
World's First Deep-Sea Mining Venture to Launch in 2019 - monkmartinez
http://www.seeker.com/worlds-first-deep-sea-mining-venture-set-to-launch-in-2019-2327856967.html
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marricks
I have two responses​ to news like this, first my child self thinking how cool
it is to have giant deep sea robots, and then the more cynical adult me
realizing we're in a mad extinction event with multiple paths to our own
destruction and oil, mining, animal ag, and governments generally not doing
anything, or actively resisting change while chasing the next gold mine. It's
depressing.

~~~
aaron695
That's a shame because the world is a hell of a lot better place than when you
were a child and also has lots of cool stuff.

And it's only getting better.

I wonder why old age makes many people despondent.

~~~
marricks
"Better" is entirely too vague. Sure, I can get a VR headset now which is
awesome, but the middle east is even more unstable now and thousands of
species have gone extinct since then.

For a lot of people the core idea that "the world is slowly improving" is so
fundamental they miss seeing basic ways many things have gotten worse.

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ptaipale
BTW, around here in Finland we had an undersea iron mine at the island of
Jussarö. It last operated in 1954-1967.

Location: [https://goo.gl/maps/FoJeqJRUS6R2](https://goo.gl/maps/FoJeqJRUS6R2)

It's probably not unique; are there similar mines elsewhere? (I.e. the mine
shaft is on dry land, but mine tunnels reach to dig minerals from areas that
are actually underneath the sea floor).

~~~
desdiv
Similar island in Japan:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hashima_Island](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hashima_Island)

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snerbles
I remember an '80s-era middle school science textbook touting seabed manganese
nodules as the future of mining, driving mass underwater settlement.

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rbobby
> manganese nodules

Hah! Except that was a CIA cover story used when they tried to recover a
sunken Russian sub:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GSF_Explorer](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GSF_Explorer)

~~~
Tuna-Fish
Well, manganese nodules are a real thing, and are of some value. They just
used them as the cover when they needed to develop underwater recovery
technology.

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loufe
What the article neglects to mention is that there are sea mining operations
which have been operating for decades now (for the most vivid example see
diamonds in Namibia). What sets this apart is the depth at which they're
mining and the type of mining (grinding as opposed to, effectively, sieving)

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jcoffland
> The cargo is then transferred to a transport vessel and sent directly to
> customers in China.

Because China does not have the environmental and safety laws that we do and
can therefore process ore at a fraction of the cost. This is a major loophole
that let's Western companies pollute indirectly and not pay for it.

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jdhawk
Quick - time to start an "Ocean Free - Environmentally Controlled Metals"
certification. We could make....10's of dollars

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codewritinfool
Glomar Explorer

~~~
MBCook
That (and "this is how you create Kaiju" [2]) is what I was thinking.

For those who don't recognize it, "Glomar" is short for "Global Marine" and
was a fake company setup by Howard Huges to do seafloor mining. It was
actually a front where Huges helped the US government try to recover a sunken
Russian sub. It's notable for being the case that caused the phrase "Can
neither confirm nor deny" to have to be created, which is why it's called the
"Glomar response".

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glomar_response](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glomar_response)

[2] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaiju](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaiju)

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dbg31415
> The smallest of the robots weighs 200 tons.

How will they do work on these robots, or bring them home, if they break? I
just saw a zany Mark Wahlberg movie about how hard it was to do underwater
repairs... they should give it a watch.

~~~
ThrustVectoring
Float them to the surface, likely. There's already something similar set up to
float the collected materials up to the surface.

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beamatronic
That article got dark, fast.

"The robots will lumber across the ocean floor on mammoth treads, grinding and
chewing the encrusted seabed, sending plumes of sediment into the surrounding
waters and killing marine life that gets in their way."

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FullMtlAlcoholc
In this debate over climate change the pollution human activity causes gets
lost in the debate. Extractive mining is terrible for the environment and
ecosystems.

One of the biggest reasons why I am supporter of SpaceX is that they will
facilitate asteroid mining.

It'd be kind of funny if Ridley-Scott retconned the origin the Weyland-Yutani
Corp to make them eco-saviors for taking resource extraction completely off-
world

~~~
vkou
The energy requirements of getting things into space, and moving things in
space around makes asteroid mining an unmitigated environmental disaster.

~~~
bbernard
What do you think creates more pollution between:

    
    
      1. All airlines in the world.
      2. All cars in the world.
      3. All factories in the world.
      4. All rockets in the world.
    

Right now, I think that 1, 2 and 3 combined have much deeper consequences than
4.

~~~
vkou
What economic value do all airlines, cars, factories in the world produce?
They are the reason we don't live in mud huts, poking at eachother with sharp
sticks.

Now, what economic value do all rockets in the world produce? Satellite TV and
GPS? Satellite weather reports that we complain about, and climate studies
that we ignore?

And those are the low-hanging fruits. The ROI of a GPS network, a
communication network, and orbital climate satellites is miles better then
that of asteroid mining.

~~~
bbernard
I guess that we see things differently.

On one hand, you see the economic value of airlines, cars and factories, so
for you it justifies the environmental consequences that they have. Fair
enough.

On the other hand, you don't see the economic value of asteroid mining and of
getting things into space, so you talk about the consequences that it might
have on the environment.

Did you know that asteroids represent an endless supply of rare metals (gold,
platinum, etc.)? Take a look at
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asteroid_mining#Purpose](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asteroid_mining#Purpose)
if you don't believe me. This might represent the biggest economic opportunity
of all times. And if we want to become a "multi-planetary species" as Elon
Musk suggests, this will probably be essential.

Now, I personally tend to be more on the environment's side. So as long as we
use those metals to build things on other planets and in space, I don't see
any problem. We'll need to be responsible with this.

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mirimir
Wow, they're going after the mid-ocean ridges. That makes sense, I guess. But
damn, those are some very unique ecosystems.

~~~
abraves10001
That are going to be being mashed by 200+ ton machines. Gotta get in before
the regulations!

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ptenk
This is unlikely to happen. I've been following this industry and have seen so
many failures thus far, that Nautilus will not be anywhere ready for mining by
2019.

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mrfusion
I don't understand how it identifies the valuable metals? Or it just sends all
the dirt up?

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patrickg_zill
Seems that the filtering occurs on the ship. A slurry is pumped up to the
ship, where filtering occurs, with the sand being returned to the site.

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undersuit
Sand is a very benign word for what is going to be tailings.

