Deep Sea mining - OMG, WTF, etc.
Discussion
I was just sent this: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-569...
Sorry, but... really?! For one, deep sea mining has been going on for 30+ years and the sea hasn't died as a result. No-one seems to have noticed the 200Te+ diamond mining subsea crawlers. Or whatabout the cable/ pipeline ploughs used on a daily basis to trench the product into the seabed? And then there are the jetting systems that blast the seabed with seawater to such an extent the sand is emulsified and the product sinks down to whatever depth is needed. FFS it boils my piss when I hear of these stories and "OMG WTF are these evil corporations doing to Nemo and his friends?! Lets riot" reactions.
How do they think the cables that get the power from those offshore windfarms to the shore are put into the seabed? Do they think they sits on the surface and create nice new habitats for the inhabitants? And the anchors, fishermens hooks/ nets/ etc. bounce off the cables which are protected by an invisible force field?
Luckily, the boiled piss is offset by such hilarious comments like: "This glaring operational failure must act as a stark warning that deep sea mining is too big a risk. Losing control of a 25-tonne mining machine at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean should sink the idea of ever mining the deep sea." Yeah. Right. Equipment far larger than this is lost control of on the seabed on a daily basis... and they get recovered and fixed.
Too many media commentators don't know how the simple machinery of the world works.
Sorry, but... really?! For one, deep sea mining has been going on for 30+ years and the sea hasn't died as a result. No-one seems to have noticed the 200Te+ diamond mining subsea crawlers. Or whatabout the cable/ pipeline ploughs used on a daily basis to trench the product into the seabed? And then there are the jetting systems that blast the seabed with seawater to such an extent the sand is emulsified and the product sinks down to whatever depth is needed. FFS it boils my piss when I hear of these stories and "OMG WTF are these evil corporations doing to Nemo and his friends?! Lets riot" reactions.
How do they think the cables that get the power from those offshore windfarms to the shore are put into the seabed? Do they think they sits on the surface and create nice new habitats for the inhabitants? And the anchors, fishermens hooks/ nets/ etc. bounce off the cables which are protected by an invisible force field?
Luckily, the boiled piss is offset by such hilarious comments like: "This glaring operational failure must act as a stark warning that deep sea mining is too big a risk. Losing control of a 25-tonne mining machine at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean should sink the idea of ever mining the deep sea." Yeah. Right. Equipment far larger than this is lost control of on the seabed on a daily basis... and they get recovered and fixed.
Too many media commentators don't know how the simple machinery of the world works.
fatbutt said:
Too many media commentators don't know how the simple machinery of the world works.
That's not the worrying part. We can't all know everything.What is worrying is there seems to be increasingly, a lack of journalistic enquiry to fill in the blanks or if those blanks are filled in, they're ignored because they don't suit the story's narrative.
fatbutt said:
I was just sent this: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-569...
Sea floor nodule mining machine mysteriously comes a cropper?Hmmmmmmmm. Have the Russians or Chinese lost a submarine anywhere near there in the past?
LimaDelta said:
Like most issues today, everyone is an instant expert and able to offer a absolutely certain opinion (sorry, FACT, always capitalised), without any previous knowledge or awareness of said issue.
How the information revolution led to the age of ignorance I will never understand.
Are you referring to the OP, or to Dr Sandra Schoettner and the combined expertise of BMW, Volvo, Samsung and Google? Or perhaps that well known woke, left wing libtard Michael Gove, or the ignorant people at the University of Oxford department of Zoology?How the information revolution led to the age of ignorance I will never understand.
Deep sea mining has been controversial for a long time, but only just getting in the news because of the combination of this incident and the current concerns about the environment.
Edited by Electro1980 on Thursday 29th April 15:28
Electro1980 said:
LimaDelta said:
Like most issues today, everyone is an instant expert and able to offer a absolutely certain opinion (sorry, FACT, always capitalised), without any previous knowledge or awareness of said issue.
