By Alina Voss
An untapped energy savior might just be sitting on the ocean floor. From AI to defense to clean energy, critical minerals remain pivotal to securing the United States’ competitive edge. Unfortunately, supply chains remain precariously dependent on foreign control, often from adversarial nations like China, leaving the country vulnerable to price shocks, trade restrictions, and supply disruption. While bipartisan efforts are gathering momentum around ideas to strengthen U.S. mineral security through efforts like reviving domestic mining, strategic alliances, and even recycling programs, land-based deposits alone may not be enough to meet the explosive growth in demand anticipated over the coming decades. We may need to look deeper for solutions, specifically to the ocean floor.
Polymetallic nodules, potato-sized rocks found scattered across the seafloor, particularly in the Clarion-Clipperton Zone (CCZ), between Hawaii and Mexico. These nodules are rich in four of the same minerals needed to fuel clean energy supply chains: nickel, cobalt, copper, and manganese. Unlike terrestrial sources, which often contain only one or two of these metals and require energy-intensive processing, seafloor nodules contain all four in high purity and are loosely embedded in sediment, meaning they can be collected with minimal crushing or waste rock removal. The CCZ alone is estimated to hold more nickel and cobalt than all known land-based reserves combined. They represent a rare convergence between vast untapped mineral resources and emerging technology in deep sea robotics and AI-powered collection technologies. If harnessed responsibly, it could prove determinative for the future of American clean energy security.
To catalyze the emergence of a domestic seafloor minerals industry, federal support should mirror successful precedents in space and semiconductor policy (like the COTS program or CHIPS act) by leveraging targeted public-private partnerships, milestone-based R&D funding, and interagency coordination. These mechanisms align well with President Trump’s broader industrial strategy, especially his second-term push to reassert American leadership in critical technologies. The development of deep-sea collection systems requires the same precision robotics, long-duration autonomy, and AI-driven sensor fusion technologies now prioritized in Trump’s Executive Orders on domestic energy dominance, which already task agencies like DOE, DARPA, and NSF with advancing advanced manufacturing and next-gen energy. The seafloor minerals sector presents an ideal testbed to apply those mandates, driving innovation while securing access to four of the most strategically important metals for both defense and clean tech. As the administration reforms permitting timelines, retools the Department of Energy’s innovation programs, and expands national security-driven procurement, now is the moment to integrate seafloor minerals into America’s critical mineral toolkit.
Despite the opportunities for seafloor minerals to bolster American environmental impacts through advancing clean energy, a wave of critique has arisen, largely arguing that using seafloor minerals will have negative environmental impacts. Claims that seafloor nodule collection could impede the ocean’s ability to store carbon dioxide continue to circulate, despite little evidence. Not to mention, experts say that this alarmism neglects the counterfactual that the amount of carbon dioxide released by seafloor mineral collection is “negligibly tiny” when compared with emissions of on-land mining activities.
Letting geopolitical rivals lead on nodule development or critical minerals more broadly is a strategic mistake both for U.S. supply chain and environmental policy. The short window of opportunity, particularly for the Trump administration, to shape the critical mineral industry for the better is a make-or-break moment in gaining the technological edge for the coming decades of American industry. The U.S. should take swift, targeted action by forging strategic alliances with allies like Japan and Australia to coordinate exploration, recognizing nodules as “domestic content” when first landed in the U.S., unlocking manufacturing incentives, and finally by expanding federal R&D and streamlining permitting.
The United States has a rare opportunity to secure not only the security of its supply chains but also the future of its clean energy industry by responsibly advancing seafloor mineral development. With strategic investment, smart regulation, and proactive utilization of the resources available to us, America can shape the rules of the game while securing access to the critical materials that power 21st-century technologies.
Alina Voss is a fellow with ConservAmerica.
This article was originally published by RealClearEnergy and made available via RealClearWire.
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
The environmental impact studies will cost billions.
