Scientist still diving at 90 says deep-sea mining won’t succeed

Plans to extract metals from the deep seabed are too complex and costly to succeed, according to one of the world’s most experienced marine biologists.

“Going up in space is relatively easy compared to going deep into the ocean,” said Sylvia Earle, 90, an oceanographer and previously the first woman to serve as chief scientist of the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration. “It’s an illusion because of the actual cost of mobilizing what it takes to operate in those depths.”

Nations including the US are racing to craft policies and improve technologies to enable the extraction of critical minerals, or metals like copper and gold, from the deep ocean under attempts to bolster economic and supply chain security. Japan is advancing a decade-old plan to extract rare earths from the seabed as it tries to counter China’s dominance of the materials.

“I’ve had a fair amount of experience building equipment, working with engineers to explore the ocean but not to exploit it, and the difficulties of working in saltwater at depth, you can’t overestimate the issues,” Earle said in an interview Thursday in Singapore.

Earle has led more than 100 marine expeditions, and went diving last month to build research submersibles for deployment in French Polynesia, she said.

(By Ishika Mookerjee)