The Way I Heard It with Mike Rowe - 484: Tom Albanese—The Metals at the Bottom of the Ocean

Episode Date: May 12, 2026

In this episode Mike explores the growing race for critical minerals hidden deep beneath the Pacific Ocean with mining executive Tom Albanese, Chairman of American Ocean Minerals and former CEO of Rio Tinto and Vedanta Resources. Tom has spent more than four decades in the global mining and metals business, overseeing some of the largest resource projects on earth. Now he's focused on something even more ambitious: harvesting polymetallic nodules from the ocean floor—potato-sized rocks packed with nickel, cobalt, copper, manganese, and rare earth elements that are critical to batteries, AI infrastructure, defense systems, smartphones, and modern energy technology. Mike and Tom discuss why these nodules have become one of the most hotly contested resources in the world and how the race for critical minerals has evolved into both an economic and geopolitical battle. They also explain why many companies see the deep ocean as an alternative to opening hundreds of new land mines. Hint: These nodules sit unattached on the ocean floor just waiting to be vacuumed up without need for blasting or tunneling. It's a conversation that feels part science fiction, part industrial history, and part treasure hunt. Because sometimes the next gold rush isn't in the mountains. It's sitting three miles beneath the top of the ocean. Today's episode is sponsored by PureTalk.com/Rowe Get UNLIMITED hi-speed data for just $34.99 per month! NetSuite.com/Mike Download their FREE business guide, Demystifying AI K12.com/Rowe See what's possible for your child with K12's Career and College Prep American-Giant.com/MIKE Use code MIKE to get 20% off your order.

Hey guys, it's the way I heard it. I'm Mike Roe. My guest today is a fellow named Tom Albanyse. I guess, Chuck, I could say he's a minor or a minor's minor. How are you spelling that? Well, we deal with that quickly enough. M-I-N-E-R. He's also a citizen of the world and an American patriot and a partner of mine in a new venture. So there are a couple things I want to disclose before we jump into this conversation. right in the middle of a sentence. As we often do. As we were prone to do, I met Tom about six, maybe eight months ago. He is the former CEO of, I think,

the second largest mine in the world, Rio Tinto. He also was way up the food chain at Vendetta Resources. He's lived and worked on every continent, I think, but for one, he's been a hundred-some countries. Yep. He, along with some other big-brained individuals, who I've been lucky enough to conspire with over the last few months have formed a company called American Ocean Minerals.

And the purpose of this company is to go to the bottom of the ocean and bring up billions of polymetallic nodules, these golf ball-shaped little nuggets packed with metals. The entire world is suddenly desperate to have. One might say precious metals. You could, although technically that's still, you know, that's your palladiums and your gold and your silvers and whatnot. This is more copper, cobalt, manganese, nickel, some rare earths, some iron. So there's so much to unpack here.

If you want to do a little background research, if you're into that kind of thing, just Google polymetallic nodules. And you'll get an understanding of where we're headed with the conversation. The reason I wanted to have Tom on, though, was really just to, to connect with one of the reasons dirty jobs happened. It was really a love letter to, you know, agriculture and mining above everything. And the older I get and the more I kick around, the more positive I am that as foundational industries, those are the things that myself and so many other people eventually become disconnected from. And the more disconnected you are from your food and the metals that make the world you live in,

the easier it is to lose your wonder and your appreciation for really damn near everything. So it's an opportunity for me to reconnect with a guy who has been there and done that and maybe share a few stories with you guys. Yeah. And just to be clear, he is the chairman of American Ocean Minerals. He's the, I guess, the top dog, wouldn't he be? Well, we're lucky to have him. That's for sure. It's a crazy core of overqualified adventurers, miners, business guys. This is a giant, industry, folks, and if you haven't heard of it yet, you will in the coming year. It's consequential for the whole world. It matters an awful lot when we think about our relationship, you know, geopolitically with China. But more than anything, just this massive $10 trillion infrastructure buildout

that has to happen over the next six or seven years. And the role these metals will play in making it happen. So all of that's in the offering. And you'll learn some stuff from a guy who has truly, as I said, been there and done it. This is called the metals at the bottom of the ocean, because that's where they are. And the gentleman you're about to meet is determined to go get them. Right after this. Well, people are still raving, raving, I tell you, about my mother's performance in the the latest Pure Talk commercial. And if you haven't seen it, I encourage you to give it a look on my Facebook page and read the comments. They're hysterical. In this commercial, you'll not only see Peggy

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and allows me to exploit my own mother in a national advertising campaign. Do what my mom did. Get yourself unlimited high-speed data for just $3499 a month. At puretalk.com slash row. You can switch in as little as 10 minutes at puretalk.com slash row. Pure Talk. So you think you're an interesting guy, you know, who's lived a pretty full life. and he's going about your business,

and then you have drinks with Tom Albanyce, and you go, oh, oh. Been around the block. And then, you know, a couple weeks later, you have dinner with Tom Albanyce. And then maybe there's some more drinks and more conversations. Both times there's snowstorm in Washington. Yes.

So I'll paint the scene for you, gentle listener. We're in our nation's capital. It's snowing like crazy. We're hunkered down into some little shadowy watering hole, sipping some better than average bourbon. And you are reminded. reminding me really of why dirty jobs happened. If there's a minor walking around, and that's ER, just to be clear.

No, it's O-R. It's minor, right? No, minor. M-I-N-E-R. E-R, yeah. Yeah, once the last time you were an O-R, Tom. It's been a while since you were a minor. Well.

Both of us are gray hairs. No kidding. Well, listen, just talking about the adventures and the misadventures and pulling the stuff out of the ground that we need. And our relationship as bipeds to everything underground, and I know it's a trope, but if we're not growing it, we're pulling it out of the ground. And the pitch for me from a miner I met years ago was, look, there are only two industries in the world. It's mining and agriculture. Everything else is just a job. Everything converts it. Yes. So here you are. What a career you've had. We are.

Still having. Honestly, I don't even know. I'm still having. Yes. I mean, when I said, where did you come from? You just hit me with four cities before you showed up here. And I assume all were mining related somehow? Yes, yes.

Well, the family, my mom had her 90th birthday party last Thursday. So I had to get down there. And then I was with my wife, my daughter, her husband, and their two grandkids. What can you do but spend the weekend West Palm Beach on the beach with two grandkids? How, I mean, at this point, like, does. Does your wife always recognize you when you come back through the door? Because you're going for stretches. I think she's sort of gotten used to it.

We'll have been married now 47 years. And she hasn't kicked me out yet. So it's okay. You must be doing something right. Yes. If we were to start with your curriculum, Viette, I mean, how generally. I don't even remember our first conversation. I just remember knowing that between Alaska and Africa, oh, here it is.

How many countries have you been to? I'm still counting, but I think I'm working toward 110 now. But there's still, I'm only halfway through. Is that right? And most of those were for working. Yeah, yeah. So I haven't done the playing part yet. Oh, my God.

It's just so, you're a difficult interview only because it's like trying to get to know the elephant. You know, where do you want to start the tusk, the tail? Well, probably start from where I started. Because I grew up in New Jersey, the most sort of non-mining capital of America. Non-mining place in the world, as you can imagine. And I was into Boy Scouts, Eagle Scout. I loved outward bound. I hiked a quarter of the Appalachian Trail when I was in high school.

My mom, fortunately, let me do all that stuff. And at 17, I went up to Alaska. And I had a bag of duffel bag of climbing gear, and I had a suitcase. And I went to school up there. And I did my undergraduate there. And I was working actually 50 years ago. Actually, this year, actually next month, I had my first job working as absolute grunt, carrying rocks for geologists up in the Brooks range, for an oil company looking for copper. That's way up there, right? Brooks?

That's way up there. And at that time, this is interesting. This is part of a policy issue in America that we got to fix because I was involved with staking claims on a discovery up there. It's one of the biggest copper deposits undeveloped in the United States, very rich. it's still not permitted yet. 50 years ago, it's still not permanent. So what, well, before we get to this dysfunctional relationship that most humans have with the business of your business, what part of the Appalachian Trail did you do?

I was doing it in pieces with friends at different times, but probably went up through New Hampshire down to the end of Pennsylvania, Maryland. I'd have a bunch in Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee. I wish everybody could do it, you know, because you get such a different appreciation for the country. I've been down through Georgia and up all the way into Maine, Baxter State Park, basically where it ends. And, you know, most people don't realize what a treasure trove that is. And there are worse things for teenagers to do. I mean, guarantee you.

Do you think we'd be sitting here today without the Boy Scouts? Yeah. I mean, what impact did that have on your, on your, everything? A little bit of self-reliance, self-confidence, leadership. I was a senior patrol leader. You're just learning to organize stuff and get stuff done. Yeah, for me, it was the first time anybody had ever asked me to like raise my hand and make a pledge, take an oath, you know. Do you still remember it? I don't. On my honor. I will do my best to do my duty to God and my country to obey the scouts. outlaw to help other people at all times to keep myself.