How the information revolution led to the age of ignorance I will never understand.
Are you referring to the OP, or to Dr Sandra Schoettner and the combined expertise of BMW, Volvo, Samsung and Google? Or perhaps that well known woke, left wing libtard Michael Gove, or the ignorant people at the University of Oxford department of Zoology?How the information revolution led to the age of ignorance I will never understand.
Deep sea mining has been controversial for a long time, but only just getting in the news because of the combination of this incident and the current concerns about the environment.
Edited by Electro1980 on Thursday 29th April 15:28
LimaDelta said:
Electro1980 said:
LimaDelta said:
Like most issues today, everyone is an instant expert and able to offer a absolutely certain opinion (sorry, FACT, always capitalised), without any previous knowledge or awareness of said issue.
How the information revolution led to the age of ignorance I will never understand.
Are you referring to the OP, or to Dr Sandra Schoettner and the combined expertise of BMW, Volvo, Samsung and Google? Or perhaps that well known woke, left wing libtard Michael Gove, or the ignorant people at the University of Oxford department of Zoology?How the information revolution led to the age of ignorance I will never understand.
Deep sea mining has been controversial for a long time, but only just getting in the news because of the combination of this incident and the current concerns about the environment.
Edited by Electro1980 on Thursday 29th April 15:28
biggbn said:
LimaDelta said:
Electro1980 said:
LimaDelta said:
Like most issues today, everyone is an instant expert and able to offer a absolutely certain opinion (sorry, FACT, always capitalised), without any previous knowledge or awareness of said issue.
How the information revolution led to the age of ignorance I will never understand.
Are you referring to the OP, or to Dr Sandra Schoettner and the combined expertise of BMW, Volvo, Samsung and Google? Or perhaps that well known woke, left wing libtard Michael Gove, or the ignorant people at the University of Oxford department of Zoology?How the information revolution led to the age of ignorance I will never understand.
Deep sea mining has been controversial for a long time, but only just getting in the news because of the combination of this incident and the current concerns about the environment.
Edited by Electro1980 on Thursday 29th April 15:28
I am fully aware of my own ignorance and always welcome more information on any issue, as long as the source of that information is better informed than I am. The subjects on which I do express an opinion are those I like to think I have a reasonable working understanding.
I first studied Oceanography in the late 1960's and the potential of mining manganese nodules from the deep ocean was talked about then.
I have no specialised knowledge of this technology, but I would say this. Unlike, say, extracting sand or gravel from the North Sea, which is a very high energy environment, and material taken away could be expected to be replenished within a short time, things happen very slowly at the bottom of the deep oceans. These nodules have taken vast amounts of time to form. Once removed they are not coming back in our lifetimes, possibly even within the lifetime of mankind as a species.
The rate of sedimentation is miniscule compared to other marine environments, as is the rate at which deep sea bottom dwelling creatures contribute to creating sediment structures. Mining is a destructive process that cannot be reversed and we will have to live for ever with the consequences, so it is right to give it a great deal of thought before going ahead. It is the very opposite of 'sustainable'.
What is laughable, though, is the Greenpeace representative's view that - "This glaring operational failure must act as a stark warning that deep sea mining is too big a risk. Losing control of a 25-tonne mining machine at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean should sink the idea of ever mining the deep sea." There are plenty of ships a lot larger than this scattered around the ocean floor, and I don't recall any outrage from Greenpeace about the risks posed by international shipping should things go awry. Let's hope that the 855 tonne Rainbow Warrior III never joins the mining machine on the ocean floor.
I have no specialised knowledge of this technology, but I would say this. Unlike, say, extracting sand or gravel from the North Sea, which is a very high energy environment, and material taken away could be expected to be replenished within a short time, things happen very slowly at the bottom of the deep oceans. These nodules have taken vast amounts of time to form. Once removed they are not coming back in our lifetimes, possibly even within the lifetime of mankind as a species.
