Thank you! As someone who has been campaigning against the issue of deep sea mining for over a decade and more broadly the greenwashing of extractivism for over two decades it is heartening to see such brilliant journalism that centres the most important voices. Our partners in the Pacific need intelligent reporting like this. On behalf of the Deep Sea Mining Campaign we will make sure this is disseminated far and wide.
Nat's right. But what I want to add is that in terms of the specific concerns expressed in the article, I would think that a security deposit would be a good start. It would be useful to know why and how the PNG ended up such a large debt following the Nautilus collapse (the debt was news to me). Alternatively, I wonder whether any insurance company would insure TOML against failure. Has this been done elsewhere? As for the Tongan fishermen, the concern would presumably be with the outfall (rather than the collector), which is supposed to occur below the level at which it can affect the upper few hundred metres. However, large "cold-core" eddies can draw water from similar depths. That would be my concern. It may be that Deep Green has already taken them into account in their planning, but I have not found specific mention of it.
Those are good questions. I've come across a few mentions of insurance, but it seems that the "rainy day" scenarios will be covered by a fund that is planned (called an Environmental Compensation Fund), but it's unclear where the money will come from (there have been suggestions that a small proportion of royalties to the ISA will go there). I believe the intention of the fund is to cover any damages that couldn't be paid by contractor nor sponsoring state. One point that Tita brought up is that sediment plumes may not be the only things to travel; that impacts to ecosystems could have ripple effects. But of course at this point we don't quite know (perhaps you know more!). Also, regarding PNG, my understanding was that the government had spent $157 million to support the project, which they expected to recover in royalties and taxes.
Just a brief note - the cold-core eddies could represent the most plausible ecosystem link. You may have seen satellite images of "ocean colour" (actually it is usually enhanced to make it look more green) following the passage of a hurricane. The hurricane track is visible due to the fact that the rotating winds create a surface eddy which draws nutrients from below the photic zone (a few hundred metres) to the surface, which immediately cause a phytoplankton bloom. If you had an outfall plume dumping thousands of tonnes of ground-up sediments (combined with the leftovers of whatever they use to extract the minerals), that plume would also be drawn up with the nutrients. Note that you don't need a hurricane to create a cold-core eddy. They are all over the place, although often invisible to satellites because the upper few metres gets capped by local water. I'm not a biologist, but I believe they are often the biggest source of productivity in tropical waters.
Thank you! As someone who has been campaigning against the issue of deep sea mining for over a decade and more broadly the greenwashing of extractivism for over two decades it is heartening to see such brilliant journalism that centres the most important voices. Our partners in the Pacific need intelligent reporting like this. On behalf of the Deep Sea Mining Campaign we will make sure this is disseminated far and wide.
Nat Lowrey
Thanks!
Nat's right. But what I want to add is that in terms of the specific concerns expressed in the article, I would think that a security deposit would be a good start. It would be useful to know why and how the PNG ended up such a large debt following the Nautilus collapse (the debt was news to me). Alternatively, I wonder whether any insurance company would insure TOML against failure. Has this been done elsewhere? As for the Tongan fishermen, the concern would presumably be with the outfall (rather than the collector), which is supposed to occur below the level at which it can affect the upper few hundred metres. However, large "cold-core" eddies can draw water from similar depths. That would be my concern. It may be that Deep Green has already taken them into account in their planning, but I have not found specific mention of it.
Those are good questions. I've come across a few mentions of insurance, but it seems that the "rainy day" scenarios will be covered by a fund that is planned (called an Environmental Compensation Fund), but it's unclear where the money will come from (there have been suggestions that a small proportion of royalties to the ISA will go there). I believe the intention of the fund is to cover any damages that couldn't be paid by contractor nor sponsoring state. One point that Tita brought up is that sediment plumes may not be the only things to travel; that impacts to ecosystems could have ripple effects. But of course at this point we don't quite know (perhaps you know more!). Also, regarding PNG, my understanding was that the government had spent $157 million to support the project, which they expected to recover in royalties and taxes.
Just a brief note - the cold-core eddies could represent the most plausible ecosystem link. You may have seen satellite images of "ocean colour" (actually it is usually enhanced to make it look more green) following the passage of a hurricane. The hurricane track is visible due to the fact that the rotating winds create a surface eddy which draws nutrients from below the photic zone (a few hundred metres) to the surface, which immediately cause a phytoplankton bloom. If you had an outfall plume dumping thousands of tonnes of ground-up sediments (combined with the leftovers of whatever they use to extract the minerals), that plume would also be drawn up with the nutrients. Note that you don't need a hurricane to create a cold-core eddy. They are all over the place, although often invisible to satellites because the upper few metres gets capped by local water. I'm not a biologist, but I believe they are often the biggest source of productivity in tropical waters.