There you go. Pretty good. It gets a little wobbly toward the other. It's really better than me. Well, anyway, so at 17, you go to Alaska to mine copper. Go to school. Go to school. But in the summer months, you know, you get summer jobs up there and you do what you can do.

And would you do exactly? You were hauling rocks? Yeah. We were doing exploration for copper. Yeah. And these were four geologists, four feet. field assistance and a tent and a cook stove. And then once a week they would fly in with a bush plane or something like that, your provisions

for the next week where you'd book. Then the next year you graduate because I went on to a crew that actually had a helicopter and helicopter pilot. So instead of having to climb up the hill, you actually the helicopter took the top of the hill and you walked down, which is a lot easier. I mean, I don't know how much more exciting it can get than sitting next to a bush pilot who did his time in Vietnam. They were all Vietnam veterans.

They were fearless. They do have to take that equipment absolutely to the limit at that time. This guy flew me in to what's the town all the way west? Bethel. Bethel, yes. Been there? Yeah, of course, yeah. So it was like the tundra.

And we were doing some job with geese tracking Canada geese coming in and migratory patterns and so forth. But I'll never forget landing on that beach and jumping out into mud that was two and a half feet thick and the mosquitoes the size of your thumb. And you're just not in Kansas anymore. Yes, yes, yes. Crazy. Why do we need copper? Well, we need it. If you want electricity, if you want data centers, you want all the lights around here. I have to dig out. I love using this as a prop. If you want these things. He's holding an iPhone for those of you not watching and listening.

Or any kind of phone. It's going to have copper in it. It's going to have, in this particular case, it's going to have a little bit silicon for the glass, a little bit boron for the glass, a little bit of aluminum, a little bit of titanium, tin to solder all the pieces. together a little bit of gold and silver in it, about the only thing that's grown from a tree is probably this rubber, you know, the rubber casing on it. Everything else comes out of the ground. And the average person would look at that and say, well, no, it comes from a store. Well, and I would argue that technically that tree came out of the ground too.

It grew out of it. Yeah. You didn't have to dig for it. Yeah. So of all the things, I mean, this is a stupid question. I mean, how many, on the periodic chart now, how many minerals are we talking about? How many elements?

There's like 120. more than the number of countries I've been to. Yeah, like 128, something like that. It might be 140 now to keep discovering new elements. Where does copper rate? Copper fits pretty well in there, but unless you're looking at gold and silver, which are much more expensive,

copper is the best for both heat conductivity and electrical conductivity. So if you want to heat something up, if you want to cool something down, if you want to move electrons from point A to point B, if you want to power up your house, if you want to have a power generation here and then your town over here, you need copper for all bits of it. And the interesting thing about it, because I hear a lot of people say,

well, if we just keep recycling, we don't need to mine anymore. At the rate of all our technology, because we are, every year, we're coming up with new technologies. I mean, you know, two years ago, no one thought about data centers, and now it's data centers, data centers, which are incredibly copper intensive, by the way. We're going to use as the world, the economy, we're going to use as much copper between now and, 2050 has 25 years. You and I will still be around. We'll probably have a cane or something at that point in time. That's the hope. Copper cane. We will, as the world economy, will have consumed as much copper as all of Earth's history, all of mankind's history. So I like to start off things with a pyramid saying, you know,

the next 25 years will use as much copper as they've been using since before the pyramids. And is it going to stay on? So is it exponentially? It's just going to keep going, you think? How much of technology yet to be? invented is going to be reliance on copper. What's the future technology down the road? Have you ever watched a science fiction movie? Sure. That doesn't have a lot of metal in it? Oh.

No. Blade Runner. No, they got a lot of metal. Even the dystopian ones. They got a lot of metal in them. Yeah. So, metal's the past. Medals the future.

As long as we're embracing technology. Right. And why wouldn't we embrace technology? Good question. I think technology is a good thing. So we'll keep embracing it. Are you nervous about data centers? Do you worry about AI? I think that we're going to be putting pressure on electricity, the electricity grid. As Americans, we're going to have to recognize we need more generating stations. We need a lot more renewables. We need more solar. We need more wind. But we also need coal. We need natural gas. We need to stop this. mantra that has been, you know, 50 years ago, we said no more nuclear, and that's put us way behind

the curb now. We've got to get back up on nuclear. We're going to need it all. If someone comes up with, you know, brilliant suggestion for figuring how to make fusion work, we're going to need that too. But if we're on that curve that we're just beginning to see for data centers, and we all, just this morning, I'm using my phone to ask questions that I would have spent 15 minutes sort of sorting through things that I could just now do it on Google. And it's, I get the answer. And I'm not sort of a AI sort of genius about that. When I was in my 20s, I was good with all that stuff, but now I'm following the herd. But just the things I can do without necessarily being a genius out of it, and I'm taking it for granted, it means that five years from now, we're going

to take even more of it for granted. But as America is, we're going to have to work on the electrical grid. We have to get more power. We have to get more electricity. We can't afford to say, well, we're going to let electricity prices go up and then we're going to ration it. That's not America. America is about actually bringing the power up. Now, in China, since 2000, China has put in more generating and transmission capacity than we in America have since the beginning of the 20th century. Say that again? China has put in more electrical generation and more power transmission capacity in their country

as in America, we in America have done since the days of Thomas Edison. And they know that everything we're doing is going to be electricity intensive. That's something we shouldn't fall behind. on. So when you think about... That's competition. I mean, energy is under all of this, right? I mean, you can't really talk about mining without energy and you can't talk about energy without... They're both co-hand at hand. Right. Do do do do do do do. Dumb! Well, are you sick of it yet? Are you sick of AI hogging up all the headlines and sucking up all the bandwidth? You find yourself wishing we lived in a simpler time? Do you miss the rotary phone?

Well, get over it. The genie is out of the bottle. The poop is out of the goose, I'm afraid. AI is here to stay, and every business in the country is asking themselves the same question. How do we make it work for us? Well, the answer to that question varies, but you'll find it in a free guide that you can get right now at netseweet.com slash Mike. It's called demystifying AI. It's totally free.

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It's filled with super useful information. And again, it's free at netsuite.com slash mike. That's net suite.com. Slash mic. How do you think about the hierarchy of energy? Like when you look at the world and you look at wood is being burned, dung is being burned. Three million people, those are their primary sources. Even still today.

I lived in India for four years. And you're spending time in Africa, you see people carrying around bags of charcoal. That's not the right source of energy for efficiency, human health, respiratory disease, and certainly not for carbon. Right. But if we look at our own evolution through those forms up to now, natural gas and beyond to maybe fission or fission what's the difference between fission and fusion fission and fusion is it the same basic thing no they're different i got the wrong person on this podcast that give you that good answer on that one but it's one basically uses up electricity one makes

electricity so fusion will basically self-generate and create a surplus it's all a march toward nuclear it seems like it seems like we're going toward this place where if we could just have a little reactor, you know, in our town, every town has a little reactor, then we've got to this place. I think we need a little of everything because I think that renewables make a lot of sense because in some parts, like we're here in California right now, you know, it's sunny most of the time. It makes a lot of sense to put as much solar as you can in. But it's not sunny at night. So you have to have something, you know, you have to have something in between. Base load power is really important. So you need something, nuclear is a good base load power.

So is coal. So is natural gas. So base load. power is really good, but the practical reality is that in places like California or in the summer in New Jersey, everyone turns their air conditioner on in the middle of the day. And they turn it down at night. So you have power swings, power peaks in the day. You need to have something that will peak with that. So I think it's a mix of everything. That's why I think it seems like batteries are so important, you know, especially if you're talking about alternative forms. You need to be able to store whatever you have. What was the hurricane that just blew through Florida? Was it like six or seven months ago?

One in Tampa. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. There were two years of nasty hurricanes there, yeah. Yes. And so there was a real, I mean, fossil fuels saved the day. And I think a lot of people got an up close, like maybe a reminder that, you know, it's a heck of a thing to grow to resent the thing you depend upon so much. We need it all.

I agree. We need it all in some places. I mean, natural gas is, it's available, it's abundant. I was just in Oklahoma City on Monday this week, talking about natural gas and oil and, you know, our huge surplus that we've created, I mean, this is American ingenuity, fracking and everything else. It's been a huge godsend for the American economy

and American competitiveness. When right now with unfortunately what's going on in Iran, you know, natural gas prices in Europe and Asia have gone like this. They've actually gone down 20% in the US since then. So, you know, we have a surplus of natural gas and we should not be embarrassed by that. Yeah. We should recognize that that is a competitive strength.

