What was old is new again: economic potential of deep ocean minerals the second time around

After reaching a peak in the 1970s, interest in exploitation of the minerals of the deep ocean floor sharply declined to the point where it is hard to remember when the prospects of mining the ocean floor were an important factor in US foreign policy. Declining growth of minerals demand, improved technology for land based production and the opening of Russian nickel production to the world market all combined to push seabed mining off to the distant future. The interest in deep ocean mineral development, which had been driven by technological capability, died from lack of economic prospects. In the future, economics will be in the forefront and technology will play the supporting role. That future is some years off, but the prospects for seabed mineral development are improving. Demand for nickel, largely for the production of stainless steel, has been growing at a high and consistent rate driven by China's rapidly growing economy. This will continue as other countries transition from developing to developed economies. Nickel demand is also feeling the effect of increased use of nickel-metal hydride batteries in consumer goods, and there is massive growth potential as automobile electrical systems are redesigned for higher power requirements and for the electric drive systems of hybrid and fuel cell vehicles. Cobalt also stands to share in this increased demand as lithium ion batteries that utilize cobalt to obtain a higher energy density compete with other battery systems. Demand for copper will also respond to increased industrialization and the redesign of the automobile. Just as prices for nickel were depressed when Russian industrial demand dropped precipitously in the early 1990s and domestic production was sold to the world market, the eventual recovery of the Russian economy will remove that substantial source from the world market and prices will move upward. Development prospects are not limited to hard minerals. The exploitation of marine methane hydrates on the slopes of the continental shelf and in the valleys of offshore ridge systems offers commercial potential in a generation or two. Although it may be 50 years or more before methane hydrates become a major component of the world's energy supply, they may be developed decades earlier in response to particular combinations of regional demand and well formed deposits in geographically favorable locations. These circumstances suggest that Japan and India may be among the earliest developers of