk about deep sea mining, the lures of the ocean's resources and the fine balance between exploration and exploitation. Hello, Helen. Welcome back, I should say, to Instant Genius. Thank you so much. It's lovely to be back. So Helen, when we talk about the deep sea, where actually is this and how deep are we actually talking? So generally Generally speaking, it's agreed that the beginning of the deep ocean is anything deeper than about 200 metres. So generally speaking, that means kind of getting away from land beyond the edges of the continental selves.

And then, you know, the water in the ocean gets deeper and deeper. And it's anything from that 200 metre mark down to, well, the very deepest is the Marianas Trench, 11,000 metres down thereabouts. But the average depth is about 4,000 metres above the ocean, which is just really huge. I mean, I think the thing that we need to hold in our minds about the deep ocean as well as the depth, it's just the massive size of it. It is something like a billion cubic kilometres of water, which is ridiculous about. I had a smart friend of mine workout for me that if the deep ocean filled up from the Amazon River pouring out, it didn't, but let's just imagine that that's what happened. It would take 150,000 years to fill the deep ocean up. That's how much.

big it is. It's enormous. So have you actually been to the deep sea? I mean, maybe not to 4,000 meters, but anywhere within that range? You know, actually, I haven't. And like a lot of biologists and scientists these days, what I have done, though, is I've been on a research vessel, a deep sea research vessel that was using remote tools. So while there are a few science-grade submersibles that will take a very few lucky and people down into the deep ocean, the most part research is done with these remote vehicles and that's what I was doing. And so you get to see a live view of the deep ocean and it's how so much research is done. It's what you can, you know, you get this live video feed coming up from these robots swimming around underneath you, but you're not

actually there. But it's the closest thing and it's still a really extraordinary feeling to stand on a ship off way offshore and know that down beneath your feet there is just miles and miles of water and all of this extraordinary life is just below you. That's a really great. feeling. So you've come closer than most people on the earth to looking at the deep seabed. So could you paint us a bit of a picture of what we're looking at when we look at the deep seabed if we could do that? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I guess I would also say, like, so when you're doing this kind of research and you're putting these remotely operated vehicles in the water, no matter what you're doing, you're going to encounter an awful lot of water column on the way down.

And that's a really, really important part of the deep ocean is all of that. water, taking up that huge volume in between. And it takes a long time to get through that. So if you put these machines in the water and they kind of slowly sink down, it's going to take a couple of hours to get anywhere near to sort of the greater depths that we're talking about. So you've got hours of just looking through this big open blue and then darker and darker spaces that usually go down. And at that point, you're kind of glimpsing life going past these cameras. You know, if you sit and watch the cameras as they go down, you'll see jellyfish coming past, you'll see Squared. It's one of those things like don't look away because any minute,

something really exciting is going to come out of the blue. But then as you go down, you'll get into the darker parts of the ocean. The sunlight is pretty much all absorbed by around 1,000 meters down, anything deeper than that, and you're pretty much permanently dark, at least no sunlight. And then what you see when you reach the bottom totally depends on where in the world you are. I think there's a bit of a myth that the deep ocean is just kind of this uniform and pretty boring. place, really, and that it's just kind of maybe just swathes of mud and that's it. But while there are large areas of abyssal plains, which are quite muddy, there's an awful lot more going on as well, especially if you do happen to go to some of the places that have

got these dramatic, dramatic geographies. You know, there are hundreds of thousands of sea mounts in the deep ocean, basically volcanoes, some of them are dormant, some of them are still active, hundreds of thousands of absolutely enormous mountains down in the deep ocean. They themselves are huge, but the deep ocean is so big, they don't stick out at the surface. So if you come anywhere near one of those, you've got a physical habitat, you know, like a mountain on land that has its own types of animals that live there. You've got corals and sponges that grow in these beautiful, they like forests made of animals that then provide habitat for all sorts of other fish and crustaceans and shrimp and sea cucumbers and all sorts

of colourful life, which is kind of surprising too. You might think there's no point being colourful in the dark, deep depths, but you find all sorts of rainbow-coloured ecosystems down there. Likewise, if you happen to be at the edges of a tectonic plate, those kind of middle bits of the ocean, the oceanic crust, where you've got hydrothermal vents and these amazing mountain chains that are forming where a crust is either pulling apart or smashing together, and you've got these really tectonically active parts of the deep ocean. And with them, these extraordinary ecosystems that were only discovered about 40, 45 years ago, where life exists in the permanent dark, completely cut off from everything else, all sorts of weird, weird organisms