Do you think, like from a branding standpoint, I think most people understand the benefits in general of energy independence. Some might not crave it to the same extent. Others do. But do you think metal independence, you know, has been somewhat neglected and how important is it going to be to this country moving forward to have a reliable supply chain? and to have access to the raw materials. I think a couple years ago, people would have said, I will always find the metals. But if you think about what happened last year

with the tariff and trade fights between the US and China, sort of the number three item on the agenda, the relationship between the US and China was rare earths. And the fact is that it used to be the biggest rare earth mine and processing and rare earth magnets was all in the United States. We willingly sort of stepped out of that business and seeded that to the Chinese back in the 1990s. Can you explain just like in a primer sort of way what rare earth is and isn't?

So we started by talking about the periodic table. You know, there's a whole bunch of things at the bottom of the periodic table. I can barely pronounce them. They're long words. They've got lots of vowels and lots of consonants. They're generally the rare earths. And they basically, you know, some of them will make magnets more powerful. Some will make sensors more effective.

they have the ability with relatively small quantities to increase the productivity of most things, to increase its efficiency. So if you want to have the very best avionics in a plane or in defense equipment, if you want to have the best magnet, including for your refrigerator, most rare is for magnets actually go into consumer goods.

They don't go into military. They're basically the things you and I use every day that we take for granted. If you want an electric vehicle, that's going to be as a, efficient as possible, you need these rare earth metals. And you're not using a lot of them, but you need to have just enough to get the right blend in, it depends on what it is. It could be a glass tube. It could be a magnet. All sorts of things need different types of rare earths for that.

It proves their competitiveness. How did, and when did magnets become important and a big deal? And who discovered that stuff? I think it was back to Thomas Edison days, actually. But we kept making them smaller. You look at a speaker. I remember I was at the conference once talking about copper and substitution and thrifting. Back when we were growing up, the speakers were this big. Yeah. You know, they were mountain.

And I was sitting on a podium. This was in New York. And there was a bunch of speakers behind it. And we were talking about thrifting and substitution. With copper price going up, you use a little bit less of it. And I said, well, you know, there's a speaker in here. Mm-hmm. it's a more effective speaker

than the ones on the wall behind me. That were the ones we were used to, the ones that stood a couple feet tall. Right. Because the magnets were made smaller. So rare earths are... So if you like a good speaker in your phone, you've got to be a fan of rare earth.

Now, is that why sometimes, like my credit card or my hotel key will lose its power if I put it next to my phone? Or if you put it next to my iPod, which has a magnet in it, Which I do at some time to time. You have to go back down to the lobby and get a new. So this is sounds so stupid, but where do magnets come from?

Like, do you mine for magnets? Do you create them? Do you, like, how do you make a magnet? You basically start with iron. The most boring thing there is. And you basically add alloys to it that creates its magnetic properties. And then the rare earths on it sort of improve it. And there's some magnets that you need to have power.

going through them to be effective. Some, they don't need that power. An electromagnet. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Some magnets, they get more powerful when you heat them up. Some magnets get less powerful when you heat them up. So you have to actually have the right alloys for different applications. So is part of the rare earth supply chain drama linked specifically to the supply of magnets? No, it's the supply of rare earths. And then the, ability to take those rare earths and put them in the magnet manufacturing process again in the us we used to have the biggest rare earth magnet operations in the world in the united states why don't we and they progressively just shut down as we basically shut down the rest of industry in

america and we'll need to get back and and that's part of the task we have as americans to bring those industries back i just i mean do you think that will go down in history is one of the the greatest unforced errors. I mean, we didn't shut the industry down because we didn't need it. It wasn't really an unforced error. It was the peril of affluence, I think. You know, we just, we thought we sort of outgrew that stuff. We thought we were moving on to a better place.

We didn't need the factories. We didn't need the smokestacks. We didn't need the blue collar jobs. We needed their output. I mean, we needed their results. And we were happy to outsource it. Offshore. Remember back in 20, 30 years ago?

was all the bus. I know. This is not political. This was not a Democratic versus Republican. It's just we as affluent society chose, consciously chose to say, look, we don't need all this stuff. We're moving to a higher plan. You know, maybe there's a difference between going clothing, textiles. I mean, that was a big industry. That's a bad example. Furniture. Actually, you know what? There are no good examples. I was trying to say. He said all got outsourced. Well, right. But in the same way that, you know, there's a hierarchy in energy. There's a hierarchy in bad outsourcing decisions. We started with stuff.

It was like big deal. It's chotchkes. It's just stuff. And you can see the benefit of the bargain. But you work your way up. And now your textile industry is gone. And your furniture industry is largely gone. Still, not good, but not catastrophic.

And furniture, we started bringing in outside wood. And now on my property, all the estries are dying. Because you had basically you're importing timber. importing wood from other areas, and they have bugs and stuff in them that basically... Non-indigenous species we bring in. There's no resistance to the trees. Well, the other, there's a guy called Mike Albrecht, who runs the National Timber Council, I think, or something like that.

Is that what it is? The lumber, yeah, National Lumber Association, I think. Let me look it up. He sat right there about a year ago. And, you know, his argument, it's so adjacent to everything that you and I have talked about. There's more timber in California than anywhere in the country. California is a leading importer of timber. There's something like, I mean...

Now you're the leading source of fires. Coincidence? No, no coincidence. Probably not. Completely linked. He's the president of the National American Loggers Council. Right. And he ultimately, I mean, he's got a constituency and he's got an agenda.

But the underlying argument is so similar to why wouldn't we want to be timber independent? Why wouldn't we want to be energy independent? Why don't we want to be metal independent? If we need the rare earths, why would we let China be in control of that? It's different to outsource a thing that is not a matter of life and death than it is something so primal. I lived in Vancouver, Washington back in the 90s, and that was the spotted owl controversy. They were basically shutting down the timber in Oregon and northern California and Washington. all those towns, you know, they just sort of went into not a slow decay, but a fast decay,

because all of a sudden they just got locked out. And, of course, in Canada, they were more than happy to continue to forest in British Columbia. They had the same kind of woods, same kind of trees. And you saw the demise of that Pacific Northwestern industry, which was such an important part of Douglas fir, of pines, and the other things that are needed, whether it's for building construction, whether it's for chopsticks, anything that we use. And we chose to say, well, we got to protect the spotted owl. There might be spotted owls in those other places, too, but that's not our problem.

That's their problem. Right. There's a great book you would love. It's called The Humble Toothpick. And it really tells the story of how the toothpick came into existence, but also how it was Birch up through New England. And how the factories that, you know, toothpick, we made all the toothpicks. And thousands and thousands of children. jobs. And that was one of the first things to go. And anyway, if there's a parallel, or at least

my question, it's a connection. It's just, if we can't make a toothpick, Tom, in this country, what real hope does Detroit have? And what real hope do we have in the mining world of crawling back some of this stuff? Which is why you're here in which we're in the process of doing. You were talking before about priorities. And I would say that reindustrializing our toothpick industry is probably not at the same place as reindustrializing our rare earth magnet industry. No offense to the people in the wood services industry, but we have so much to do over the next 20 years to reindustrialize to bring the jobs, bring the skills back, get more engineers out of school, in addition trades and everything else.

There's a lot of work that's involved. It's a multi-generational effort. Not a week goes by where I don't become more. convinced that everything we know about modern public education is going to change in my lifetime. It has to. The entire premise of one teacher standing in front of 40 kids, all of whom learn at different rates, and then teaching them all the same thing at the same speed, that's not working. And the national test scores prove it.

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The letter K, the number 12. Dot com slash row. Yeah. And I think it's a fair point to make. There's a difference between the finished product of work and the work itself. And I just had this conversation with the guy who started John Paul Mitchell's School's cosmetology. We started offering Scott.

scholarships, the cosmetologist. And it's not something I ever thought I would do, but because, to your point, of all the problems in the country, bad haircuts are not at the top of the list. But the number of people who made their living cutting hair is extraordinary. And so the number of people who made their living... And AI won't be able to take care of that one. That's right. Well, not yet. Oculus is coming. They say, what did Elon say? There were going to be more Oculus surgeons in three years than human surgeons. We'll see. But there might be some, like a hairdresser type thing, put down your head and then push a button and you... Like a bowl, like my mom used to do. Yeah, bowl, yeah. But I'm pretty sure Oculus has made a metal. I'm pretty sure there's no robot industry.

There's no Tesla. There's no SpaceX. No, anything that's robotics. And by the way, batteries, you mentioned batteries before. I mean, I think that a real positive takeoff from the EV revolution and renewables has been the fact that really for the first time in about 100 years, that we started working on R&D for batteries. So every year, they're tremendous performance improvements of batteries.