Not to mention who owns the mineral rights.
China has already made some plans to get the metallic nodules and China fishes the world’s oceans with no regard for the environment or laws. The mining greatly disturbs the ocean bottom – silt clouds and great disturbance.
No one owns the mineral rights, and that is the problem.
Steve,
That is a synthetic construct created by activists.
One can equally claim “Nobody owns the fish in the sea” but a hungry populace will continue to catch fish. It is a matter of survival in the face of hurdles created by the words of lawyers, a commodity lacking in essential nutrients. Geoff S
“The environmental impact studies will cost billions.”
True.
However, I don’t expect to see a bunch of hippies lined up, beating on drums, and trying to block the sea-floor crawler harvesters while they are performing their jobs!
Wind and solar have no place on the grid, that will free up a lot of resources for productive uses.
Trillions have been spent on RE and all we have is more expensive and less reliable energy with catastrophic environmental impacts.
Do the 95% of the world’s population who aren’t Americans get a say on America unilaterally mining in international waters?
Why must “America” lead?
Why not China – or Lichtenstein?
Have the Russians lost another submarine or was it the Chinese this time? (Ref. Glomar Explorer)
Now that Trump has been fully blackmailed by the military industrial complex (to the absurd point of shamelessly telling us that Jeffrey Epstein killed himself because he was caught downloading kiddy porn!), and we have One Big Bloated Bill increasing the debt ceiling and deficit to fund more Forever Wars, no doubt this is a cover story for some CIA plot.
This is relevant to the published article how?
It’s absurd to believe that mining operations miles below the sea can be commercially viable. So it’s a cover for something else. I am rejecting the premise of the article.
You have every right to have an opinion.
No one is guaranteed to have a correct opinion.
Suffice it to say your comment diverted from the main article.
This is a forum where free speech is exercised.
Personally, my first impression is this is a conspiracy theory.
That said, I acknowledge the possibility you could be right.
However, it is absurd to base a decision on belief.
Subsea nodule harvesting could be commercially viable.
It is worth a closer look.
A legitimate cost benefit analysis would quantify that one way or the other.
Because China does not give a f*ck, look at their mining in China and Africa. Hell, just look at ANY industry in China. Why do you want China to do it? As for Lichtenstein, what is that, an intestinal disorder?
Look at the number of coral reefs destroyed to make islands for military bases.
Has this caused a global shortage of coral reefs?
My emphatic answer is NO.
Activists often are ignorant of scale. The known Coral Reefs are huge, the known damage trivial.
So it is with the huge area of the ocean floors. Mining for nodules involves a tiny pinprick. The benefits outweigh the harms by orders of magnitude. Geoff S
Homo sapiens is part of the natural world. All life “damages” its environment to survive. Even corals cover up the seabed, and eat poor little zooplankton, mothers and babies.
Then we spend inordinate amounts of time, money, and effort trying to exterminate starfish who are just trying to exist by eating the evil coral
Funny old world, but that’s the way it is.
Funny how beavers are never chastised for building dams.
I have no idea if this has caused a global shortage of coral reefs.
It is a fact that China has destroyed many pursuing new military bases on man-made islands.
The point was China, not the reefs.
The point was definitely not that mining would harm coral reefs.
Obviously in my hasted I failed to establish a context.
For that I apologize.
And non sequitur says what? All the islands America built bases on in Pacific are still viable and thriving, even the atolls used for nuke tests. Look at islands China has built in South China Sea, satellite images show nothing growing, can just imagine how sea life has been effected. So no, China is not an option.
You understood my poorly stated post.
There’s nothing clean about it.
Remove “clean” energy as a reason, then see if it still makes sense. Doubtful.
This didn’t make economic sense in 1974 when the CIA used it as a cover story to recover a sunken nuclear-armed Soviet submarine. Fast forward 51 years, still doesn’t make any economic sense. Why do we need government to ‘lead the way’ if it’s an economically viable idea?