The rate of sedimentation is miniscule compared to other marine environments, as is the rate at which deep sea bottom dwelling creatures contribute to creating sediment structures. Mining is a destructive process that cannot be reversed and we will have to live for ever with the consequences, so it is right to give it a great deal of thought before going ahead. It is the very opposite of 'sustainable'.
What is laughable, though, is the Greenpeace representative's view that - "This glaring operational failure must act as a stark warning that deep sea mining is too big a risk. Losing control of a 25-tonne mining machine at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean should sink the idea of ever mining the deep sea." There are plenty of ships a lot larger than this scattered around the ocean floor, and I don't recall any outrage from Greenpeace about the risks posed by international shipping should things go awry. Let's hope that the 855 tonne Rainbow Warrior III never joins the mining machine on the ocean floor.
Electro1980 said:
Are you referring to the OP, or to Dr Sandra Schoettner and the combined expertise of BMW, Volvo, Samsung and Google? Or perhaps that well known woke, left wing libtard Michael Gove, or the ignorant people at the University of Oxford department of Zoology?
Sorry, but being clever does not make one an expert in a field one has no experience of. Exactly what are they objecting to? The removal of nodules from the seabed using a subsea tractor? How much damage does these mining activities do when compared to say subsea diamond mining, pipeline ploughing or subsea cable installation?
This unit they are using for mining is a 25Te minnow compared to the 200Te+ De Beers diamond mining equipment. And they do nowhere near the 'damage' a pipeline plough does. In terms of shear volume, pre-sweep work completed as part of subsea power cables flatten far more than any other subsea installation process.
BMW, etc. are reacting due to public perception of their brand. This is simple publicity bluster.
The DEME one they're talking about:
This is a De Beers diamond mining system:
A pipeline plough:
A pre-sweep plough:
fatbutt said:
Electro1980 said:
Are you referring to the OP, or to Dr Sandra Schoettner and the combined expertise of BMW, Volvo, Samsung and Google? Or perhaps that well known woke, left wing libtard Michael Gove, or the ignorant people at the University of Oxford department of Zoology?
Sorry, but being clever does not make one an expert in a field one has no experience of. Exactly what are they objecting to?
[\quote]
Damage to deep sea ecosystems. A subject that Dr Schoettner and members of the zoology department are experts on.
I have just recently spent a little amount of time working on one of these deep sea nodule mining machines.
What they are not doing is burying deep in to the ocean floor to collect nodules. The machine travels along the sea bed, many kilometers below the surface and 'scoops up' the nodules which are laying there. Silt management is a key thing and as part of our design brief we had to ensure that as little disturbance as possible was caused to the sea bed, and that the silt was evenly displaced behind the machine.
What they are not is these giant earth devouring machines that the term 'mining' tends to conjour up.
What they are not doing is burying deep in to the ocean floor to collect nodules. The machine travels along the sea bed, many kilometers below the surface and 'scoops up' the nodules which are laying there. Silt management is a key thing and as part of our design brief we had to ensure that as little disturbance as possible was caused to the sea bed, and that the silt was evenly displaced behind the machine.
What they are not is these giant earth devouring machines that the term 'mining' tends to conjour up.
"a day in the life of a deep sea ecosystem"......dont expect many surprises!! 
https://youtu.be/UOmywM_zRpU
https://youtu.be/UOmywM_zRpU
Andeh1 said:
Deep sea ecosystems? Arnt these generally barren wastelands all considering? What endangered species? What rare plant life? What co2 absorbing super fungi found no where else on earth?
... Or just generic professor's seeking their 15mins of fame?
More people have been to the moon than to the bottom of the world’s deep oceans. Even remote exploration is expensive and relatively uncommon. We really don’t know very much at all about what goes on down there. Perhaps caution is in order.... Or just generic professor's seeking their 15mins of fame?
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