Let's grind up the seafloor, mining for riches.

[mmadiver]

They need to mine the sea floor to obtain the materials needed to build the devices we use to debate the validity of mining the sea floor on the internet.

 

[KeithG]

The scenarios that one can think of after reading this article (read past the nuclear submarine & CIA part (but do tell if you were part of this!!!) on to the actual mining part) really don't leave me feeling so well. What could possibly go wrong. After all "The Experts" determined that grinding up sea floor that deep won't affect anything that matters.
Oh good then... for a second there I was worried... what all might be caused by house sized robotic sea-floor grinding monsters...

Article:
The secret on the ocean floor - BBC News

Edit:
Moderators: please move this thread if it is in the wrong subforum.

As scuba divers we tend to believe we and our very narrow interests are special.

Mining the plains? Mining the mountains? Mining the seafloor? Are they any different?

Humans have been scratching at the earth for as long as we can remember. Is this instance anything special?

Illinois State Geological Survey Coal Mines in Illinois Viewer (ILMINES) | ISGS

 

[Schwob]

Is this instance anything special?

Not really.
The one thing that changes over time is our understanding on what we all might be affecting when we choose to affect things. That umderstanding generally goes up... for experts in various fields. Generally, for voters? Not so sure.
Of course that understanding also still scratches on the surface of what all there may be to understand and what all will be affected and to what extent, duration, etc.
The other thing that changes comstantly is our communal will to do something based on that understanding... or not...

At some point I would hope we, as humans will not need yet another large scale destructive experiment before we learn what it did.

It seems obvious that that point continues to lie in the future... maybe...

 

[KeithG]

Not really.
The one thing that changes over time is our understanding on what we all might be affecting when we choose to affect things. That umderstanding generally goes up... for experts in various fields. Generally, for voters? Not so sure.
Of course that understanding also still scratches on the surface of what all there may be to understand and what all will be affected and to what extent, duration, etc.
The other thing that changes comstantly is our communal will to do something based on that understanding... or not...

At some point I would hope we, as humans will not need yet another large scale destructive experiment before we learn what it did.

It seems obvious that that point continues to lie in the future... maybe...

What? I am sorry but your overwhelming rational response is incomprehensible in our current Agent Orange world.

Please explain very slowly in very very short words: "what's in it for me?", in the next 10 minutes.

A million millennial thanks...

 

[Bierstadt]

What? I am sorry but your overwhelming rational response is incomprehensible in our current Agent Orange world.

Please explain very slowly in very very short words: "what's in it for me?", in the next 10 minutes.

A million millennial thanks...

As if knee-jerk sensationalism and dramatic reactionary gestures were unique to my generation...
Everyone I know is happy to not be "drill baby drill" or "oh no! Our precious fill-in-the-blank! Never hurt our precious fill-in-the-blank" but "Okay, we need blank, so show me the completed impact assessment, binding and overseen commitment to monitor said impact, and drill away." As Jesus once said, anyone who seeks shall find. Never has that been more true than today.

Deep sea drilling is promising but fraught with potential danger to unique ecologies. However, I expect sufficiently motivated companies can mitigate that risk. The key is independent oversight.

 

[Schwob]

The key is independent oversight.

Some might think that "deep sea oversight" has a track record that proves it to be an oxymoron... a practical impossibility. Obersight over filled out and filed paperwork is not real ovesight. Real oversight on real deep see activities is a bit of a stretch. Even if the little robots were to provide and record a feed to some non existing non fundet oversight agency with anything to say (in international waters possibly?) What are the chances that that feed would be any more honest then say certain diesel car chip programming? Short of military very few could even verify the actual location of these things. Real deep see oversight as real as clean and non corrupt Illinois politics... or as world peace ... or as "egality" , or... imho.

 

[KeithG]

...The key is independent oversight.

Oversight? Yes!

Independent oversight? Humm, which grossly over funded lobby group with invested interests will volunteer to help with the oversight?

 

[CT-Rich]

The key is independent oversight.

You mean “oversight” like in the mortgage markets leading up to 2007?

Or the oversight on the Deep Water Horizon?

Or before the Exxon Valdez?

Because, it’s not like we ever screwup oversight.....

 

[gcarter]

The added challenge is the lack of geographical boundaries and ownership for the vast amount of sea floor out there.

Who provides the oversight indeed.