According to environmentalists, the stimulus in favor of ecological cars should not be based on the mining of the seabed
- Environmentalists are urging automotive and technology companies not to use or encourage their use of resources obtained from deep-sea mining, as these activities have the potential to cause irreparable damage to marine ecosystems.
- The rapidly developing electric car industry involves the use of a variety of battery minerals, including lithium, manganese, nickel and cobalt, which are not readily available from land-based resources. .
- Proponents of deep-sea mining say polymetallic nodule mining is an alternative way to obtain the minerals needed for electric car batteries, but environmentalists say the risks are too great to ignore.
- Instead of deep-sea mining, environmentalists say the focus should be on developing batteries for electric cars that don't require hard-to-find minerals, improving land-based mining and developing battery recycling.
Environmentalists are calling on electric car and technology companies not to favor deep sea mining , an emerging industry that is expected to supply the minerals needed for energy storage solutions, but could cause irreparable damage to delicate ecosystems.
Farah Obaidullah, activist of the Dutch NGO Deep Sea Conservation Coalition (DSCC), says this invitation was made at the same time as the publication of the recent news from Nauru, Pacific island state, declaring its intention to start mining in two years . This target has been set even though the International Seabed Authority (ISA), a body mandated by the United Nations to supervise seabed mining in international waters, has not yet defined general rules and regulations .
“It's simply an extractive sector that we shouldn't be venturing into,” Obaidullah told Mongabay in an interview. “We know it will cause irreversible damage and with the global climate crisis and pandemic underway right now, this is not the time to start business in a new sector of dubious utility.”
The electric vehicle industry is growing rapidly. While these vehicles accounted for only around 3 percent of global car sales in 2020, it is estimated that that percentage could increase 30-fold over the next 10 years. By 2030 we could see 245 million electric vehicles on the road and, according to experts, the sector will continue to develop thanks to the initiatives of the States aimed at reducing emissions in line with the Paris Agreement.
The rapid growth of the EV industry has raised questions and concerns about where manufacturers will find all the resources needed to produce batteries for these cars. There are many different types of batteries available for electric cars. Many are made using a combination of lithium, manganese, nickel and cobalt. Environmentalists have stated that, with the exception of manganese, all of these minerals may be difficult to obtain from land-based resources but are not impossible to find on land.
Companies like Canada-based DeepGreen, which recently announced a merger with Sustainable Opportunities Acquisition Corporation (SOAC) to form Metals Company, argue that deep-sea mining offers an immediate solution. On the ocean floor, mining operators expect to mine polymetallic nodules, potato-sized rock piles containing manganese, nickel, cobalt and copper. On its website, the Metals Company claims that deep-sea mining would be the “greenest way to build electric vehicles” by minimizing damage to biodiversity, toxicity, waste and even emissions. of carbon dioxide.
However environmentalists disagree. They argue that deep-sea mining poses a considerable risk to the ecosystems present there and contributes to climate regulation, conservation of global fisheries and key cyclical phenomena. Mining would also damage these ecosystems to the point where they can never recover, they say. A group of more than 550 marine science and policy experts from more than 44 countries, including leading ocean scientists Sylvia Earle and Callum Roberts, signed a statement calling for the immediate halt of deep sea mining until sufficient scientific evidence can be gathered on its potential effects.
“We cannot regulate or control what happens on the high seas,” Obaidullah said. “The destruction caused is irreversible in human times. It takes millions of years for the extracted nodules to reform and offer a suitable habitat to host life in the depths of the oceans".
Opponents of deep-sea mining also argue that there are many solutions available on land, including the development of alternative car batteries made without scarce minerals, improving land-based mining and metal recycling programs.
Car companies such as BMW and Volvo have already publicly stated that they are in favor of ceasing deep-sea mining, and carmaker BYD has announced it will not produce electric cars with batteries made from cobalt and nickel.
“In our view, there is a need to invest in alternative solutions to metals, which are also becoming increasingly researched and scrutinized by various companies,” Obaidullah said. “It is important to realize that, unlike what operators say in favor of risky mining, which is not true, offshore mining will not replace land-based mining.”
Saleem Ali, distinguished professor of energy and the environment at the University of Delaware, believes that the question of deep sea mining is not so clear: while deep sea mining carries environmental risks well identified, on the other hand he maintains that it entails "much less serious social repercussions" than those foreseen.
“As a systems scientist, my approach is simply to suggest that we need to have a big picture that allows us to compare negative and positive effects rather than focusing on just one aspect of ecosystems, namely what [are doing] activist groups and marine scientists,” he told Mongabay in an email. “If we are to meet the metrics of sustainability for the planet, we need to look at the issue from a broader perspective to understand what works best from a planetary systems ecology standpoint and take into account the urgency of developing solutions for mitigation of the climate".
Image in the banner: charging electric cars. Image of Max Pixels (CC0 1.0).
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