Undersea Minerals: not the electrifying discovery thought out to be
A few weeks ago, HBO show Last Week Tonight aired an episode about deep sea mining where they exposed how companies and in particular disruptive ones such as TMC, The Metals Company, are searching the ocean floor to find rare-earth elements. Mining companies have begun to look at previously unattainable places in abysses as new potential mineral rich locations now made valuable since the increase in demand for rare-earth minerals.
HBO show Last Week Tonight
Researchers have found those minerals inside nodules lying on the deep ocean floor, their layout waiting for companies to just scoop them up seemingly making the industry less polluting and resolving mankind’s crisis in transitioning to greener energies. As the show displays, while these places seem barren, they are nonetheless inhabited with life and the machinery employed to displace tons of these little rock formations would undeniably destroy the environment of those organism and microorganisms and we would ultimately lose natural wealth. The company MLC had commanded an environmental study to take a look at the rate of destruction mining these locations would involve and weigh destruction to benefits.