April 5, 2021 — A long-running dispute over plans to start mining the ocean floor has suddenly flared up.
For years it was only environmental groups that objected to the idea of digging up metals from the deep sea.
But now BMW, Volvo, Google and Samsung are lending their weight to calls for a moratorium on the proposals.
The move has been criticised by companies behind the deep sea mining plans, who say the practice is more sustainable in the ocean than on land.
The concept, first envisaged in the 1960s, is to extract billions of potato-sized rocks called nodules from the abyssal plains of the oceans several miles deep.
Rich in valuable minerals, these nodules have long been prized as the source of a new kind of gold rush that could supply the global economy for centuries.
Interest in them has intensified because many contain cobalt and other metals needed for the countless batteries that will power the electric vehicles of a zero-carbon economy.