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The Metals Company disputes ‘ground-breaking’ discovery of ‘dark oxygen’

July 23, 2024
A recently published discovery might fundamentally change the understanding of life and how oxygen is produced. It has also ignited a debate over its legitimacy, with the potential future of the world’s energy supply caught in the middle.

Polymetallic nodules — rocks filled with critical minerals and found at the bottom of the ocean — have been identified as a potential resource for powering the planet. Researchers from the Scottish Association of Marine Science have reported that these nodules might also produce oxygen, a finding they describe as “ground-breaking.”

“This discovery of oxygen production at the seafloor in areas where you have these polymetallic nodules is really important,” Andrew Sweetman, professor and chair of seafloor ecology and biogeochemistry at the Scottish Association of Marine Science, said. “To power the green economy, we need to extract metals from the ground or potentially the deep ocean.”

The phenomenon, termed “dark oxygen,” challenges the longstanding belief that oxygen production cannot occur without sunlight. If these nodules are indeed producing oxygen, they are doing so in complete darkness and as non-living entities — two aspects previously thought impossible by conventional science.

The significance of this possible oxygen source to oceanic organisms remains unclear, but researchers suggest it could be vital and caution against removing nodules from the ocean for green technology purposes.

“What we have discovered means that we’re going to have to carefully think about if deep ocean mining goes ahead, where that mining should take place,” Sweetman said. “This oxygen is likely being used in whatever quantity that it’s produced by the ecosystem to basically breathe.”

However, not everyone is convinced by the science. The Metals Company — a leading organization in the push for polymetallic nodule mining for use in renewable energy technology like electric vehicles, solar panels and wind turbines — has criticized the findings.

In a statement to Straight Arrow News, the company called the research “flawed” and said its findings raised “serious concerns about the validity of their conclusions,” promising a published scientific rebuttal from their team.

The Metals Company also suggested that the timing of the discovery’s publication may indicate motivations beyond pure scientific advancement.

“The Metals Company was surprised to see such a flawed paper by Sweetman published,” The Metals Company said. “The paper was rejected from publication by four other journals yet accepted by Nature, a journal that has taken a strong view against deep-sea mineral sourcing. The timing of this flawed and oft-rejected paper to coincide with the International Seabed Authority meetings should indicate its motivations.”

The International Seabed Authority is currently engaged in meetings to determine the future of the deep-sea mining industry. Whether the revelation of dark oxygen will influence the decisions on permitting mining operations remains to be seen.
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US funds study on deep sea mining for EVs, automakers split on their support

June 4, 2024
The U.S. government is exploring the potential of deep sea mining to provide rare earth elements crucial for future transportation technologies like electric vehicle batteries. Congress has approved funding to investigate the feasibility of extracting these minerals from the ocean floor. That could reduce America’s reliance on foreign suppliers like China, which currently dominates the global rare earth market.

Lawmakers are in discussions with representatives from the deep sea mining industry to understand how these elements could be processed domestically. However, this initiative faces opposition from environmentalists and some automakers due to potential ecological risks.

Greenpeace has raised concerns that deep sea mining could lead to ocean pollution and harm marine life. Prominent car manufacturers — including BMW, Volvo and Volkswagen — have expressed their opposition to using these ocean-derived resources. Instead, they are advocating for a moratorium on such exploration efforts.

💥Today, @GM board members vote against a proposal, requesting a report on the company’s use of deep-sea mined minerals. Does GM have a hidden division w/ ties to UAP & connections to Lockheed Martin's DSM operations? Is LM's move to divest from DSM related to UAP legal concerns? https://t.co/rT15Wiqjoc
— _undersc0red_ (@undersc0red) June 4, 2024

General Motors (GM) opted to take a different approach. The company’s shareholders recently voted against a proposal that would have required GM to disclose its use of deep sea minerals. Tesla is also expected to address this topic during its upcoming shareholders’ meeting on June 13.

Proponents within the deep sea mining industry say that the potential environmental consequences of obtaining these materials from the ocean floor has been exaggerated. Some argue that whether the resources are extracted from land or sea, some level of impact is inevitable. They suggest that the relatively secluded depths of the ocean, which have minimal marine life and are far from human populations, could be a less disruptive option.
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China’s overproduction of solar panels drives silver demand to 12-year high

May 30, 2024
The global demand for silver jumped in recent years, driven by increased of solar panel production. China produces more solar panels than the rest of the world. This surge led to a significant rise in silver prices, which have increased 35% this year, reaching a 12-year high.