Now, unfortunately, the Chinese are ahead of that. We've got to catch up and we've got to get back on the pace for batteries and battery minerals. And I'm involved with that, and we can talk about battery minerals. But if we want to electrify, if we want to have more EV vehicles, if we want to have backup for, you know, battery backups for solar grids, we're going to need these batteries. And we should be actually not only, making them in the United States, but we should make them to U.S. designs, not to Chinese designs.

It's up to us as technologists. Get the science back into this. Let's get in the forefront of battery technology. And it's growing at such leaps and bounds. We should be right there to say, well, if we can do one of those leaps ahead of the competition, we'll be back in first place. So in terms of essential metals in a battery, what are we really talking about in no particular order? What do we need? Well, we need anything that will store the energy and we'll buffer the energy so the battery doesn't blow up or burn. So we need basically the lithium, we need nickel, we need manganese, we need sodium. May it's the next generation.

We need potassium. We need a lot of coal. We need a lot of different types of minerals and different types of battery formulations have different sweets, but they're all metal. Not a single one of those materials is non-metallic. And none of them grow on trees. They're basically coming out of the ground. And so if we want to electrify, and I'm a big fan of electrification, we will move down that EV path at America's pace, you know, as the technology goes.

But we should have backup battery storage. We should have electrification of everything. It's going to take a lot of battery minerals. And they might be a different formulation, different cookbook in five years than they are now, but they're all going to require roughly the same types of metals. And how many different mining operations have you worked on that were in pursuit of the aforementioned metals? And Rio Tinto, you... Yeah, I think we focused on...

And Rio Tinto, and I was CEO of a big company in India Vodenta, we were focusing on the bulk commodities. So these were like iron, aluminum, copper. These are the ones that are recognizable metals. But I think over the past 10 years, we've seen, as batteries have researched, the battery minerals have gone from sort of also Rans or not if a big company like a Rio had them on their balance sheet it's a rounding error now it's changing so that like Rio Tinto for employer they have now big lithium project and lithium the activities so they're moving into lithium which is a good thing and you see other big miners are moving into the space

but I would say at this point the mid-size miners are actually probably ahead of that because the size of those industries make a bigger different to business-sized companies than the majors right now. But that's going to change ultimately. Again, sorry to bounce around. I want people to understand the impact, because most people listening probably haven't heard of Rio Tinto. What exactly is it?

What is its impact? Which is really interesting because if you go to Australia, Canada, anywhere in Africa, Asia, it's a household name. Everyone knows who it is. In the United States, who are they? What do? What do they make? It's one additional sign of the first

additional sign of the fact that mining is so removed from the psyche in America, but you go to those places where mining is a big part of their economy. They know who they are. It's the second biggest mining company in the world. I'm really proud of what they've done, what they continue to achieve. And they're in all sorts of weird and exotic places, but they've been focusing on the biggest deposits of the world, those that are multi-generational. Deposites of what? Exactly. Copper. I mean, I worked for Kennecott, Utah, Copper in Salt Lake for a number of years. I ran the smelter for a while. while there. That mine was started like in, the open pit started in 1905 and the underground started maybe in the 1880s, something like that. And during the World War II, I think the Allied war effort,

I think over half of the copper going to the Allied war effort came from that mine. And it's still running today. Yeah. Amazing. They're not running out of copper. What's the other, Franco Nevada? I'm on the board of Franco Nevada and I'll be the chairman in about two weeks time. Yeah. And that's a, that's a gold company. Yeah. Did you ever think you would live to see gold at $5,000 an ounce? I think there was a time when we said we don't know if we would like what the world would look like at $5,000 an ounce. You know, when it was $1,000, it felt like that was sort of out of the ordinary. But what we've seen progressively over that period of time, and a big part of it was with the fiscal stimulus both in the global financial crisis, but also the fiscal and monetary stimulus during the COVID crisis.

that money supply just got ratcheted up so big. And, you know, ultimately, if you make more money, each of those bits of money are worth a little bit less compared to a standard. And that standard has always been gold. So, you know, as we put more money into the system, we actually diluted the value of that money. So gold price goes up. You know, I mean, I guess it's a supply and demand thing, too. But copper, I mean, is gold from a practical level?

never mind its economic value. But intrinsically, how important is gold as an element or a metal into the infrastructure that we rely on? Or industry a little bit, and it's really helpful for it, but it's not so critical. But if you think it's worthwhile to have some standard to measure money on, then it's got a lot of value. Which is why most of it's used, it's dug out of the ground and put back in the ground in a vault. I know that gold is finite, but how much do you figure we've mined already? I think it's like a, it's like a block that's 50 by 50 by 50 feet.

It's something like a small office building. How much do you figure is left? A lot more than that. A lot more than that. Okay. So you're not worried from a mining perspective. For none of these metals, I'm not worried. We're not.

Just go deeper. Just dig deeper. Well, there you go. And that goes back into look for new terrains too. And so, you know, we were talking about batteries and, you know, it's getting hard to find all of these things. And there is one place that we really haven't touched. And you're holding it right there. That's it.

That's a- And this is a nodule. It's a battery and a rock. It's got, I think, 30 different elements in it. You know, some of them aren't that much valuable now, but who knows, in 20 years, they might be. Others are very valuable. The manganese, the cobalt, the nickel, the copper, etc. I think there's a good bit of titanium here.

And if you want to make jet aircraft, you need titanium. These are almost in unlimited supply and the seafloor. Just within project that we've been working on, there's more of cobalt in these things than entirely in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. And again, for those of you not watching but listening, Tom is holding a golf ball shaped rock. they could be smaller. Looks like a truffle.

Yeah, it looks like a truffle. Although I've seen them as big as softballs and I've seen some of them not quite as round as that one. But these are polymetallic nodules. They are at depth all over the oceans, some more highly concentrated than others, I suppose.

I mean, it's not a surprise. We've known they've been down there since, what, 1880 something? 18, what was I said, what was two years ago? It was 150th anniversary. So I was in the 1880s, yeah. And that was a British ship? British ship. Challenger. The Challenger. So they like what had a two or three mile chain and they

dragged a bucket across and they brought these things up. I hope it wasn't a heavy chain. I suspect it was a rope. Yes. A lot of rope. So when that would have been probably three miles or maybe two miles a rope where they got that. But that's a lot of rope. Chuck, can you find that video I was telling you about, you know, the one time we used in DC that has, it's just the, oh, the nodules. Yeah, the background. It's on the sea floor. Is it on the AOM? site, you think? I think so, yeah, yeah. Check out AOMC.com.

See if you can find it so people can see these things. You know, again, it's so, like my introduction to this has been pretty intense over the last six months. And virtually everyone I've talked to, just out in the real world, when I talk about polymetallic nodules, they just, you know, they look at me like a golden retriever. Yeah, like a cow looking at a new gate, you know, is baffled. But for somebody in your industry, I mean, again, this is not a secret. It's not a surprise.

They've been there for millennia. But, you know, as I think about it, wasn't it April 24th a year ago? Like in real time, it was this week a year ago that the president signed an EO. Take it an order, yes. What was the impact of that? It's been a real positive impact because I think it's attracted capital to the sector. And I think it's important to recognize that people were looking at not. modules. We were studying these in university back in the 70s and 80s. So they've been known

for a long time, but the technology wasn't known to be around at that point in time. And then when people were worried about the supply of copper, in 1974, for example, had a report called the Club Arom Report, which said the world was going to run out of copper. And so that's why I was working for an oil company looking for copper, because all the oil companies were pivoting over to mining at that point in time to see if they could find more. And sure enough, the oil industry found lots of copper in South America. So that that sort of plug that gap for a period of time. But as those minds in South America have been maturing, as you would expect they would over a couple decades, we need to look for new places.

And meanwhile, a lot of good research, both technical research in terms of the mechanics, the robotics, etc., but also environmental research, in terms of ensuring that these can be extracted and not leave undue environmental harm, that work has been going on. And that really has picked up a lot over the past five years. I've been involved with this since about 2017. And in the early days, it was still, it was slowly, slowly, slowly. But what we've seen with the benefit, a lot of the people that are doing exploration in this particular space has been a lot of good scientific work, both in terms of the technology, also the environmental monitoring and the environmental performance. And now for the first time, I think the executive order helped this, but also I think the rare earth debate with China, the challenges of supply. I change have sort of been an additional catalyst that now capital's beginning to say, well,

we better keep our eyes on this because we're coming to that pivot point. And I do believe we pass that pivot point now. My guest today, Tom Albinis, is an American giant. And I'll tell you why. Tom understands on a fundamental level that the business of mining is a non-negotiable prerequisite of our civilization and our civilization and our. economic independence, just like the business of making things. American Giant knows this, which is why they committed themselves 16 years ago to make all their excellent clothing right

here in this country. It wasn't easy, but they did it. They sourced locally grown cotton, and they built factories in towns across the nation where they could hire hardworking locals who cared about making a quality product. And then they went about the business of gently reminding people that when you buy a piece of clothing from American Giant, you're not just buying a high-quality sweatshirt or T-shirt or another pair of jeans. You're investing in a local supply chain. You're supporting communities from the Carolinas to California. And you're getting a piece of clothing that won't just survive the wash. You're getting a garment that'll get better with age. Check out their high-quality staples, hoodies, teas, denim, built to be worn year after

year at American-giant.com slash Mike. It's quality you can feel and a true American success story that you can be proud to support. Use code Mike. Get 20% off your order at American-giant.com slash Mike. American Giant, American Made. American Giant, American Made. So, I mean, just so people understand the scale. There are hundreds of billions of these things.

