Norway recently announced that electric vehicles (EV) now outnumber gas-powered ones on its highways for the first time—and that these vehicles comprise 80 percent of its current new car sales. While internal combustion engines (ICE) will not disappear for several years, Norway’s sales of ICE-powered vehicles will end abruptly in 2025.

Applying a foresight perspective, it is clear that what is happening in Norway is a sign and signal of what will happen elsewhere, but perhaps only at a slower rate. This development also raises a question: Which critical minerals are needed to generate their electricity?

Battery chemistry is quickly evolving, but, at present, the key minerals are lithium, cobalt, manganese, nickel, and graphite. These minerals also are crucial components for wind turbines, solar panels, and other clean energy technologies at the forefront of the transition to a greener energy environment.

Location is another key question. Will these minerals be extracted from mines on land, in the sea, or both? According to the International Energy Agency, the global demand for critical minerals could more than double by 2030, and triple by 2050. Others, including the World Bank, estimate that the demand for critical mineral production could increase by a whopping 500% by 2050.

Steps are already being taken to meet the growing need for critical minerals. At the recent United Nations General Assembly when the US, UK, Australia, Canada, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, the Republic of Korea, Norway, and Sweden, along with the European Commission, announced a new finance partnership called the Minerals Investment Network for Vital Energy Security and Transition (MINVEST).

This supply-chain oriented network is a public-private partnership between the U.S. Department of State and SAFE Center for Critical Minerals Strategy, and it will help strengthen cooperation, hasten information sharing, spur co-financing, and promote sustainability as the demand for critical minerals continues to steadily rise.

The Pros (and Mostly) Cons of DSM

As critical minerals demand rises and financing falls into place, Deep Seabed Mining (DSM) continues to surface as an alternative to the dangers posed by terrestrial mining.

In short, DSM is offshore underwater mining that targets critical minerals in the form of polymetallic modules found on the ocean floor, usually at depths below 200 meters. These nodules are scraped off the top layer of the ocean floor along with its mud, and are then pumped up to a specially-designed surface ship. After the nodule separation process, this mud (along with fine particles, and tailings) is pumped back onto the sea floor in giant plumes. The mineral-rich nodules, in turn, are offloaded from the surface ship and transported to shore-bound bulk ore carriers.

The DSM process has elicited increasing public scrutiny with respect to the China’s role in the industry, as well as the critical minerals implications stemming from the ongoing war in Ukraine. Unregulated or poorly regulated critical mineral extraction on land is fraught with serious environmental impacts that include deforestation, soil erosion and contamination, and the degradation of water quality and access. Terrestrial mining of all sorts (large, small, and even artisanal) can undercut vital agricultural production, while also create serious health concerns for miners and their families— especially children.

There also are significant social and economic upheavals created by  land mining. Overt and covert land mining agreements by Russia, China and other nations have destabilized country after country across mineral-rich Africa for example—fostering widespread corruption, hindering democracy, and creating human rights abuses. And even if mining regulations are clear on paper, enforcement of them is often weak, and lags well behind violations.

The litany of concerns about land-based critical mineral mining might suggest that DSM is an obvious and welcome alternative. Yet experts say: “Not so fast.”

For instance, the World Resources Institute points out that DSM and sea bed sediment disruptions and discharge-linked mining plums that accompany surface-ship processing can directly harm vital marine life, throw delicate marine ecosystems off balance, and pose a threat to open ocean fishing. And the shore-bound mineral processing, trans-shipment, and refueling facilities required for DSM will need to be regulated to prevent overwhelming and disrupting small coastal communities.

There are other potential DSM hazards as well. Physically mining the ocean floor on a 24/7 basis creates harmful noise and light pollution that will impact critical marine life. Catastrophic ocean floor wastewater releases and the likely spread of mining-generated metals toxins are also a danger. And DSM even has been called out for its destruction of underwater cultural heritage sites that trace irreplaceable human existence—at the shoreline, off shore, and further out at sea.

Oversight Structures and Pacific Island Nation Risks

The Jamaica based International Seabed Authority (ISA) was initially established in 1982 under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). It is the lead international organization with responsibility for the oversight of DSM in international waters. The ISA is composed of 170 Members (169 Member States and the European Union), and while the United States is not an ISA member, it does have full observer status.

The ISA finally began operations in 1994 with a mandate “to ensure the effective protection of the marine environment from harmful effects that may arise from deep-seabed-related activities.” The body has issued regulations for the exploration (but not yet for mineral extraction or exploitation) of various polymetallic nodules. These interim regulations purport to strike a balance between economic demands and environmental protection, yet they are subject to wide interpretation. Final ISA extraction regulations are not likely to come into force until 2025, with many key issues still unresolved.

So far, the ISA has 15-year exploration agreements with 31 contractors, including a few governments (India, Poland, and South Korea). Yet the majority of the pacts have been concluded with private companies, many of which are directly financed by China’s government. Most of these contracts focus on the Clarion-Clipperton Fracture Zone – an ISA-designated Pacific Ocean environmental management area encompassing an enormous seabed of 1.7 million square miles that stretches from Hawaii to Mexico.

A recent Congressional Research Service report noted that DSM exploration is likely to begin with the Pacific Island nations of Nauru, Kiribati and Tonga, following ISA-approved contracts co-sponsored by these countries. In Papua New Guinea, offshore mineral mining in national waters already has stirred up stiff opposition from citizens—as well as confusion at various governmental levels both as to DSM’s ongoing offshore activities, and the formal approval process that allows sea bed mining.

Since the economy of these nations and other island countries is highly dependent on fishing (subsistence, commercial, and recreational) and aquaculture, as well as the budding tourism industry, it’s not hard to imagine how seabed mining could be a looming threat to coastal communities. And with the long run in mind, an insufficient knowledge or understanding of the consequences of seabed mining on migratory fish patterns, marine biodiversity, and marine ecosystem heath means that Pacific Island nations must constantly assess the looming possibility of  a potential DSM environment catastrophe.

Researchers at the Carnegie Foundation suggest that DSM should be halted in the Pacific islands until there is more evidence of its impacts.  This is an especially important step to allow the states involved a chance to be viewed as necessary engagement actors, and not as mere bystanders. These nations should be ensured the opportunity to negotiate detailed commercial contracts on their own behalf, as well as able to provide rigorous oversight and strong environmental protection.

Completely ruling out DSM to provide future critical minerals for EVs and other clean energy technologies might not be warranted at this moment. At minimum, however, there needs to be a many more evidenced-based and longer term assessments of its potential environmental impacts on marine life, the livelihoods of coastal communities, disruptions in civil society, and government stability.  While Pacific Island nations are likely to initially experience the greatest threats, all developing countries should be on guard about the potential impacts of DSM in their own national waters as well.