According to the Silver Institute, a nonprofit that tracks trends in the industry, the world’s need for silver is set to exceed supply for the fourth consecutive year. In 2023, silver demand for industrial applications, particularly in the green energy sector, rose by 11% to an all-time high of 654.4 million ounces.

As of now, silver costs $32 per ounce, a substantial increase from around $20 per ounce four years ago, when demand was considerably lower. The average solar panel requires a little over half an ounce of silver. While this cost increase might seem negligible at first glance, the implications for large-scale solar projects are significant.

For example, a one-megawatt solar farm that powers between 400-900 homes can require as many as 2,000 panels. Therefore, a project that would have spent approximately $24,000 on silver in 2020 now costs nearly $38,500 in the current market.

The boom in silver prices has been partly attributed to China’s overproduction of solar panels. Western nations accused Beijing of utilizing unfair trade practices to achieve this.

Chinese solar panel producers benefit from government subsidies that keep their prices low. Despite China’s production exceeding worldwide demand, the price of panels produced by other nations continues to rise because of increased global demand for silver driven by Chinese production. At the same time, China-based companies can maintain lower prices thanks to the subsidies from the Chinese Communist Party.

This dynamic led some companies to explore alternative methods to build solar panels that use less silver. While no other material matches silver’s conductivity and reflective properties, copper emerged as a potential alternative that could help reduce production costs and potentially increase efficiency.
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China’s rare earth dominance fueled by human rights abuses in Myanmar

May 24, 2024
China has dominated the global rare earth supply chain and is now using Myanmar, a nation plagued by political instability, violence and corruption, to obtain more of these resources. Its practices are known to cause harm to locals and the environment in the process. Due to the widespread proliferation of these materials to be used in emerging technologies across the globe, Beijing also implicated the international community in its exploitation of Myanmar’s rare earth reserves.

Global Witness, an organization that works to spotlight the links between natural resource extraction and human rights abuses, highlighted the detrimental effects of this trade with China on Myanmar’s populace and ecosystem. The group revealed that this harmful practice, driven by Beijing’s need for rare earths, exacerbated many of Myanmar’s existing issues.

“It’s a really extreme example of where there is widespread destruction for these specific elements,” Ben Ayre, head of data investigations at Global Witness, said. “It takes place in the context of a really volatile region, one where there is active conflict, and the funds that are going into it are not insignificant.”

Rare earth elements are critical for the production of various advanced technologies. China processes nearly 90% of the world’s rare earths, a sector that has become highly lucrative, making them billions of dollars over the course of recent years. Historically, China met this demand through domestic mining, producing almost two-thirds of the global supply. However, the country increasingly turned to Myanmar’s extensive rare earth supply to extract these resources, which has now surpassed China’s own production.

“We’re talking in the region of 90% of all processing is happening in China, China resourcing the vast majority of its mineral supply from from Myanmar, mining operations have expanded by more than 40% across the region,” Ayre said. “The reports that we have from community members of damage to skin and to internal organs are consistent with findings, scientific studies into the effect of these chemicals on people. Governments should adopt the necessary legislation in order to ensure the human rights and the environment are protected from from this mining practice.”

The growing reliance on Myanmar’s resources transformed a national issue into a global one. Products worldwide, from smartphones to electric vehicles, depend on rare earths sourced from Myanmar. Global Witness urged companies that utilize these materials to investigate their supply chains rigorously. The organization called on these companies to ensure responsible extraction methods and to reconsider their current sourcing if they cannot confirm ethical practices.

“The burden of proof is really on any manufacturer that’s producing those products to demonstrate that they are not implicated in that supply chain,” Ayre said. “Those companies that are sourcing these elements, do the necessary due diligence in order to ensure that they know the origins of the materials that they’re putting in their products.”
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Copper crisis threatens the renewable energy transition

March 26, 2024

As the world pushes toward a greener future, the demand for copper, a crucial component in renewable energy infrastructure, has surged dramatically. This increase in demand, however, has raised concerns about a looming shortage of the metal, threatening to impede progress towards climate goals.

Experts predict that the demand for copper will skyrocket over 75% during the next two years. The metal, essential for manufacturing wind turbines, solar panels, and electric vehicles (EVs), has seen its price climb steadily, reaching a record of $10,730 per ton last year. With the expected surge in demand, prices are projected to climb even higher, potentially hitting $15,000 per ton in 2025, according to Goldman Sachs.