I think you could probably find abyssal planes where you go from, equivalent of going from L.A. to Portland, Oregon. And it would look like that on the screen. Yeah. So you're driving an interstate from L.A. to Portland, Oregon, and all you would be seeing is that type of module field. These are huge, huge expanses of minerals

that are basically needed for batteries. I can't find the video on the sun. That's pretty good. That picture is pretty good. That's not bad. Yeah. No, the video is super cool, though, because it just loops and runs. Is it on YouTube?

It might be. Because I can't find any video on it. I've got it on my phone. I've got it on my phone. If you want to use a little bit copper to get it, it's in my phone too. Okay. Let's see if you can find it's got to be out there. But it's not really mining.

And I think I'd call it harvesting. It's like taking golf balls out of a water trap. in a golf course. Or just off of the green. You're not digging holes. You're literally, it's a vacuum cleaner type effect where you're basically bringing these collectors. They're about this little bit bigger than this room.

And they have the equivalent of a vacuum cleaner that's just sucking these up, brings them up. And then you have different ways of taking them from down there, which is maybe 4,000, 5,000 meters deep or, like they say three miles plus or minus deep. And bringing them up on a ship. And then from on the ship, it basically then takes that once the ship's full, it takes it to a shore and then process just like a normal mineral product would be. So where's the real challenge?

Is it getting them 20,000 feet up to the surface or is it smelting them and crushing them into what powder and then turning them into liquid and separating and whatever you do? I think there are really three challenges to something like this. I mean, I think the first is technology. And part of it is that vacuum cleaner. Part of it is getting it up on the boat. parting from the boat getting it and turning it into all the constituent metals. But we're really good at technology.

And none of these components have never been done before. These are all existing technologies just haven't been put together in the same order. So technology, I think, has made a lot of progress. And we're there on the technology side. The second part is the markets. Is there enough of a market for all these nodules? If you believe in industrialization, if you believe in electrification, Yes, the market.

Five years ago, we said the market is coming. Now, I think we can actually say with more confidence the market is here. And the third, which is actually always the most difficult, because it's more qualitative than quantitative, is society licensed to operate. Does society buy in to the need of these nodules? And I think that's why we've had to focus so much on the science, the environmental work.

I have a lot of respect. There are a lot of NGOs that have, raise a lot of fears and everything else. And I think the science has actually said, okay, let's look at that fear. Is it a plume under the water? Is it mixing of waters? And so people understand.

You're talking about a process whereby the nodules are getting scooped up and the scooping creates dust. And that dust takes the form of a plume and that plume rises and gets an occurrence. And it turns out, a fishery maybe or something. MIT did some work last couple years ago.

It turns out the plume is like a hundredth of what had been feared. So it's good to actually address where, where could things go wrong, and then bring science in there, look at that, and basically peer-reviewed studies, get the right science out there. And there's been a lot of good work that's been reviewed and published because you have people that are actually looking at, considering whether this is a commercial opportunity. That's driving the capital to do that science. It wouldn't be done otherwise. We'd wait, 30 years from now, we'd say, well, we still need to do the science. The science is being done today. We're actually properly addressing each of the components. Again, because I've been a

terrestrial miner, I know what a terrestrial mine can do that I'm not saying there's no environmental effect from this, but the consequential effect of nodule harvesting is like a thousandth of the equivalent effect to mining in a rainforest or mining in jungle or anywhere else. A terrestrial mine in, I don't know what, the Congo, the Amazon, Bolivia. We're in the United States. Okay. What does it take practically? And people don't want to hear this, I know, but what has the impact been on the rainforest of getting these exact metals out of the ground? probably about in terms of biodiversity in terms of carbon effects about several hundred to a thousand times more than nodules but that doesn't say that the terrestrial mining is irresponsible that is just a cost of extracting those metals and there's been a lot of good work by the trustyal miners i am one of them sure to basically mitigate

the effects of that and we're really good we how do you get reclamation going i mean when you clear a rainforests Well, it doesn't stay cleared. I've been to very many, many places around the world where you'll go into, I remember one place in South Africa, at Richard's Bay, where we were bringing some university people through there. We were bringing them through a forest. And they were saying, oh, my gosh, you want to destroy this forest? And there's a sign there replanted in 1994.

So this stuff does actually grow back. And reclamation is at a high degree of work. You start with grasses that actually can pick up seeds that are, wind blown and things like that and that turns into bigger trees. So reclamation in the terrestrial mining industry is actually quite advanced. Now if you're digging a hole, you're digging a hole. You're creating a hole that won't be filled in. So, you know, there are going to be effects of that, but you can mitigate the effects of that. And again, what is doing is delivering the metals that we need here. How old is this thing? And how did it form? Well, that's a very interesting question,

because I joke about this sometimes. You know, some of these would take maybe five million years. 10 million, some maybe 25, 30 million years, and they grow, they basically slowly grow by the minerals that originally were dissolved in the seawater over long periods of time as the chemistry of the oceans change, ice ages, pH goes up, pH goes down, different metals sort of come out and precipitate out of the seawater and through a variety of geologic processes, they aggregate. What does precipitate mean underwater? It will basically a cling. Almost like it's magnetic. Yeah, you have one nodule here, one and a half. Yeah, there we are. I don't know if you can see this on the camera, but if you look at a, if you look at that

cross-section of this, it's almost like tree rings. Yeah. And so basically what you have, every time that the ocean has gone through a shift in its chemistry, like an ice age, different minerals will basically agglomerate on the outside of this. And basically it's sort of cycles, you know, earth cools, earthworms, it's natural cycles of the earthworms of the Earth and the oceans over periods of millions of years lead to basically different cycles of minerals that are deposited. So it forms almost like a pearl. It forms like a pearl, but not a pearl would be an organic growing. This would be an inorganic growing.

But it's interesting because in the middle of these, half the time you'll see like a shark's tooth. I got one. Or megalon. Yeah, megalon tooth. Like a megalodon tooth from the dinosaur days. Yeah. And basically they have these, the nodule encrusted around them. So basically, if a fish is swimming at the surface of the ocean, all fish eventually die.

They basically, the bones, the teeth. The calcium basically sort of slowly settles the bottom of the seafloor. And that hard surface is what the minerals will cling to over time. Is there something we're missing? Is there a possibility that these things are playing some role in the ecosystem that we don't understand? They probably do, which is why in the, the environmental science we're doing, we do recognize that certain types of maybe micro fauna, the real like critters, bacteria, smaller critters, maybe some sponges, need something hard on the seafloor

to basically latch onto as part of the regeneration of those areas for rebuilding the biodiversity. So I think in the work we're doing, what we're trying to do is determine how can we harvest enough of the nodules but leave enough behind. And in some areas, like the Cook Islands, for example, where it's very dense, much denser than other areas, you can actually leave more behind because it's just more than enough to go around. So let's just say you leave 20% of the nodules

on the ground after you've harvested. It could be the smaller ones, you have some type of screen, so the small ones stay behind, the big ones go up onto the boat. And those represent the starting points for regeneration over time. So you're thinking of these the same way

you would think of a new forest? Like are you thinking about reasons? It will take a longer amount of time. But certainly the work, there were tests that were done where tractors were running down in the sea bottom back in the 1970s, 1980s. So they have tracks that are 60, 70 years old down there.

And at that time, they didn't care. So the tracks were big. They were grooved. And it made a bit of much more, of a mess than you would see with modern technology. But even there, what you see is that, you know, 60, 70 years later, you see the starting points of plant life, animal life, regaining to, you know, its position. So what that tells me is it's going to take longer to regenerate than it has for a land-based

mining. And we have to take that into account. And we probably don't want to sort of clear out an entire area with nothing around. We probably want to have furrows where you're just like farming where you keep, keep furrows in between where it's untouched and those actually create the biodiversity that can spread over to the areas that had been disturbed. And then you leave enough of these on the ground before that so they can actually begin to help pick up that biodiversity and help it regrow. So I want to understand. It's going to take time though. Of course. But again, just so people understand the

scope. Talk about the CCZ and how big that is. And also you mentioned the early 70s. I read like the CIA had a hand of this, like looking for a missing submarine. And we had like we knew they were there. And then somehow or another treaties. We can thank Nixon and Kissinger for that. Back in the day, there was a Soviet sub that had a catastrophic accident. And, you know, the sub was one thing, but it had the latest suite of Soviet nuclear weapons on it. So back in the mid-70s.