you don't see anywhere else, Yeti crabs with hairy chests that farm bacteria in their furry chests to eat, scale worms with beautiful glistening sequins on their backs, some of them are called Elvis worms because they have that kind of sequin look about them, just all sorts of the kind of life that you get really excited about when, you know, we hear about new discoveries in the deep sea. And it's, it's happening all the time, really, in all these different habitats. Scientists are going there looking and finding that these places are full of more life than we ever really imagined and weird things are going on for good reasons. It's a very strange place to exist in the greatest steps of the ocean. So there is so much that we know, as you've said,

that we've discovered, but also so much that we don't know. In your 2021 book, The Brilliant Abyss, you talk about now being a golden era for deep sea exploration. Could you tell us a bit about some of the surprising discoveries in the deep sea that impact our day-to-day lives? Absolutely. I think, again, this is something that we need, and we are working on kind of shifting this view that the deep ocean is disconnected and it's away from, our lives. I mean, let's face it, most of us are never going to go there. It's not a place that humans can exist. But there are these incredibly important reasons why it matters, as well as this idea of it supporting the ocean health on which all of us depend. There are specific benefits that

humanity can gain from the deep ocean. And if we keep that deep sea as healthy and intact as possible, we can keep on benefiting from that. And one of the most potent things we're finding in the deep ocean are these incredible chemicals. amongst the living things in the deep. It's like this completely novel chemical trove, treasure trove of substances that we just don't see anywhere else. And this probably links to the fact that it's such an extreme environment. We're talking ridiculously high pressures. It's cold and dark. It's a very challenging location for life to thrive. And I think by evolving to exist in those conditions, life has just gone down very different paths, both biologically and

chemically. And then it's things like, well, yeah, this molecule is used in the test for COVID-19. It's one of these genetics tests, genetic tests, that picks up, you know, the DNA of particular viruses. And part of that process is being able to replicate tiny snippets of DNA very efficiently and by doing so at quite high temperatures. And so it was finding enzymes that function at ridiculously high temperatures on hydrothermal vents, hundreds of degrees centigrade, some of these things still function at. And finding those molecules that have evolved to perform in those conditions then means they're very useful when it comes to transferring that to the lab. And there's all sorts of, you know, potential where for developing, exciting and powerful new, new drugs and all sorts of

things that we need. It's amazing what you find when you go down and look down there. It really is. Ambition comes in all shapes and sizes. At First Citizens Bank, we roll with your goals because we're built for what you're building. Fit for your ambition for Citizens Bank. You said this place was steps from the water. We just haven't found the steps yet. How much did we save?

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Try it for yourself at a focal powered by name boutique. Visit focal powered by name.com for more information. Yeah, so again, part of that golden era for exploration, which has elsewhere and is sometimes described as a bit of a gold rush, and that's partly due to these little things called nodules, these kind of rich minerals that lots of people have their eyes on down there, kind of beyond those incredible animals, beyond the opportunities for health.

And I believe you have actually held one of these nodules before, if I'm correct. So could you tell us about what these actually are? Right, yeah. So I think I have had the chance. I think someone's popped one in my hand a little while ago. I'm not sure I would now, because it now turns out that these things are quite, they're quite radioactive.

So you shouldn't really get too close. But anyway, hopefully that's all all right. These are basically, they look like black lumps of coal, really, if you've ever seen a lump of coal. I know that's very old-fashioned as well these days, thankfully. But they look all like black potatoes, around that kind of size. And these are, they're actually very dense. So that's quite a surprise when you pick one up.

it's, it's, they're full of metals. They're called polymetallic nodules is another way of talking about them. And so they are incredibly heavy for their size. And these are rocks that are found lying across these huge areas of abyssal plains, these undulating prairies of the ocean is the equivalent really. And I remember when I was at high school, which was a few years ago, but I do remember being told in chemistry classes. And back then they called the manganese nodules,

because there's a lot of manganese in them. And I do vaguely remember back then there was a sort of, oh, well, you know, maybe one day we'll mine these things and people will use the metals, but we're not going to do that now. It was a very kind of just passing comment. But now, you know, that is very much becoming a reality and that there are, you know, increasingly people who want to get hold of all sorts of metals that are inside of these. The way they form is really fascinating. These are very long-lived geological. structures. They take millions of years to form, and they basically form from the water itself. It begins with a little fragment of something like a shark tooth or a piece of whalebone or something, and that lying on the seabed, then over the eons, basically dissolved minerals and metals will settle onto those structures and begin to accrete. And I think it takes millions of years for them to grow from the size of a pea to the size of a golf ball. So these are very, very long-lived deposits. So in a way, similar to fossil fuels in that sense. You know, they were things,