Among the primary drivers of this increased demand is the rapid expansion of EV production. These electric vehicles alone accounted for two-thirds of the global increase in copper demand between 2020 and 2022, with each EV requiring 176 pounds of copper to build.

The American Solar Energy Society has emphasized that there is currently “no viable alternative to copper in meeting the requirements of the energy transition” which could put “global decarbonization at risk.”

However, as demand for copper intensifies, there has also been a decrease in its production. China, the world’s leading producer of refined copper, is facing a crisis due to a shortage of copper ore, forcing smelters in the country to cut back on production. Similar challenges have emerged in Latin America, which accounts for 40% of global copper production, where mine closures have exacerbated the dwindling supply of ore.

In the United States, the mining industry is grappling with regulatory hurdles and a slow permitting process. The Biden administration’s push to reform mining laws has left some mining executives frustrated, further complicating efforts to ramp up domestic copper production.

Additionally, the proximity of many copper reserves to Native American reservations has raised environmental and social concerns. Almost 90% of U.S. copper reserves are within 35 miles of tribal lands, many in areas considered sacred by the local indigenous communities.

The copper shortage presents a significant challenge to the clean energy transition, as the metal remains irreplaceable in many critical applications. Without adequate copper supplies, the world risks falling short of its emissions goals for 2050.
Decreasing access to rare earth minerals put US munition production at risk

February 7, 2024
In this episode of Weapons and Warfare, learn more about what it takes to make high-tech munitions available to the military today. The process, which begins with pulling precious resources from the Earth, is becoming further complicated as America’s access to the necessary resources is shrinking.

While the U.S. sends weapons to Ukraine and Israel, the military’s stockpile of munitions is starting to run low. Straight Arrow News’ Jack Aylmer explains how the government’s reserve of rare earth minerals needed to produce more is dwindling, compounding the problem.

There are 17 metallic elements essential for making a variety of modern-day weaponry. Those same resources are crucial for making vehicles including fighter jets, tanks and submarines, as well as the radar and sonar technology they use. Rare earth materials are even used in high-powered laser weapons.

“Rare earths play a key role as we know in our daily lives, but they’re particularly important for the defense for our defense efforts,” said former U.S. Army Brigadier General John Adams. “We have to secure control of the key natural resources that our 21st century military depends on.”

At the peak of the Cold War, the U.S. had a store of these minerals valued at $42 billion. Now, that supply is down to $888 million, and the U.S. is responsible for only about 14% of global rare earth mining. China controls 90% of the world’s rare earth processing and two-thirds of the global mining efforts.

“Since 2000, China has cornered the market on rare earth production, along with the high tech components that depend on rare earths,” Adams said. “Today they control more than 90% of global supply, and that should give all of us pause. Almost all new smartphones, computers, televisions, vehicles, and advanced U.S. defense systems depend on Chinese sourced rare earths components.”

Beijing has made moves to hold onto the monopoly. The People’s Republic of China banned the export of technology to make rare earth magnets, as well as the technology used to extract and separate the critical materials.

China’s superiority in this space has become a major concern for U.S. officials as the relationship between the two nations becomes increasingly strained.

“Our national security is threatened by this growing reliance on foreign sources for our military weapons and equipment,” Adams said. “Also for the raw materials, the parts, the finished products, everything we need for our defense industrial base is critical. Because if one part is not working right, the rest of it falls apart.”

Defense analysts believe the United States does not have the munitions needed for sustained conflict against Chinese military forces. Preparing for such a situation requires the very rare earth resources that the U.S. is running out of.

However, the American government has been reluctant to find a domestic solution, in part because extracting rare earth elements often involves significant land disruption and the use of hazardous chemicals, leading to pollution. Processing the minerals can also produce toxic waste, posing a threat to the environment and local communities.

Despite the risks, lawmakers have pushed forward legislation to boost American production. The Department of Defense has also reached an agreement to spend almost $100 million to acquire and install manufacturing equipment.

Access the full Weapons and Warfare episode here.

Access all Weapons and Warfare podcast episodes here.
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Norway approves deep sea mining despite international pushback

January 9, 2024

Deep sea mining advocates say metals found at the bottom of the ocean are key to facilitating a global transition away from fossil fuels, while scientists have warned the full effects of this practice on surrounding ecosystems have yet to be determined. Still, one nation is plunging ahead, as Norway has become one of the first countries in the world to approve deep sea mining.