That wasn't the curse, wasn't something like that? No, it was. It was an older. It was not that disaster. It was a much older disaster than that. And it was in international waters. So, you know, the U.S. couldn't just go down to visible campaign. That would be seen as quite a negative thing in terms of global relations.

Yeah, we're diving on a Russian sub. Exactly, exactly. So they basically, they helped construct, and this was Lockheed involved with that. Hughes Corporation was involved with this. And they constructed the largest sort of recovery ship in the world. It had a big moon bay in the middle of a hole in the middle where you can drop, you know, cranes can drop things in. And basically they'd advertise it as an expedition to look for these nodules. And there were some people in the ship that were working on the

nodules. And there were other people in the ship that were working on lifting the sub-brain up. Yeah. And it was actually, I think even, even now, it's probably one of the largest CIA operations that ever had. They did write a book about it. I don't know if they made a movie of it yet, but they did write a book about it. Somebody should. So back then, we knew they were there. We knew. We knew. that they had metals. We just didn't need them anywhere near the degree to which. Well, we didn't have the technology at that time. I mean, now they have modern cables.

They're made of different synthetic ropes. They're lighter. Then they had big steel cables that, you know, it was very hard to build a ship that could hold that kind of steel in place. The avionics were different. The robotics were different. That was back in the day when the Apollo spacecraft had, you know, 24KB. computer in it. That was the state of the art. So they weren't really in a place like we are now

with the technology. So now the technology is there. I think we're also much more metals intensive as a society. Back then, it was only a few European countries in the U.S. that was actually heavy consumers of metals. Now the entire globe would be heavy consumers of metals. So we have the secular shift going on. It's still underway where two and a half billion people in the world actually want to live just like you and me. And who are we to hold their ambitions back? They want their industrial revolution. They want their. Of course.

That will also be metals intensive. So now we're at that place where we're actually needing more of the stuff than we did need back in the 1970s. So what happened to retard the recovery and the exploitation of these things? It was economics. It was just economics. We found more copper on land that was easier to get to with the technology of the day. It was cheaper. That was, that's why you saw.

Chile become such an important mining country. Chile went from being an absolute basket case back in those days to be probably the best middle class country in South America on copper. Indonesia had great copper discoveries. Many countries that weren't seen to be copper producers have had a big part of their economy boosted by copper. Well, what do you reckon these could do for an island nation like the cooks or American Samoa?

or what was the ones? Was it Nehru or there's an island? It was the phosphate island. Yeah, yeah, yeah, phosphate. Right? Yeah, yeah. But, I mean, what a terrible story that was. That was like, didn't the Belgians or somebody like went?

They took all their phosphate. It's where the birds stopped and the birds covered the island. It was actually when we, our prior generation, wanted fertilizer. Yes. So there was a market demand created by the fact that humanity was eating food and they needed fertilizer. And so what was the easiest kind of fertilizer? get well old bird shit yeah and where is the bird shit on islands in the middle of the ocean because all the birds land on that island and they basically sit there for a while and they leave a little bit behind

but not a little i mean this island was just covered a couple you know tens of thousands of years and it's covered yeah so i guess the point i'm trying to make is all of a sudden this poor island nation covered in bird shit suddenly has something that everybody wants but they didn't prosper from their resource. It was really the Dutch disease. Yeah. Yes. It was taken resource curse. Right. So from what I've read you know and and people are a little freaked out of like the NGOs are looking at this and I kind of feel like their strategy is we have to stop this before it starts even though the impact on the environment is such a lighter touch than what's currently being done. It's just kind of a lot a lot's happened with

countries you know all the cultures have been in the extractive business. No we don't. No we don't. No, I'm still looking for that video. It's ridiculous. We're still looking for that video. Well, see, now it's personal. Now we have to find it. So I think that there's been a lot of experiences since then. And I think any country that's developing its own mineral industry, they think long and hard about that Dutch disease, the extractives curse.

So Norway led the way. I mean, Norway's seen as the most progressive nation in the world, if not in Europe and probably in the world. but their entire affluence is driven off oil and gas. People don't want to hear that, but their affluence is oil and gas. But what they have done was very proper. They basically said, we're not going to spend it all right now. We're going to put most of it aside for a rainy day. And they created a sovereign wealth fund.

And now the countries that are considering, the Pacific Island countries, including the Cook Islands, that are considering, you know, once they go through all the due process, is the clean extraction of these minerals. They're also talking about sovereign wealth funds because they recognize that that lessons of the past shouldn't be repeated. There should be the bulk of the money should be set aside for future generations. Where are we with? And I think with specific minerals, which is different than the fertilizer in the islands, is that the extraction is taken, it's out of viewshed.

The harvesting vessels will be, you won't be able to see them from the islands. There's going to be at least a 50 nautical mile limit away from these. islands. So it's it will not be on the islands themselves. The islands aren't very big. That's the only land that they have to work with. It's going to be in their waters. And so they're very concerned about those waters, but it's not going to be affecting the land itself. It's going to be providing jobs, though, because many of these island nations have been seeing for generations an exodus of their citizens, a large despora in other parts of the world because they're chasing jobs. This provides an opportunity to create apprenticeship programs, provides an opportunity to create some

skills that are based on the islands, young Cook Islanders, for example, will be working on the ships that already are working on the ships in terms of the exploration programs that are now underway. So it is a way of uplifting that next generation. Hopefully, in some cases, bring some people back that want to return back to the island. They couldn't because they didn't have the jobs for it. So, you know, I think that lessons from the past can be used successfully going forward. Well, look, that's how I got sucked into this. It was jobs.

And it wasn't in the Cook Islands. It's a job creator. Yeah. Well, I mean, how many do you think we're talking about? The business of getting that thing off the bottom of the ocean into a processing facility yet to be built. I mean, it's got to be tens of thousands. It's a combination of both the processing, as you say, that's going to be thousands of jobs there, tens of thousands of jobs there. But also, as we in America, everyone recognizes now in America, we need to rebuild that.

shipbuilding industry and that's a part of us going to be for the navy but a big part of it's going to be for commercial yeah we pretty much have also walked away from shipbuilding here we need to bring those skills back to america and if we start looking at these harvesting fleets being actually built in american shipyards another several tens of thousands of jobs can be created from then and they're catalyst for other industries that can be brought back into america there's the uh that's the cc we were talking about no it Oh, that lower left-hand corner. Yeah, that's what I'm trying to play right now.

I have no idea why that's not working. That's what you want to play. There you go. Look, it just goes really fast all the way to the end. No, that's not it. But you see that yellow oval? Uh-huh. You got Mexico to the right.

You got Hawaii to the left. It just played the whole video in just a split second. I have no idea what's going on. So that zone. I like that pyramid, though, by the way. No, that is cool. There's got to be something below those pyramids, but we'll save that for another coal.

There you go. Now it's working. You know there you go. There it is. Yeah, something. That's close. It just gives you a sense. So we're talking 22, 23, 24,000 feet.

Yeah, yeah, about that. I mean, that's pretty deep. It's deep. You won't have any divers down there. It's all robotics. It's all AI. Actually, it's this kind of stuff that future engineers should be excited to be working with. Look, I mean, I came to.

Part of it, we want to bring skilled trades back. We also need to bring the engineering sectors back to America, too. We're not training up enough engineers. No, but an industry like this that's this nascent, you know, it occurs to me you need, you need engineers, you need geologists. You need environmentalists. You need marine surveyors. You need people that can run ships, safely run ships and manage robotics and everything that go on them. You need adventurers.

You need, I mean, I came, my old friend, Greg Stem, I used to narrate documentaries he made for the Discovery Channel. He's diving on wrecks. And I remember him saying to me, you know, we've brought up millions of dollars of silver and gold and around us the whole time. The treasure is just lying. Yeah, I first ran into Greg over 20 years ago, and he was working with my brother, who's a rare coin. guy. And Greg was beginning to how to market all the rare coins. He's been sort of coming up from the ocean. He was also beginning to think about pivoting over to deep sea minerals. So he asked my brother, you know, do you know any mining guys? And that's how it happens. That's how it happens. So I connected

with him. But I have to say when I first, I was sort of a rising star, Rio Tinto at the time. And I was a bit arrogant. I was a bit younger too. I flipped them off. I said, this is not going to happen in my lifetime. But let's stay in touch. But when I was chief executive Rio Tinto, in 2010, I actually called them up. I called Greg up again, and I said, you know, I was wrong. This is happening. I hadn't appreciated that basically what's happening to see the deep sea costs, they're going down quite a bit because the oil industry was pioneering.