okay, those were living things. Those were plankton and so forth and plants and things forming oil and coal. But they took a very long time to form, you know, as did these nodules, which is just sitting there in these particular conditions that you get in these abyssal planes. And I should say these are very far down. I mean, mostly these are in waters that are many miles deep, sort of four or five kilometers down, that's where these very clear still waters exist and where these nodules sit. And in some places, they look like a cobbled street. They're that dense and they're scattered across the seabed. In some places, they're not as dense as that. And in between there are these soft sediments that they lie on. And that forms all of this ecosystem,

which when I was told about them back in high school, we knew very little about what else was going on down there. But now that's changed, and we're getting a much clearer view of what's happening in these nodule fields. You talked there about fossil fuels having been made from living things, and these nodules are not. But as far as they understand, they have life living within them. Is that right?

What kinds of things could we find living in a module? Absolutely. So that's the side of this that I think we genuinely didn't know that much about back when I was, you know, learning about this as a kid. But partly because there's this interest in mining them, scientists have been going and looking and seeing that there's a really rich ecosystem based all around these nodules. They are certainly not just mud and rocks, which, you know, some people will still claim that is the case. But the closer we look and the more we study these places, it becomes absolutely clear that these are really rich, biodiverse habitats. You know, it's not as abundant as life, say, on a sea mount can be or on a hydrothermal vent, when it's just sort of an outrageous amount of life just in your face.

But nonetheless, there's critical species that have been found living there and nowhere else. So we're talking about things like, well, on the small scale, there were tiny creatures living inside the rocks. There are things like tardigrades. Who doesn't love a tardy grade? Those incredible water bears, if you like, they live all through the, you know, they can live any pretty much. anywhere on planet Earth, I think they live in fresh waters. They are incredibly tough. They've been sent into space and they survive, I think, in the vacuum of space. These are extraordinary tiny creatures. Beloved, if you've not ever seen a tardigrade, I can only impress on you

how important it is you go and check them out right now. They're amazing. And they live inside these rocks, as do all sorts of brittle stars, little relatives of starfish. There are worms. There's a hidden diversity within the rocks themselves. And then there's a little, also a lot of bigger animals that use the rocks as a substrate. There was a recent paper that just came out actually focusing on a particular part of the Pacific Ocean called the Clarion-Clipotin zone, which is really where this effort to mine the deep sea is really focusing at the moment. And that showed that there was at least 5,000 species that have been found in this particular area of the deep abyss where these nodules exist. And nine out of ten of them haven't been

found before. They haven't been named yet. They don't seem to exist anywhere else. And there's probably, there's almost certainly thousands more than that as well. So we've skirted around the edges of deep sea mining, but let's actually get into what it actually is. I mean, a lot of us have an image of mining in the earth. We think of maybe grubby faces and deep shafts going down into the ground and people wearing hard hats. But what does it mean to mine underwater? I mean, how can you do that? It's a really good question. And I, you know, people have been dreaming about mining the deep sea for decades. It's one of these weird futuristic things that's been, you know, on the agenda back in the 60s and 70s. You know, this was this shiny new version of

the future was going to be sending down machines to go and exploit these resources. But what I would say, like, so that, you know, the interest has come back recently and the technologies to do so have been advanced quite far. And people have. have been testing out machinery. And I would say it's just as grubby. I would think, I would say, as mining on land, the only difference is that there aren't people in it actually in the mines. It's all going to be done remotely. So a bit like the research that I, you know, I've been talking about, mining will also be done remotely using actually basically similar sorts of technologies that I've used, that scientists are using to send down cameras and remote

robots with arms that can pick up the occasional piece of coral. Only then, much bigger and they have mining machinery bolted to them. So for instance, the kinds of machines that have now begun to be tested in the Pacific to pick up to mine nodules, imagine, well, imagine a massive digger, basically, with tractor, caterpillar tracks and on the front of it, basically a massive scoop that's going to just drag, stick itself, sort of stick forks, if you like, into the seabed, into the mud, and then just drag that forward. and pick up the rocks and pop them into a tube that then rises up to the surface. That bit actually hasn't been done yet, as far as I know, the surface delivery, I think, is still

to be tested. But that ultimately the idea is that these enormous machines will thunder across the seabed scraping up these rocks. And then they'll be delivered up to a ship on the surface. So a huge long pipe, several miles long, would then suck those rocks up to the surface. that's for the nodules. We haven't spoken about there are actually other places in the deep sea that people want to mine as well. They want to mine sea mounts, these enormous mountains that we've talked about.

