Mining for green metal in the deep blue sea
The prospect of humanity mining for metals on the deep seabed has been prophesised for decades. No longer would we have to tear up the earth with diggers and explosives, clearing mountains and forests - and their inhabitants, be they mammal, amphibian or otherwise - to get the iron, copper and other minerals from which modern society is built. We would merely sweep up metal-rich Pelagites - potato sized rocks more commonly called nodules - from seabeds far offshore. Pelagite (deep sea nodule) of manganese (Wikipedia Commons CC BY 2.0, James St. John) The technology required to do this at commercial scale has long frustrated efforts to attempt extraction on seabeds that could easily be a kilometre below. We are now close to being able, thanks to advances in robotics and the adaptation of high-tech umbilical pipes used in deep-sea oil and natural gas production. Legislatures have started to take notice. The United Kingdom's Parliament was unusually early in this reg...