They were doing all the R&D for us, whereas terrestrial mining costs back in 2010, and still today, they just keep going up. They're only going on one direction, that's up. And there's going to be a crossover point. It was going to happen in a couple years, but I said, but sorry, Greg, right now I have a day job. So, but let's stay in touch. So did you just misread the need?

Or was, I'm going back to the treaties because it seems like some acronyms were in place. Maybe it was Noah, maybe it was Boleham, maybe, you know, it just seems like a lot of people have skin in this game. And a lot of countries signed various treaties, the Seabed Association and so forth. But I don't think we, I don't think we signed that. No, the International Seabed Authority was created with the Law of the Sea Convention back, you know, back when we were in our 20s and 30s. Unclose, was it? Yes, yes.

That basically was not signed up by the U.S. and has not been signed up ever since. Notwithstanding the Republican or the Democratic, didn't matter who was in power. It just was something the U.S. wasn't interested in signing up on. And back when 20 years ago, they were still trying to figure out how to regulate this area. They're still trying to figure out how to regulate it. It's a United Nations. United Nations, they don't agree on a lot. No, they don't.

They talk a lot. They have great conversation, but they don't agree on much. So it's basically been in paralysis. And I think from the U.S. recognition that this is not going to happen in anyone's lifetime with that type of paralysis that's taken place, the U.S. look back at its own existing regulations that they had put in place back in the 1980s. Yeah. And basically, let's work around existing regulations in place.

We have agencies within the U.S. government that are world-re-downed for their oceanographic research. Let's put them to work and see if we can make this work. So you were wrong. Then I fessed up. Uh-huh. And then you start sniffing around again. And to give Greg credit, he put together the band that led to the formation of CIC. And Mark Just, Greg and I, we basically went out there early part of 2018 to the Cook Islands.

And, you know, I've been working pretty hard on that ever since. Man, I mean. And to give great credit, he's always been an explorer with us for sure. shipwrecks or for these nodules. And he always will be an explorer. Now we're moving to a point where it's basically it's the engineers. It's time to do. You've got to get them.

Time to do the environmental science and do the engineering work and all the next steps. I think when did Drake hit oil? Like 1858, 59, something like that. Yeah, Titusville. You know, I think about this. The first time this was explained to me, it just reminded me. of that because I thought... And you know, if they hadn't discovered oil then

and figured out how to use it, we wouldn't have any whales left. Right. That's what hit me. It's like, you know, wait a second. Because we were happily killing all the whales off or the whale oil. There was like a dozen sperm whales left.

Yeah. Or right whales, we called them then. Because they were the right whales to kill. And boy, did we kill them. So, yeah, maybe there's a parallel there. I mean, maybe the best hope for some of the most pristine, you know, it's unfortunate that the cop

we need is in such abundance under the rainforest. But boy, wouldn't it be something if polymetallic nodules saved the rainforest in the same way? We're going to need them both. I don't subscribe to the notion as one or the other because it's you and my consumption times X billion number of people that are basically just using more and more of the stuff. You know, again, living in India, you can see it where families that were. in absolute poverty. Unfortunately, there's too many billions of people living in absolute poverty around the world.

They get to the point where they can put a light bulb in their house. And someone's wired up and put some power in there. Then they get to a point of in a refrigerator. And then they get to a point of getting a motor scooter. And then they get to a point of getting a car. These are huge steps in that family's personal development and the family's well-being.

And then you multiply that by a couple billion people. It's going to take a lot of this stuff. to fill that need. To what degree do you believe this resource is going to become dominant or consequential, truly consequential in the future of all this? I think it will be an important part of the supply chain. I don't think it's going to be dominant. Because I think you have so many deposits, existing mineral deposits with so many skilled capabilities

and so much technology, which also aren't. aren't running out of material. They're going to continue running. They're going to be growing, but they're not going to be growing at the pace that we as consumers and not just us relatively off the consumers, but every single person in the world, as we consume, we're going to need more than the terrestrial minds can deliver.

And this will help fill that gap. That's what I'm asking. The nodules themselves. It's not mutually exclusive. It's not one or the other. I get it in the same way that it's not natural gas or nuclear or You need it all. You need it all.

Yeah. Right. But flash ahead 10 years, do you imagine processing five years, three years? If this is for real, if that EO has teeth, and obviously it does, it's not just our merry band of, you know, pranksters going out there to, you know. I think it's important for us. We have to do the foundation work. It's like building a building, carpenters and electricians and everything else. Before you build a building, you've got to put the foundation.

in. You've got to make sure that your building is going to stand on solid footing. So that's why we've got to do the environmental work. We got to do the surveys. We got to do the baseline monitoring, all the stuff that we're doing as we speak today. And now as more capitals coming in, we're able to speed that kind of work up and get more scientists involved with that. That foundation allows us to then to start putting up the two by fours and then we can start putting up the sheetrock and then we can start putting up everything else. And that could happen in a couple years. How important was it to you to be in an entity that had a bench like CIC. Like when you look at some of the scientists on there.

They're incredible people. The team at CIC and the team at Odyssey and the team at OML, the teams that have been part of this new organization that's we've just rolled out two weeks ago, AOM. They are scientists, many of them were cutting their teeth back in the 70s. So these are oceanographers, they're environmental scientists, They're engineers. We have one that was working on the Titanic.

Tom. Tom. I'm going to have him on here as soon as he can come up here. We've had people that have been working on sort of classified programs in the deep sea. So you have an incredible talent base there. The enthusiasm. It just, you just feel the enthusiasm. When you're in a room with them, they're excited.

Oh, yeah. And they're passionate. And they're also creative. They're smart. They're hardworking. These guys and gals work. 20 hours a day, easy. Well, so do you.

As we start to land the plane here, I just want to try and make it a little more personal because we talk a lot on this show about the nature of work and how purpose and consequential work, I guess, really, is, right? You know, because you just think about there's just so many jobs today. There's the whole categories of jobs exist

that don't really benefit anyone except for the person doing the job. Which is fine, but your industry is so fundamental, it's so primal. Is that what attracted you to it, or is it what kept you in it? I love the outdoors. I love the outdoors. I still do. I live on a farm now.

I mean, it was basically, it's a connection with the outdoors. And it also means that I'm equally sensitive to environmental conservation, protection of lands, parks, everything else. Affluent society also wants to have places they can walk. What China has found this out. They became affluent very quickly, but all of a sudden they started looking around and they said, oh, I don't want to breathe this air anymore. So they've had to make a very quick shift.

That's why they're making most of the electric vehicles and most of the solar panels and most of the windmills. They were trying to get back to what their forebears would have said, you know, I can walk outside without getting lung cancer. That connection with the outdoors and finding a lot of like-minded people, I think that's a lot of like-minded people. I think that, for me, that's been driving me and my career, getting like-minded people that are all pointed in the same direction and keeping them pointing in this. And it's not always easy to keep them pointing in the same direction, but it's keeping them point in the same direction to clear objectives. And there's a clear objectives that actually make a difference in society. That gives me a lot of, it keeps me going in the morning. Is it addictive, that feeling?

It could be, and it's contagious, too. If you get the right people, it's very contagious, yeah. Yeah. People ask me all the time, you know, what that all, all those. people on dirty jobs you know what what did they know that the rest of us have forgotten and I can't speak for pride in the workplace well I'd in the workplace boy that's that's that's it that's yeah it's that simple pride and that's what you're doing I have I mean you've been doing this for 20 years it's not just been something that's popular now and we're fashionable now you've been doing this

when it's long been unfashionable well my only reaction to that is I can't um like I can't point to pride. It's like the blockchain. You know, it's like the cloud. I know they're there. It's like the tangible, undeniable reality of constant feedback. You like when you're mining, you don't need somebody to tell you how you're doing. You know how you're doing. You get it. Yes. You know. And so, you know, for you, Tom, I mean, you're, you're a miner who lives on a farm. Or are you a farmer who lives in a mine? I think it would be probably better call it a gentleman's farm. Yes. And where is it?

It's in New Jersey. You're still in Jersey? I left New Jersey at the age of 17. I returned to New Jersey at the age of 60. Because my mom and my brothers and sisters and my family, they all stayed there. I was the only wander in the group. But it was really interesting going back to where you grew up 40 years later and see some of it's roughly the same. You know how it is.

