Western countries have issued coordinated rebukes of deep-sea mining since the United Nations’s International Seabed Authority began doling out exploration permits. Out of the ISA’s 169 member states, 23 have called for a moratorium on deep-sea mining (including the U.S., U.K., and France). Not one of those countries have exploration contracts. China, however, has the highest number of exploration contracts — five. Again: The United States has zero.
What’s the holdup? Environmental groups claim that deep-sea-mining techniques mirror the same extraction methods used in oil and gas exploration. There’s no regulatory apparatus, much less any code of international regulation, for seabed mining. Opposers also claim that deep-sea mining isn’t necessary for green energy. The U.S. says it can extract what minerals it needs from the ground which is not, for the foreseeable future, true. Even if deep-sea exploration isn’t necessary, it’s practical given foreign dominance over mineral markets.
China has staked out seabed mining for years. Rocks in the deep sea contain some of the richest and most concentrated supply of the rare-earths needed for electric-vehicle batteries and clean-energy projects. So, while Westerners twattled on about turtles, China strategically positioned itself as the sea’s mining superpower. Some Republican representatives called attention to the issue on Thursday in a letter to the Department of Defense that urged the federal government to “develop a plan and engage with our allies to prevent Communist China from taking complete control of critical mineral supply chains”:
The deep-sea bed contains small polymetallic nodules–rich in manganese, cobalt, copper, nickel, and rare earth elements — that are contained in deposits across international waters, often hundreds to thousands of miles from shore and occurring at water depths of 200 meters or greater. Deep-sea mining is regulated by the International Seabed Authority (ISA), an institution where the United States only holds observer status. ISA has already granted five of the 31 total deep-sea valuable metal exploration licenses to China, covering 17 percent of the of the total area currently licensed by ISA.9 Russia also holds two ISA exploration contracts.10 China is putting pressure on ISA to accelerate its decision-making process to adopt regulations by 2025 or sooner–a demand that comes on the heels of ISA missing a deadline to establish a regulatory framework earlier this year–at which point mining can begin.11
We cannot afford to cede another critical mineral resource to China. The United States, and specifically, the Department of Defense, should be engaging with allies, partners, and industry to ensure that China does not seize unfettered control of deep-sea assets.
It might be too late. The ISA convened in Jamaica this fall to discuss deep-sea-mining regulations. Pushback from Western countries didn’t stop the ISA from announcing that it would expedite its regulatory guidance to ensure that permit-holders such as China could start mining as early as 2025. Deep-sea mining is — truly — an under-researched field that the U.S. could oppose with good reason. (For example, wouldn’t it be great if America opposed an ISA regulatory body because an international custodian of the sea seems entirely nonsensical?) That environmental lobbyists have rallied to support America’s deep-sea-mining moratorium does raise suspicion as to how honest America’s emphatic refusal to compete with China in this field, until we know more, is. All the U.S. needs to know, and what the U.S. does know, is that China’s control over the deep-sea-mining industry doesn’t serve America’s goals to de-couple from the communist state’s mineral markets.
What if the apprehension toward deep-sea mining is valid? It may be. Mining operations will effect marine habitats — though to what extent is unclear. But environmental groups in the U.S. aren’t exactly mining virtuosos. It’s difficult to trust that the 34 Greenpeace-sponsored Indigenous tribes who support the mining moratorium are expert enough to instruct the U.S. on how (if) it should compete with China.
“We are calling for an immediate ban on deep sea mining because we need drastic changes in the way we manage our oceans,” the Indigenous communities said in March. “The threat of deep sea mining is huge. So our measures to protect the ocean and the life within it must also be huge. My people have lived in and around the ocean for generations. It’s who we are. We are the ocean and we must act now.”
China’s threat is huge, nay, monstrous even, and the U.S. has fallen so utterly behind in this field that it’ll be difficult to rouse private and federal support to kick-start mining projects (America’s lack of expediency to bolster domestic mining infrastructure has likewise caused the U.S. to fall behind on other critical mineral markets, including lithium, uranium, graphite, etc.). China will also leverage its seabed control over America as it has done with other mineral supply chains.
Notwithstanding the wishes of Indigenous Activists Without Borders, China must be the central focus of future debates over deep-sea mining. Until then, the U.S. is yet again positioned squarely behind China in the endless game of catch-up against communists who always seem to be five steps ahead in the race for rare-earth minerals.
Commies, remember, do not care about the ocean’s precious ecosystems in the same way that America’s Sustainable Seafood Coalition so valiantly does. So: Will America cow to China, or her own environmentalists?
The Troublesome New (Well, Sort Of) Mining Frontier
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08.12.2023
Western countries have issued coordinated rebukes of deep-sea mining since the United Nations’s International Seabed Authority began doling out exploration permits. Out of the ISA’s 169 member states, 23 have called for a moratorium on deep-sea mining (including the U.S., U.K., and France). Not one of those countries have exploration contracts. China, however, has the highest number of exploration contracts — five. Again: The United States has zero.
What’s the holdup? Environmental groups claim that deep-sea-mining techniques mirror the same extraction methods used in oil and gas exploration. There’s no regulatory apparatus, much less any code of international regulation, for seabed mining. Opposers also claim that deep-sea mining isn’t necessary for green energy. The U.S. says it can extract what minerals it needs from the ground which is not, for the foreseeable future, true. Even if deep-sea exploration isn’t necessary, it’s practical given foreign dominance over mineral markets.
China has staked out seabed mining for years. Rocks in the deep sea contain some of the richest and most concentrated supply of the rare-earths needed for electric-vehicle batteries and clean-energy projects. So, while Westerners twattled on about turtles, China strategically positioned itself as the sea’s mining superpower. Some Republican representatives called attention to the issue on Thursday in a letter........
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