Apparently, it’s not just Hollywood with no imagination remaking the same lame stories from decades past. The Military Industrial Complex also has their live action remakes.
So if we’re not trying to recover a sub and its nukes, are we building something down there? Some kind of Golden Dome component, maybe?
Not Golden Dome, per se, perhaps something else.
With so much supply of metals in those nodules, it should be profitable to build collecting machines that ‘tread lightly’ on the ocean floor and only pick up a portion of the nodules. There’s no need to dredge up complete swaths of the bottom to get all the nodules, and completely mess up all the ocean bottom life along the dredge path. I bet ABB could design a version of their Flexpicker robot with machine vision to operate at those depths to select and pick up nodules of a specific size range – and do it at high speed from a towed sled moving at a controlled height above the bottom.
Technologically sound.
What we cannot at this time is predict if the value of the minerals exceeds the cost of collection.
Collecting these nodules is not the same as mining, although some call both mining.
Collecting will not scar or minimally scar the ocean floor.
I wonder how applicable the International laws are in this specific case.
The description aligns better with salvage laws.
it is not economically sound to pick up loose lumps for long, and you have to go to strip mining or dredging operations. For something in quantity like coal, strip mining….gold, dredging…for random nodules high in manganese….this is just a fantasy….right up there with harvesting sea floor hydrates to supply natural gas….
You could be spot on. I do not know. I do not know the numbers of nodules, their value, the density, the issues and costs with collecting them.
I am skeptical that strip mining or dredging would be any more profitable.
I haven’t been following this closely, but I’m of the opinion that it hasn’t been demonstrated that the nodules continue below the surface. That is to say, once all the ‘Easter Eggs’ have been found, it will be a very long time before they grow back, apparently depending on being exposed to bottom currents.
That is a very valid point.
From the article:”These nodules are rich in four of the same minerals needed to fuel clean energy supply chains: nickel, cobalt, copper, and manganese.”
I don’t care about the “clean energy” aspect. There are lots of other valuable uses for those minerals.
This issue of sea floor mining was a big item back when Reagan was president. Besides there is lots of methane hydrates that will be of equal value if we figure out how to extract them.
Rich is an undefined quantity. Rich relative to what and by what percentage are missing?
Makes me think of the Horta, all of this conversation.
An issue with sea floor mining is the existence of the UN, and the pretense that Burkina Faso is every bit as important as China or the US.
Then we have the Green Blob, which will reflexively oppose any technology that might benefit people.
Disregarding both, and examining the proposal on its own benefits as against costs is the right thing to do. The PRC has its own mining interests to advance, and has a history of “influencing” Third World countries to vote in its favor in the UN.
“and with smart regulation”…. LOL…
yes I’m definetly having a beer on that one, good one.
Stop pursuing resource vasting pipe dreams and leave the ocean floor in peace. Billions in savings and conserve resources for maybe a really really really desperate day..if it ever comes.
Comment: +10
Beer: +100
No, the UN will block it along with district court judges until the Chinese navy steps up to do it with aircraft carriers guarding the operation.
As a former miner now retired, I cannot envisage significant “harm to the environment” from seafloor mining as broadly described to date. Do readers here have specific links to warnings of harm, particularly from specific key parts of the proposed process? (The arm-waving claims of harm that I have seen are just regular anti-mining propaganda that has been going on for decades).
Countries planning to harvest ocean floor nodules can expect interference from non-elected bodies like the United Nations using devices like Laws of the Sea, the communal not national ownership of the seafloor, the discovery of new species in critical danger and other items from the activist playbook.
Beware, the UN uses devices like world heritage listing as a communistic way to gain involvement and control. It is not your friend.
Geoff S
The US will lead alright, right after completing the high speed rail line to nowhere, the Keystone pipe, and the Yucca Mtn waste isolation site. Ha
Please do not conflate Kalifornia with these United States.