“We need minerals to succeed with the green transition,” said Terje Aasland, Norway’s minister for petroleum and energy. “I strongly believe that our seabed mineral resources can be extracted sustainably and responsibly.”

The Nordic nation passed a bill this week that will open up an area of Norwegian waters larger than the size of the United Kingdom for commercial-scale operations. The bill gives companies the ability to submit proposals for deep-sea mining licenses that will be voted on through a case-by-case basis in Norway’s parliament.

Those prospective miners are after rocks on the seabed known as nodules, which contain critical minerals used to build sustainable energy sources like electric vehicle batteries, wind turbines and solar panels.

“The renewable green industries run on minerals. This is an important contribution internationally,” Norwegian MP Bård Ludvig Thorheim said.

The resources found in these waters are estimated to be worth about $100 billion and will create around 20,000 new jobs, according to an independent study by the Norwegian University of Science and Technology.

Norway’s government has said that deep-sea mining could be a good thing for all of Europe, helping reduce the continent’s reliance on China for its critical mineral supply. Europe currently imports nearly 90 percent of its rare earth metals from Beijing-controlled entities.

Many within the European Union (EU) believe any benefits will come with major risks. In November 2023, 120 EU lawmakers wrote an open letter calling on the Norwegian parliament to reject deep-sea mining because of “the risk of such activity to marine biodiversity and the acceleration of climate change.”

“In the midst of the environmental and climate crisis, the Norwegian government’s decision to start mining in the ocean’s fragile ecosystems would be reckless,” the group of EU lawmakers wrote. “As European parliamentarians we are deeply concerned by our close ally pushing forward this destructive industry, rather than joining the EU in the transition to a circular economy.”

The letter also criticized the country’s environmental impact assessment, saying it had too many “knowledge gaps.” These claims of insufficient studies on the topic were echoed by the Norway Institute of Marine Research, which estimates five to 10 years of additional analysis is still needed.

Elsewhere, other experts in the field are pushing back, too, with more than 800 experts from 44 different countries signing a statement calling for a global pause on deep-sea mining. The Environmental Justice Foundation said the decision to allow it would serve as “an irrevocable black mark on Norway’s reputation as a responsible ocean state.”
Deep sea mining could boost clean energy tech; environment, China concerns loom

October 23, 2023
Deep sea min i ng is poised to boost worldwide production of clean energy technology, but the potential harm it could do to the ocean environment in the process has still yet to be determined. Small rocks known as polymetallic nodules cover vast areas of the ocean floor, and their contents could be worth trillions of dollars, with numerous nations now making plans to excavate them.

The nodules hold a variety of rare earth elements, such as cobalt, nickel, manganese, copper, and even small amounts of lithium. These resources, the production of which has largely been dominated by China to date, are crucial for building electric vehicle (EV) batteries at a time when getting more battery-powered cars on the road is among the top priorities of climate agendas around the world.

“[Plans by automakers to sell hundreds of millions of EVs] are meaningless without the metals necessary to build these batteries,” said Dmitry Silversteyn, a senior analyst at Water Tower Research. “This is the biggest, the cleanest, the least environmentally impactful and most economical resource for nickel, manganese and cobalt that we know of.”

Mining executives have referred to the nodules as a “battery in a rock” due to the resources contained within them. Gerard Barron, CEO of The Metals Company, estimates that the amount found in just a fraction of the Pacific Ocean’s seafloor could power about 280 million EVs, a number nearly equivalent to the entire U.S. fleet of cars.

“The West has woken up to the fact that decades of outsourcing the supply – and the negative impacts – of key energy transition metals to Chinese-funded sources has left it vulnerable to disruption,” Barron said. “Given nobody wants a mine in their backyard, the ability to ship this abundant resource directly to the U.S. offers a rare opportunity to re-shore these critical supply chains, and support battery-related industries at home.”

While prospectors have also promoted deep sea mining as a more ethical form of mineral extraction that could help eliminate the child labor violations linked to some terrestrial mines, concerns remain about how clean the process of obtaining these rare earths will be, and who will benefit most from it.

