Victor Vescovo

Most criticism of deep sea mining has come from the environmental aspect.

And I think that, yes, it will destroy everything on the seafloor.

I think there's very little doubt about that.

Even I think he admits that it's better to mine where there's less life than more life, like in the rainforests of Indonesia.

I think that's a false equivalence because you can also get these metals from Australia, the desert outback, from the tundra of Canada,

It's a way of marketing of putting the worst possible comparison and saying, well, of course we wouldn't do that.

We'd do this other thing.

But the major point is environmentalism is one element of it.

I think technically it's going to be far more difficult than they realize to operate these multi-ton machines at depths greater than the Titanic, operating 24-7, pulling up four tons per minute,

in freezing cold water, 5,000 pounds per square inch on every portion of these vehicles, trying to lift heavy rocks 4,000 meters up.

It is not a simple operation.

It's not as simple as I think they make it out to be.

It's nothing like oil drilling.

It's nothing like laying pipes or cables on the bottom.

This is hardcore industrial operation on the seafloor with no human supervision.

That's just the technical aspect.

But more importantly,

we're kind of getting into it on deep sea mining, but there are only four metals that you can get from polymetallic nodules.

And he correctly outlined them, copper, manganese, cobalt, and nickel.

Copper and manganese are quite common from terrestrial mines.