The deep-sea metals are estimated to be worth as much as $16 trillion. They’re found in lumps of black rock called nodules, and there are trillions of them strewn across a vast, muddy desert in the Clarion Clipperton Zone, in the middle of the Pacific between Hawaii and Mexico. It’s sunken treasure because every nodule contains nickel, copper, cobalt, manganese and traces of rare earth elements. It’s estimated there are more metals on the bottom of the ocean than anywhere on the planet.
60 Minutes joined Canadian company DeepGreen Metals on its latest research trip, mapping the seafloor, three miles down, and fishing for nodules. The company estimates there’s enough nickel and cobalt in its stake to make batteries for 150 million electric cars.
Nineteen countries have exploration licenses in the CCZ, including China, Russia, Germany and France. Even Cuba and Tonga have stakes. But the U.S. is not permitted to participate because it didn’t ratify the United Nation’s Law of the Sea which rules these international waters. Without signing the treaty, the U.S. is outside the system that is dividing up the ocean floor for deep-sea mining.
Without a seat at the table, retired Rear Admiral Jonathan White worries the U.S. has no say in how deep-sea mining will be developed or what environmental protections will be put in place. He also fears this gives China an overwhelming head start in pursuit of deep-sea metals, at a time when it already commands a chokehold of metals like cobalt and rare earths on land.
It’s a national security issue, White says. “A weapons system, the guidance of our weapons, X-ray machines, microwaves, they all rely on [rare earth] elements hard to come by,” he tells Whitaker.
White thinks it’s a mistake. “I think it means we… become more isolated especially in terms of a growing global economy,” he says. “And…[be] more dependent on China.”