Staying with Canada, autonomous vehicles, and in deep water, The Metals Company, TMC, jumped 45% today. This is because Mr. Trump signed an executive order – the source of much market volatility of late, nytimes.com. TMC, based in Vancouver, B.C., were working with the International Seabed Authority (ISA) from whom they had an exploration license, which allowed them to bring up 2 000 tonnes of nodules from the Clipperton Zone an area of deep water in international waters of the Pacific Ocean. The ISA had planned to issue regulations under which they would license production, but that work has stalled. Some countries are backing a call for a moratorium on mining which has come from Greenpeace. TMC had worked with a small army of scientists who measured the effects. The crawler has caterpillar tracks, which are hauled up to the surface periodically. The crawler disturbs the fine silt that covers the seabed and creates a cloud that extends a 2-3 meters of the floor.
There seem to be two major concerns: the deep sea is one of very few environments on earth that are almost unexploited, and the nodules themselves are the substrate for a unique ecosystem that causes the nodules to grow over (a very long) time. (Personally, I believe it’s time for triage – I’d sacrifice some of the millions of nodules rather than lose more tropical rainforest where we currently get most of those metals.) A few months ago, TMC announced it was going to apply through a US subsidiary to the US for permission to mine. The US has not signed the UN Law of the Sea under which the ISA was created. There was an article in the NYT, detailing likely legal problems under US law for TMC under the Jones Act. Maybe it's as simple as re-registering a ship, or perhaps the company and its investors are hoping for some dispensation so that law won't apply. |