Those are covered in metal-rich crusts on the surface. That's going to be more challenging to extract because they will need to be dug out. They're not just lying there loose. And they've been tested as well. So there was a Japanese test just, well, the study of that test was published just recently as well. It was a very small scale compared to the scale of commercial mining. It was just one machine that went down for a couple of hours. And it had basically a cutting head on the front of it.

So imagine the big digger with the tractor treads, caterpillar treads, and then a big kind of mining drillhead to the front, which then drilled into the seamount and then it gathered the material that way. Similar kind of machines will be used, but they haven't been yet tested on hydrothermal vents. That's the other place people want to mine, these vent systems. And similarly, that's rocks that needs basically to be smashed up with a drilling machine. and then sucked up to the surface.

One thing I think that is not yet truly apparent is the scale that this mining is going to happen on. The machines that have been tested so far are actually most likely a lot smaller than the ultimate commercial scale. Some of those prototypes for the full-size mining machinery are going to be the size of houses. They're absolutely huge.

And the idea is that they would operate for decades, you know, operating over, they would be mining, certainly in the nodule fields, hundreds of thousands of square miles every year. So the footprint of these operations would just be beyond anything that we've done anywhere on the planet, I really think. It's truly huge, huge scale. Hasn't got to that point yet.

These things aren't happening yet. But the potential for it is, you know, unprecedented. And those timescales and the currency of this topic is definitely something that we will get onto very soon. But before we do, we really need to talk about why we actually want these things. I mean, so we talk about nodules and crests, and these are precious, rare sets of heavy minerals and metals that could give us huge amounts of power, which has been described in some places as kind of a limitless or nearly limitless power. So it sounds like something from a kind of superhero film.

But what actually could these things be used for? And is it, are they as great as they sound? So certainly the companies who are hoping to profit from them are making a really good case. Well, they're making a case for the needs for the metals in these deposits. We're talking about rare earth metals, things like cobalt as well as lithium and nickel, the kind of elements that are being used in various technologies. But the emphasis at the moment is very much on electric vehicles and the batteries that are used for those. and the arguments are that supplies of those metals are going to start becoming more problematic

to mine on land. They're certainly not running out. That's a misleading idea. There are large resources of these metals and oars elsewhere. The question is who's going to extract them and how expensive that will be. And so the alternative option, well, one option that's being put forward by these deep sea mining companies is to extract them from the deep sea and make a billion electric cars if that's what you would choose to do and use these metals for that. And I mean, I would point out a couple of important things to think about. One being that, well, the deep sea mining isn't going to stop land-based mining. One of the big arguments is that it's going to have less impact on the planet, but it's not going to stop mining on land. The other is that battery technologies are moving on very

fast. Just a couple of years ago, the big focus for deep sea mining was cobalt. Cobalt's a very problematic metal that's mined mostly from the Democratic of Congo in mines that have horrendous human rights records and they needed for certainly for the first early generations of hybrid electric cars and hybrid and electric cars. Now we can make batteries without cobalt already, just a couple of years down the line that's come off the agenda. This is no longer the big discussion in terms of a limited supply in order to electrify car fleets. So any of these arguments really about needing metals from the deep sea and having that as a requirement, almost a bottleneck for the kind of green technologies, is really not a valid

argument for doing this. There are, you know, there are very fast-moving developments in the kinds of technologies that will hopefully reduce our reliance on fossil fuels and that will solve some of these big, big, big problems that we have to solve. But there's nothing to say that the only way or the best way to do that will be from these deep sea metals. But that is the narrative that is very tempting. It's very encouraging to think, oh, you know, we could sidestep human rights issues and so on by going into the deep sea and providing these metals. But in reality, it's much more nuanced and complex than that. Do you think there'll ever be a way to mine the deep sea bed in a way that

doesn't have the kind of challenges associated with it and the damages? It's a very good question. I think there's two ways, there's two answers to that. My personal view is that I think it is far too risky environmentally to mine the deep ocean and that there are lots of reasons why it is a very bad idea. It will be, to a large part, it will be removal of habitat that is not coming back. These deep sea nodules aren't going to return. And so with that we are going to be damaging.

biodiversity, we're potentially going to be messing with carbon cycles, with carbon sequestration in the deep seabed, potentially making climate change worse, messing with the system that we're still just beginning to understand. So my personal view is I don't think there is a way that we can do it lightly enough, because ultimately we are extracting that resource on which biodiversity depends. So in my view, there's no way of getting around that. At the same time, I think what's a really important argument for not mining quickly and not because some of these mining companies want to go ahead and do this in the next few years, is that even if you did want to try and do this in a sustainable way as possible, we simply don't have the information to do that

at this point. And it's going to take a good 10 years of really intensive, highly funded, coordinated research to get anywhere near to being able to draw up proper sustainable plans if you want to do that kind of thing. So at the moment, we simply can't say what could be sustainable. We don't have that information. We know that deep sea mining will have long-lasting and to some extent irreversible impacts on biodiversity and on functioning systems in the ocean. And that's, you know, we know it's going to be bad. The question is how bad and how acceptable is that? And those are, those are things we shouldn't be making snap decisions about in the next year or two is going to take, you know, much more research, much more input and much more awareness about this whole issue.

