The issue

Electrification of the world requires more minerals for batteries. Electric vehicle sales, for instance accelerate in a way that no prognoses foresaw. Minerals on land are scarce but also geographically concentrated. A few countries dominate the industry, with China as the most dominant. Pretty much all lithium-ion batteries today depend on the mines in the Democratic Republic of the Congo with horrible working conditions. And volatile and high prices on minerals call for more stable supply. The vision of zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 relies heavily on batteries.

If you saw the Netflix movie “Don’t Look Up”, tech guru Peter Isherwell wants to take the ultimate risk to get hold of these minerals.

Where to go from here?

Battery demand for electric vehicles will grow 40 times the next 20 years. And the overall demand for minerals, 30 times, according to the International Energy Agency. Cobalt demand will increase by 70 times and manganese 58 times by 2040. The demand will unavoidably lead to more traditional mining. Cobalt, manganese and nickel are among the minerals on the ocean bed, and deep sea mining is by many seen as good money and as part of the solution.

Cobalt is by far the most expensive and prices are unpredictable. The quest for more cobalt has created 19th century style brutal competition. Mass electrification will have to happen without cobalt dependency.

Positive trends and organic batteries

Development of cobalt free batteries is emerging and deep sea mining face skepticism.

The batteries in a Tesla used to be comprised of 6,831 lithium-ion cells. It’s the same cell you find in smartphones, and lots of other electronic devices.

There are several alternatives to the cobalt dependent lithium-ion battery. One of them is lithium iron phosphate, or LFP. This is a cobalt free battery. LFPs are used for home energy storage, have lower energy density and hence lower driving range for electric vehicles, but have improved in recent years. Tesla have introduced these batteries in their model 3 and Y. Ford and Volkswagen also say they will offer vehicles with LFP batteries.

Battery technology needs to develop further to meet global demand. Organic batteries are on the rise, but will not be a household item for many years.

Deep sea mining

The method is to vacuum or scrape thousands of tons of mineral-rich polymetallic nodules from the ocean bed. These rocks are mostly the size of a big potato.

The proponents of deep sea mining say it will contribute to meet global demand for minerals. They also claim it causes less environmental damage than land mining, but skepticism towards deep sea mining is growing. BMW, Volvo Group, Samsung and Google have teamed up to abstain from sourcing deep sea minerals. The EU parliament said in 2018 that seabed mining should be banned until we know more about the environmental risks.

Digging in the seabed, vibrations, sound- and light pollution can extinct ecosystems. It can also affect the seabeds ability to absorb CO2. The scraping of the ocean floor by machines can alter or destroy deep sea habitats. Noise, vibrations and light pollution from mining equipment and surface vessels can affect whales, tuna and sharks. Some forms of deep sea mining will stir up fine sediments on the seafloor which will create plumes of suspended particles. It is unclear to what extent these plumes may affect ecosystems and species.