Nodules of Cobalt, Nickel and Manganese Lying on the Ocean Floor.

[Evbwcaer]

As a proud EV nerd, I’m surprised to be just learning of this potentially important source of battery components.

The story makes it sound like there are billions, or maybe trillions, of clumps of these valuable metals, just sitting on the sea floor. The “only” challenge is the depth they are at.

I thought it would be interesting to the community here.


Why the U.S. is missing out on the race to mine trillions of dollars worth of metals from the ocean floor

 

[Brando]

some internet searches will yield even more information
just one example search using: sea floor magnesium nodule
As you all probably know, changing searching terms may well lead to other informative results

Metal-rich clumps
Together with cobalt crusts, manganese nodules are considered to be the most important deposits of metals and other mineral resources in the sea today. These nodules, with a size ranging from that of a potato to a head of lettuce, contain mainly manganese, as their name suggests, but also iron, nickel, copper, titanium and cobalt. In part, the manganese nodule deposits are of interest because they contain greater amounts of some metals than are found in today’s known economically mineable deposits. It is assumed that the worldwide manganese nodule occurrences contain significantly more manganese, for example, than in the reserves on land. Occurrences of economic interest are concentrated particularly in the Pacific and Indian Oceans, in the wide deep-sea basins at depths of 3500 to 6500 metres. The individual nodules lie loosely on the sea floor, but can sometimes be covered by a thin sediment layer. Theoretically they can be harvested relatively easily from the sea floor. They can be collected from the bottom with underwater vehicles similar to a potato harvester. Prototypes in the late 1970s and early 1980s have shown that this will work.
Manganese nodules « World Ocean Review

Manganese Nodule - an overview | ScienceDirect Topics
Manganese nodule - Wikipedia

 

[nwdiver]

Yep; This is another reason resource arguments against EVs are ridiculous. Elon is launching 40,000 satellites to we can get more internet, tunnels to shorten his commute and a nuero-link to increase the human-machine interface... if there was a resource shortage that was really a threat to electrification don't you think he would have launched a company to start building underwater drones to harvest nodules?

Once mining the sea floor becomes economic I have no doubt we'll start doing that.