Video Transcript
While home to sea creatures and aquatic plant life, the world’s oceans, lakes, and rivers also contain other highly valuable resources — most notably, deposits of minerals like nickel, cobalt, and copper that are useful in our everyday lives. And the role of these minerals is becoming even more important as investments in technology like electric vehicles (EVs) and solar panels mean competition for these resources is increasing.
While currently, mining takes place on land, the idea of mining the seafloor for these critical resources has gained some traction over the years — though it’s not without its critics. Some experts express caution over the prospect that seafloor mining could disrupt crucial ecosystems and destroy habitats. But one company hopes to make ocean mining a reality in a way that they say doesn’t.
Impossible Metals is setting out to bring underwater robots to the ocean floor to mine in a meticulous way. Rather than the equivalent of vacuuming the seafloor and churning up mass amounts of sediments, the robots will utilize artificial intelligence (AI) to selectively harvest minerals, doing as little damage as possible. The process, where cameras and arms hover in wait rather than touch the ocean floor, is likened to using a tweezer instead of a bulldozer.
The company’s prototype robot is called Eureka and is testing its capabilities in shallow waters. In the future, Impossible Metals hopes to scale the technology to create a full fleet of underwater bots with the capacity to travel four miles down into the deep. And while skeptics see nothing but challenges, the co-creator of Impossible Metals, Renee Grogan, told CBS News the company is “halfway down the path.” In fact, she says the company may eventually change its name: from Impossible Metals to Possible Metals.