So why is it such a hot topic then right now? I mean, it seems that everyone's talking about deep sea mining. So what's going on there? Right. So politically there's been a lot of discussions going on behind the scenes, but those are coming out into the public eye quite a bit more just this year. This all revolves around an organisation based in Jamaica called the International Seabed Authority, which was set up back in the 80s, basically as the overseas, body that will regulate deep sea mining. And so far there's been, you know, there have been all these discussions happening at those meetings, which basically every member of this organisation, there's 167 members plus the European Union. They will send people along to these meetings.

And for a long time, not much has really happened. And these things have just, these meetings have kind of ticked over. Companies have come along. They've had, they've all applied for permits to explore, the deep ocean for these metals. That's the phase we're currently at is this exploratory phase. But what we've had is this kind of artificial acceleration for some weird loopholes. We don't really have to go into, but basically some of these mining companies paired up with

particular countries have basically been forcing this agenda to be concluded more quickly than it might otherwise naturally be. And they're demanding that they want to have these regulations put in place so that mining can happen within the next, well, they want to start mining next year. And right now, the meetings are concluding in Jamaica, this latest round. And for the first time, and this is why I think it has really got, it's really jumped much more into the headlines, is because for the first time, the first time countries are listening to the scientists.

We have been talking about the problems of deep sea mining for years and talking about the ecological worries about the lack of scientific understanding for a very long time. But finally, countries are listening. And now there's more than 20. I think at latest count there were 21 nations, including Canada, Sweden, Brazil, Germany, France, lots of other countries have basically gone to this meeting in Jamaica with the International Seabed Authority. And they are demanding to have a discussion about putting in a moratorium for at least 10 years. on this industry. And they are backing the idea of saying, we shouldn't be doing this as quickly

as you guys want to be doing. We still have all these uncertainties, these huge gaps in our knowledge. They're basically listening to our scientists, which, you know, is great. And they are basically the voices that are pushing really hard now to say we need to stop. The question is, are they going to be listened to? The very latest I have heard, this might change in the next few days because a few more days of discussions, the latest I've heard is that there has been at least another two years pushed ahead on any final decision on whether mining commercially will be allowed. That's not what we need.

We need much more than that, but at least it's something. There's hopefully not going to be an immediate rush to do this. But, you know, this really is happening now. Decisions being made right now could shape our interactions with a huge part of our planet for a really long time to come with potentially huge consequences. for people and for the planet. You know, we've touched on this idea of this being a common shared heritage. And it really isn't the time to be making these really unjust decisions by a small number of powerful voices.

This is something that we all need to know about. We all should have our say if you want to, you know. And that is happening now. So I really see there's a shift in the wind. This is an issue that is being taken much more seriously. And we can only wait and see what happens in the next. few years and see where this goes, but certainly I feel like this last meeting has really changed things. That's a really hopeful note to end on, Helen, and I know that your next book is

all about the future of the oceans. So can I ask you how you see what you see in the future for deep seabeds? I think what I see for the future is this building of knowledge, and that's the exciting part. We are at this point where we are simply learning more and more, Every day, it's not overstating it to say that our knowledge of this enormous part of our planet is growing all the time. And with that, more people are realizing how important it is. This distant, weird place on our planet full of all these weird creatures really matters. You've been listening to marine biologist and writer Dr. Helen Scales, telling us about the riches of the deep sea. Helen's latest book, What the Wild Sea,

can be will come out in summer 2024. Thank you for listening to this episode of Instant Genius, brought to you by the team behind BBC Science Focus magazine. By the latest issue of science focus in store or visit us at sciencefocus.com. This podcast is sponsored by Name, Audio and Focal. The texture and emotional depth of music can be lost through digital sources or poor signal. Name audio believes you can have digital precision with animal. Alongside French acoustic specialist vocal, Name creates high-end audio systems combining innovation with craftsmanship so you can listen to music, just as the artist intended. Discover more at name audio.com. There's a moment when you start to wonder, what's the right next step? Not about

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