Deep-sea Connections: Identifying future demand for seabed minerals
Abstract
Mining on the international seabed is predicted to begin at commercial scale within
the next decade. Despite this, many researchers have lamented that the deep sea remains
“out of sight and out of mind” to the public, leading to little engagement with the
substantial questions that deep-sea mining possibilities raise. New methods are needed
to enable the public to take ownership of their own stake in the use of the international
seabed. In this paper, I identify ISA deep-sea mining contractors’ beneficial ownership,
explore their likely industry customers, and highlight which of their products can
be used to drive public engagement in the global conversation about deep-sea mining.
I find that 68% of contracts are beneficially owned by state governments, while 29%
are beneficially owned by non-state corporations and one contract is beneficially
owned by an intergovernmental organization. While no sale agreements have been formed
between deep-sea miners and companies that sell products to the public yet, ties do
exist between some beneficial owners and numerous technology and automotive companies.
I suggest that the automotive sector may be the most important deep-sea mining industry
connection to focus on for enabling public engagement in the future. This is due to
the expected use of deep-sea minerals in vehicle batteries and the ability of consumer
decisions and brand reputation to impact the behavior of car companies.
Type
Master's projectPermalink
https://hdl.handle.net/10161/22669Citation
Gertz, Brandon (2021). Deep-sea Connections: Identifying future demand for seabed minerals. Master's project, Duke University. Retrieved from https://hdl.handle.net/10161/22669.Collections
More Info
Show full item record
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
Rights for Collection: Nicholas School of the Environment
Works are deposited here by their authors, and represent their research and opinions, not that of Duke University. Some materials and descriptions may include offensive content. More info