Join our community of smart investors
OPINION

Astroturfing the seabed

Astroturfing the seabed
November 17, 2020
Astroturfing the seabed

The Davos organiser says prospective deep-sea miners are using the electric vehicle and renewable energy industry demand cases to push for more access to seafloors. Deep-sea mining is still far from commercial, but big players including Lockheed Martin are funding exploration work and testing. 

“For once we have the opportunity to engage and contribute to opinions on whether and how deep-sea minerals are developed before the industry has begun in earnest,” said TDI Sustainability chief executive Assheton Stewart Carter, who contributed to the WEF report and issued the warning around project risk. 

The industry’s infancy makes for a ripe time for companies to stake claims, and strike deals with governments and other regulators before norms are established. The International Seabed Authority (ISA), a UN organisation, is currently working on a  mining code that will determine the industry’s future. One of the biggest players, DeepGreen Metals, is clearly aware of the stakes. 

Its focus is on polymetallic nodules, which are underwater deposits of copper, nickel, cobalt and manganese that look like truffles and are found at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean.

DeepGreen has already signed agreements with Nauru, Kiribati and Tonga to trial “collecting” these nodules – a term the company claims is more accurate than mining – and explore a feasibility process. It is backed by AllSeas, a Dutch subsea oil and gas company that took part in a $150m (£114m) funding round last year.   

Chief executive Gerard Barron, who has an advertising background and previously helped finance failed deep-sea miner Nautilus Minerals, has told multiple media outlets that scraping the nodules from the Pacific seabed would be much less environmentally damaging than any new greenfield mines. Given the high grades of the nodules – DeepGreen describes them as 100 per cent “usable minerals”  – there are certainly advantages, but the ore still has to be shipped to a processing facility from these remote ocean locations.

DeepGreen has also looked to overcome the view of deep-sea mining as an unnecessary attack on ecosystems we know little about, which would limit investment from listed companies keen to keep sustainability-focused investors onside. 

Someone is clearly keen for DeepGreen’s environmental case to gain attention, judging by a sudden rise in grassroots support for the cause on social media. A dozen or so Twitter accounts with fake names and stock bio pictures have recently peppered other users with posts about the evils of “land mining” and asking whether they have heard of “polymetallic nodule collection” as an alternative. They also send people to articles about DeepGreen.

It is unlikely these are real people or legitimate humanitarian campaigns, because their deeply-held human rights and environmental beliefs appear to have been acquired, and promoted, only within the month or so ago, and several share previous bursts of unrelated activity in March 2019. 

A DeepGreen spokesperson said the company was not behind the accounts. 

Greenpeace senior political strategist Louisa Casson told us deep-sea mining was “the ultimate greenwashing industry”.

“The idea we can fix the climate crisis by risking potentially irreversible harm to our oceans is totally false,” she said. Greenpeace has also raised concerns over deep-sea mining releasing carbon by stirring up sediment on sea floors.  

Deep-sea mining is reaching an inflection point, given the impending decision on mining rules by the ISA. This could open up exploration of more ocean areas.

Deep-sea miners may be promising a brighter future that avoids massive holes in the ground, but shifting them offshore hardly seems the solution.