Manganese nodules can be quite difficult to harvest. Nodules found in shallower depths are the easiest ones to mine but these nodules in general aren’t as useful because they do not have a high nickel and copper content required for profitability, perhaps only 1% each. It is also hard to mine efficiently under 3,000 to 5,000 meters of water. Another problem in collecting them is finding an economically practical mining system. In the history of manganese nodules, they used to be mined with large dredges, which was a machine containing a revolving chain of buckets, scoops or suction devices that would extract the material to an underwater storage, which would then be lifted by ships. This way of extraction didn’t last for too long though, because it wasn’t very practical and extremely time consuming. In the early 1990’s a new way was thought up, it consisted of a ship witch was attached to a pump with a steel pipe, which would hold a collector that would drill and then vacuum the nodules. The ship would drag this collector, which wasn’t very reliable as inaccuracies in the extraction occurred. Once again, another form of extracting manganese nodules was created, which is the one we use today. In the form we use today a collector is a self-propelled mining machine, which allows a much more accurate extraction. It is connected to a 600m flexible hose, which allows it to move freely.
By mining manganese nodules, a variety of more products are created, which at the same time creates new companies, giving more employment to people. So the people benefiting from these companies would agree to mining manganese nodules. The people profiting from the nodules would also agree to collect them, as more money is made. Developing countries would benefit by instead of mining taking place on their land it would take place in the sea so land wouldn’t be damaged, especially rainforests, etc. Rich countries such as Japan and USA also benefit from harvesting manganese. Japan relies a great deal on imported metals and USA is the worlds largest market for cobalt. Manganese nodules bring new technology e.g. rechargeable batteries, laptops, etc so everyone in general can benefit from it, but more likely to be rich countries then developing countries, as they are the one’s who profit most out of modern technology.
New minerals from manganese nodules are used in medicines, which benefits sick people in general. Manganese nodules are also used as a powerful acid (HMNo4) benefiting scientists. It provides them with new resources to test and experiment with and testing new substances have a possibility of leading to new technologies, or even discovering cures for diseases
Manganese nodules can be used in glass recycling so it benefits glass companies and the environment by recycling.
Nodule collection could have a harmful impact on the seafloor ecosystem, particularly through the sediment plumes generated. 96% of the mining would be tailings, which is abandoned in the sea and can greatly damage marine environment so this would be a cause for green peace and other animal protecting groups to disagree with manganese nodule mining. Damaging marine environment would also affect fishermen, because if the fish in certain habitats were all killed then the fishermen would no longer have any fish to fish which would diminish there money income and the places in which they sell to.
One of the big ethical questions of manganese mining is if it is worth spending money on developing new mining when there are developing countries, which have other priorities e.g., health, famine. Developing countries would disagree to the amount of money spent on manganese nodule mining, and would much rather prefer to have it used in ways to develop their countries. Manganese mining could also affect poorer countries near “manganese sites” by destroying their land to make new factories for dumping of tailings.
In my opinion, I think that manganese nodules can be quite a useful source to modern society. If is mined properly, and the tailings are correctly taken care of it doesn’t harm the environment that much and saves us from mining in other places on land. It has also contributed to us in a variety of ways, new technology, new medicines, new forms of metal etc. I think that as long as too much money isn’t spent on the mining, when it could be being spent on developing countries, then I think that manganese nodule mining should continue as we are benefiting from it in all sorts of ways which I have mentioned above.