Some is roughly the same and some is different. You know, some more buildings here, there, whatever. you sort of feel like you're coming home. It was good. It felt good. Thomas Wolf was, you know, right and wrong. You know, you can go home again. It's just kind of weird sometimes, you know.

I enjoyed coming home. Yeah. So our company, American Ocean minerals. Yes. Formed around several other entities that have been at this a long time. And you're bringing. Like, minded people. that all were pointed in the same direction.

They'll have the right consciousness of what doing it correctly of meeting needs for future society, meeting the material needs of future society. They all love the ocean. They're not there to mess up the ocean. They're there to basically understand the ocean even more. They're there to basically have the minerals that they're in the ocean.

Well, let's figure out a way to bring them in to help the rest of society, We will be needing those metals. We're going to need more of these. We're going to need... Or whatever it is. Whatever it is. We're going to consume the stuff.

And so it's about finding the best way of doing it, find the way that's doing it environmentally properly, doing it a way which is respectful for society. Because remember, it's technology, it's markets, and it's also that you've got to earn and relearn that license to operate. And work around people that you love to work with. What's not better than that? You know what's better than that?

not letting China dictate terms to be independent. I was talking, there's a certain thing about competition. I'm a huge advocate of space exploration. And when it was the U.S. and Soviet Union, we put the first landers on Mars. We've got voyagers that are way out past the solar system now. That was a period of intense rivalry, superpower rivalry. And we're right in the middle of another one of those. Now, are we fearful of that?

Yes, we should be conscious about that. We shouldn't be complacent about that. We shouldn't be fearful either, but we should be ready to be competitive. That's why we've had the Artemis program. I think as Americans, we should be proud of what we have achieved by going back to the moon. And that will be followed with robotics. That will be landing and setting up robotic bases. That will be supplementing humans there.

There's helium there. There's water there. Elon wants to go to Mars. I'm all for that. That's great stuff. How did you feel when you saw the Artemis thing? Pride, pride. Yeah.

We're back. Because they couldn't have done it without metal. Yeah. Yeah. I love it. All right. Well, to sum up, it's a polymetallic nodule. There are many billions of them on the bottom of the ocean.

They're filled with nickel, cobalt, copper, manganese, some rare earths, some iron. Yes. Probably some water in there. There's some water in there, and there's a lot of titanium. The metallurges got to figure out but that's the one that's got me excited. So there's metallurgy involved too. Yeah, yeah.

This touches on it. Science. Science and engineering. It's already been fun. I can't wait to see what the future holds. And for what it's worth, my foundation will do everything we can to help reinvigorate the trades

through this door too. It's just one more industry, Tom, that's going to need. We need the supply chains. We need the metal coming into the U.S. Ideally, it's mines in the U.S. We have to get through some of these permitting complete obstacles that we have now. And I think that's being worked on.

It's not solved yet. But we need to continue to develop our own mineral resources. Most importantly, we need to continue to develop our own geologists and mining engineers. I think it's maybe like only a few hundred mining engineers are being graduated from U.S. universities a year now. That's disgraceful. That's absolutely disgraceful. It's not the university's fault. It's just that and it's not the individual's fault is that we have

collectively sort of let that drift. And we're happy to bring people from overseas and it. But we have to actually rebuild these industries. It's not going to happen two or three years. It's going to take multi-generations. But we need the supply chain in order to actually be successful with re-industrialization, bring back the trades jobs, bring back pride in the trades jobs. And then we can move on with all the next technologies.

Because robotics will be one, fusion will be one. When they start mixing AI and quantum mechanics, and fusion. Out of my league. I don't even know what you're talking about. It's going to be an interesting world then. It's not going to mean less metals consumed. That's pretty much guaranteed.

Right. And that's what makes sense to my brain is that, you know, as we talk about space and whatever frontier is out there and whatever tech it's going to take to make Elon's craziest dreams come true. And more power to them for those dreams. More power. But the answer is down there at the bottom of the ocean. the grandest, most ambitious, esoteric dream anchored by, like, the most fundamental, you know.

It's mineral abundance. And again, if we had the technology 100 years ago to do this, we would have done it 100 years ago. Probably not in the same standard of care from an environmental perspective. Now what we have is we have both the technology, we have the markets, and we have basically the proper sensitivity to what can be. done there and what can be done to minimize, not eliminate, I recognize that, but minimize and mitigate the environmental impacts. You know, and in the spirit of competition, I think it, if people are listening to this and genuinely curious about the industry, which is moving quickly, you know, in the same way America and China, or being America and China, you know, we're not the only player out there. You know, I think of the metals company who, you know, Gerard Barron has been

telling this story really well. I mean, for like 10 years. And they've been doing some great scientific work. Yeah. And so I think it's a big tent. And when I hear him talk about the inevitability of all of it, you know, it's exciting. I'm psyched for you and us. We're the only American platform company that's going to touch all of this. With the breadth of the skill set, the capital that we have, the train is leaving the station and at the same time what we want to do is we work with all the stakeholders that could help us make that a better delivery from the train as is leaving the train station it's such a funny metaphor i said this when we were in dc to the crowd we were talking to but i'd seen the matrix

the night before and that scene on the tracks when the agent smith has neo and a headlock and they're they're fighting and they're on the subway tracks and the train is coming and he says Do you hear that sound, Mr. Anderson? That's the sound of inevitability. Yeah. That's what I meant about Titusville and Drake. Yeah. Whatever that strike left.

And fracking. And horizontal drilling. Because horizontal drilling, fracking, you know, I'm involved with Continental on a joint venture. They're wonderful guys. Yeah, I was just there on Monday, and they're wonderful guys. That's why you were in Oklahoma City?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's become a friend of mine. He's a pioneering. and what they've done. He changed. And what they're doing now, even now. Every two or three years, visiting or visiting a well pad, you see the advances that they're putting in there, the scientific advances, the engineering advances, to take a drill,

a piece of drill steel like that, just solid drill like you'd see in the back of a truck, and have it to bend like that. Two and a half miles down. Then two and a half miles down. And then go out four, five, six miles, and just literally follow the exact topography of the formation. boundary. Now they could do U-turn. They could make a U-turn and go back again. So this is technology that as a minor, it boggles my mind. Well, it's a miracle, you know. And for me, I don't have any of the

skills that you have or Harold. Or bruises. Or bruises. I got a couple of those. But what I've got is an appreciation for words and how, like, the idea that fracking literally became the F-word in all of environmental. I mean, it's like, you could go back to that movie, Gasland. Remember? Yeah. Where the guy lights, like the gas is coming out of a faucet and they light it up. That image, which was not in fact representative of precisely what happened, but it was so powerful. And from a PR standpoint, just from a positioning standpoint, it just created a massive uphill lift. And that was shallow ground. It was early technology.

that was 20 plus years ago. And, you know, what has evolved, with proper sensitivity to the environmental effects, they're not putting down chemicals now. It basically, it's water and sand that they're using to basically extract. And they're doing it cleanly. They're giving the farmers in the area, you know, good royalties, good, you know, basically it supplements the farming business. It helps those economies.

Yeah. And by the way, when the Europeans are dealing with $6 to $7 to $9 per MCEF gas prices at their burner, we've got $1.60. I just, for the life of me, you know, if this table were the oil patch 40 years ago, it would be covered with rigs, like every half acre, if that. I mean, they were right next to each other. Today, there's one. Yeah, and if you go into Permian now, West Texas, you fly over that, and you see nothing

but. Right. You know, drill wells all over the place. They're very densely packed. Yeah. And every once why you see in the middle of it, one modern rig that's basically covering all the ground of hundreds of rings back in the day. I know we're out of time, but people need to understand that, man. One hole goes down 2,000 feet and then that's a miracle.

Many of my friends have always compared this. Robbie Diamond's a good one. It's safe. I'm going to see him next week. They compare nodules and something that does require technology, not anything new technology, just proper innovations and some basically good engineering. This is the equivalent of fracking 20 years ago. That's perfect. It won't replace conventional oil and gas.

This won't replace conventional mining, but it's going to be an important supplement that, particularly if it's in America, it will give America a competitive advantage to outweigh some of the other things we need to do to reindustrialize. What a pleasure, man. You have an enormous brain. Great resume. And by the way, if there's anyone that is more fun to spend a couple snowstorms in Washington at a bar, it's you. Thanks for coming out. Great to see you again.

My regards to the Mrs. Yes, yes. And you will love her book. Okay. What's it called again? It's about her in Alaska when she was my age. I can't wait. This is Tom's wife for talking about.

Yeah, I'm going to read her book. All right. I'll see you on the other side. I'll see you folks next week. If you leave some stars, could you make it five? And before you go, could you please subscribe? If you leave some stars, could you make it five? And before you go, could you please?

subscribe if you leave some stars could you make it five and before you go could you please subscribe