China currently holds 5 of the 31 exploration licenses that the International Seabed Authority has issued so far, the most of any country, giving the country exclusive rights to excavate an area of ocean floor about the size of the United Kingdom. Chinese ships have already been seeking additional mineral deposits in the Pacific, Indian and Arctic Oceans.

“China is probably the single most active country in the [International Seabed Authority],” said Peter Dutton, a professor of international law at the U.S. Naval War College. “One of the things that the Chinese are doing very effectively is engaging in the rulemaking, and writing regulations that can favor their interests. They’re out there ahead of us, and that’s one area we need to be concerned about.”

About 95% of the worldwide production of rare earths are already controlled by China, with the nation also producing three quarters of all the globe’s lithium-ion batteries, which are used to power EVs. Experts worry that if China can be become a dominant player in seabed mining, then Beijing could control a vast supply of many key minerals needed for emerging industries like clean energy.

“If China can take the lead in seabed mining, it really has the lock on access to all the key minerals for the 21st-century green economy,” said Carla Freeman, senior expert for China at the United States Institute of Peace.

Meanwhile, China is not the only nation with a keen interest in mining the ocean floor. Countries like Norway and Japan are looking at their own coastal resources, further increasing the scale of this potentially harmful practice.

Some environmentalists believe deep sea mining will disrupt the world’s largest natural carbon sink, responsible for absorbing one-third of all carbon dioxide generated on land. The mining platforms, machinery and ships needed for these projects will also add to noise and pollution that can harm marine life. Additionally, the process of excavating the sea floor could cause harm to a variety of aquatic ecosystems.

“By impacting on natural processes that store carbon, deep sea mining could even make climate change worse by releasing carbon stored in deep sea sediments or disrupting the processes which help scavenge carbon and deliver it to those sediments,” Greenpeace said in a 2019 report.

“Sucking up nodules would involve destruction of the seabed, leading to the potential extinction of species. The nodules themselves support complex ecosystems, which would be lost,” the Deep Sea Conservation Coalition said. “Stripping seamounts of the outer layer of ‘crusts’ containing cobalt and other metals would destroy deep sea sponge and coral ecosystems that are likely to have taken thousands of years to grow. Noise, light pollution, and sediment plumes could seriously impact species, such as whales, that use noise, echolocation or bioluminescence to communicate, find prey and escape predators.”

These are issues the International Seabed Authority will have to contend with as its council continues drafting rules for deep sea mining. The intergovernmental body has restricted the commencement of any mining operations on the sea floor until the adoption of regulations can be completed. Member states have agreed to a goal of doing so by 2025.
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NASA mission to Psyche asteroid worth $10 quintillion back on track

June 9, 2023

NASA is sending a space probe to study 16 Psyche, a space object dubbed the ‘Golden Asteroid.’ It’s worth an estimated $10 quintillion, or $10,000 quadrillion. That’s a 1 with 19 zeros after it. Basically, if we could sell the thing, it would be enough to give every person on the planet a little over $1.2 billion.

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Psyche is an M-Type asteroid, meaning it’s made of metal. The scientific consensus is Psyche is composed almost entirely of iron, nickel, or gold.

M-Type asteroids are the most common type. What separates Psyche from the others is its size. The average diameter is 140 miles. It’s about the size of Massachusetts, making Psyche the largest metallic asteroid known to humans.

Psyche was discovered in 1852 by Annibale de Gasparis, an Italian astronomer. Psyche was named after the Greek goddess of the soul. It’s now believed the asteroid is the exposed core of a planet left over after the creation of our solar system. Instead of forming into a planet, the theory is a series of collisions removed Psyche’s rocky outer layers.

The scientists taking part in the mission said studying Psyche will tell us more about our own planet’s core, which is far too hot and too deep underground to study all that well.

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NASA’s mission to the asteroid is also called Psyche. It was originally scheduled to launch in September 2022, but the launch was scrubbed because of numerous delays in development and testing. The mission is back on the launch books and should take off in October.

The Psyche satellite will take about five years to reach the Psyche asteroid. Once there, it will spend 26 months in orbit gathering data to determine the exact composition of the asteroid and whether it produces its own magnetic field. If it does, that would be more evidence toward proving Psyche is a discarded planetary core, and not just another large asteroid.

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The motivation behind NASA’s Psyche mission may be purely scientific, but the implications of what the mission may discover are far broader. There are already commercial endeavors to start asteroid mining, and if one of those companies succeeds, the global economic paradigm will no doubt shift dramatically.

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