Chikyu
Neither gas nor oil: Japan is looking for millionaire mud and will start deep water mining next year.
Positive or negative, the Japan It will make history early next year by starting to try to extract rare metals to depths never before explored in the ocean.
The Asian country will be, from January, the first in the world to test the mining of rare elements in marine sediments to a depth of 5,500 meters. Everything will happen in an area nearby, about 1,900 kilometers southeast of Tokyo.
The operation will have the great help of the scientific drilling ship and will have the initial objective of extracting about 35 tons of lama rich in rare metals.
It is estimated that each ton contains approximately two kilograms of elements such as (essential for electric vehicles), disprogio (Used on wind turbines), térbio e gadolínio (important in sensors and visualization technologies).
Increasingly the world feels the need for metals essential to the energy and digital transition. THE China Currently the supply chain: refines about 90% of world production and accounts for over 60% of the mining of these elements, points out.
Japan wants to face the Chinese with the support of the US, India and Australia, as a possible alternative source of rare metals.
The environment does not thank
Extraction on the high seas worries some experts for various reasons.
First, the method involves the use of specialized robots that aspire or dig sediments from the ocean bottom, and are then pumped to the surface for separation of valuable elements. But these deep zones are far from sterile: they are the house of unique ecosystemscomposed of corals, sponges, starfish and other organisms that have evolved over millennia. Many were recently discovered; Many do not exist in any other part of the planet.
In May, a group of marine scientists a warning in Science magazine in which it appealed to Japan that suspended their plans until the environmental impacts of in -depth were better understood. In fact, several countries – including – have already appealed to the implementation of moratoriums on this type of exploitation until effective regulations are.
The alerts are based on data and studies, such as industry funded and conducted by the Australian scientific agency CSIRO that showed that after a brief mining test in the clarion-clipperton zone (between Hawaii and Mexico), there was one sharp drop in populations of benthic organisms such as sea cucumber and crustaceans.
Filtration feeders, which depend on stable sediments, practically showed no signs of recovery a year later. Predators such as sharks and swords are also at risk, as they can absorb toxic metals suspended in water, which raises not only ecological, but also public health, through the consumption of contaminated fish.
The Japanese plan will be executed within its exclusive economic zone, which means it will not be subject to the supervision of the International Marine Funds (ISA) authority. But if successful, you can make your way to a large -scale exploration carried out by other nations and companies.
The Canadian The Metals Company, for example, has already expressed the intention of starting the mining of polymetal nodules in the same zone by 2026-and could even advance without international approval, based on US laws of the 1980s.
