Norway is gearing up to mine precious metals from the depths of its ocean in a world first
It could open 108,000 square miles of Norway’s national waters to commercial deep-sea mining, per the BBC.
The effort would seek to collect rare minerals like lithium, scandium, and cobalt from nodules and crust found on the ocean floors.
Norway has just authorised commercial deep-sea mining on its seabed, which is rich in rare and precious metals. This announcement has whetted the appetite of mining companies, which are developing robots and drones to collect the potato-sized rocks, located at a depth of 3,000 metres. Billions of euros are at stake in the exploitation of these so-called critical minerals, which are essential for building electric vehicle batteries and solar panels. But deep-sea mining could prove devastating for ecosystems.
