There are billions of tons of critical minerals, including nickel, cobalt, copper, and manganese, lying at the bottom of the seafloor. These metals play an important role in the production of electric vehicle batteries and, consequently, in the transition to clean energy. They are found in huge quantities in a patch of the Pacific Ocean known as the Clarion-Clipperton Zone.
Extracting these metals via deep-sea mining can be controversial since:
- Many fear the potential ecological disruptions it could cause in a part of our planet that remains largely unexplored
- International regulations for deep-sea mining are yet to be finalized
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