OSLO, Norway (CN) — When Norway’s two governing parties, Center and Labor, finally got Parliament backing to open the seafloor to mineral extraction this month, environmental experts responded with dismay.
The government emphasized that seabed mineral activities could ensure a crucial supply of metals for the green transition and called mining underseas a new and potentially groundbreaking industry — both in Norway and globally.
However, many environmental experts are worried. An overarching unknown is that the ecosystems in the Arctic Ocean face extreme change over the next few decades, according to Jørgen Berge, an expert in marine biology and ecosystems at the UiT Arctic University of Norway.
“We know that the Arctic Ocean will turn from a white to blue ocean in our lifetime," he said, describing an ice-free ocean in the summer. "I have worries about the prospect of starting sea floor mining, when we still don’t know how the systems are changing,” he said.
In his view, it will be difficult for the Norwegian government to fully evaluate the effects of deep sea extraction. While Berge recognized that Norway and other countries need to develop new technologies for obtaining minerals, he warned against rushing into an industry operating in unexplored waters.
“Environmentally, it is more complex and high risk to extract underwater. Unlike terrestrial life, marine ecosystems exist in a three-dimensional habitat connected in space and time. Species move up and down, while tides, currents and seasons connect the oceans,” he said, emphasizing the difficulty of isolating an area of industrial activity underwater.
Upon announcing the plans in summer, Terje Aasland, the minister of petroleum and energy, claimed that “no other country is better positioned to take the lead in managing such resources sustainably and responsibly.” The government referred to Norway’s experience in business operations offshore, like in the oil and gas industry.
The seabed minerals are to be found in a 281.000-square-kilometer area west of Norway’s coast between the Barents Sea and Greenland Sea. According to a resource assessment by the Norwegian Petroleum Directorate involving expeditions and data samples, the deep water near the country’s continental shelf holds important raw materials such as magnesium and copper.
Furthermore, the directorate found rare earth minerals such as neodymium and dysprosium, used for wind turbines and engines in electric cars, they said.
The Norwegian government will now initiate a first phase of exploration, where companies can win extraction rights. However, politicians agreed they will have to send complete production plans to Parliament for approval because of issues surrounding deep sea environmental conditions,
But that is not enough to safeguard against the risky business that could affect oceans and marine life on a long-term basis, according to researchers such as Lise Øvreås, a professor in geomicrobiology and president of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters.
In an interview with Forskning.no, she argued that “more and more countries are against seabed mining. ... Even BMW, Volvo Group, Google and Microsoft say they will not use seabed minerals because they want to be sustainable.”
World Worldlife Fund General Secretary Karoline Andaur warned that it was a “dark day for Norwegian nature.” In local state media NRK, she said that ”while more and more countries are making responsible choices and calling for a moratorium, Norway goes upstream and opens seas larger than the U.K. to destructive industries.”
In a previous hearing, Norway’s environmental directorate called the government’s impact assessment insufficient and underlined its lack of knowledge about technology, nature and the environmental effects of a potential mining industry.
Norway´s state-owned oil and gas company Equinor has urged caution and withdrawn from any near-future plans to extract minerals from the sea, despite calling the project a potentially “fundamental element in the development of new value chains” earlier in 2023.
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