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The Arctic, around 6,000 meters below sea level. An area that has so far been spared from commercial mining. That could now change, as Norway's government decided this month to gradually open more than 280,000 square kilometers of its seabed to deep-sea mining.
Christoph Seidler, DER SPIEGEL:
»This is interesting for Norway because up until now they have made their money from oil and gas. And we know since the various world climate conferences that, ideally, this party won't last forever. So that means that if Norway wants to continue to be a prosperous country in the future, like it is now, they have to think about what they're going to do. On the one hand, they have a large sovereign wealth fund with which they invest a lot. But at the same time they want to extract additional raw materials. And the first decision has now been made that we would like to try this out at least on a small scale and then examine the environmental impacts and then consider whether we should also start this deep-sea mining on a large scale.
The area is located in the Arctic, between Svalbard, Greenland, Iceland and the island of Jan Mayen. This location means that deep-sea mining will take place in even more northern regions and significantly further from the mainland than previous, controversial Norwegian oil and gas exploration.
Deep sea mining involves sending a giant robot thousands of meters down to the seabed. There it sucks up pieces of rock about the size of potatoes. In addition to manganese, they also contain nickel, copper and cobalt - some of the most important building materials needed to advance the energy transition.
Christoph Seidler, DER SPIEGEL:
»A large part of them come from China so far, so in addition to the economic advantages that this brings from Norway's point of view, they also have a geostrategic component that may no longer have to be imported from China, but rather can then deal with something else. So there is definitely a lot there. The question is whether it should actually be promoted.«
However, the robot stirs up huge clouds of sediment as it works on the seabed. This could affect the reproduction of corals and sponges. It is feared that this would in the long term limit the ability of the oceans to absorb CO₂. At a debate in the European Parliament, the majority of member states therefore called for a ban on deep-sea mining.
Christoph Seidler, DER SPIEGEL:
»But what the Norwegians are doing now is what they are doing in their waters, which means they are allowed to decide. And they will certainly take a very close look at these environmental risks. Of course you have to look, for example, there is a large fishing industry there, and of course they have an interest in ensuring that not all the fish die because of the sediment curtains that are floating around in the water. So that means they will see whether it works from their point of view before they possibly make the decision to do it on a large scale, on a large scale. You also have to say that they can do that. And then, even if we don't think it's a good thing, we have to watch it and see what kind of experiences they're having. This will certainly also influence the discussion at the international level.«