With a vacuumcleaner the size of a basic house at 4,000 meters deep, sweeping the ocean floor and sucking up stones the size of potatoes, it will leave consequences on the seabed; they are the polymetallic nodules rich in nickel, copper and manganese, which became the new oil of the energy transition.

In the most coveted area, the CCZ zone, 1,770 km from San Diego, a collector on caterpillars lifts the nodules with jets of water. A 4 km tube takes them to the ship that separates up to 200 tons by lowering the liquid waste level to 100 m and the nodules continue for processing on land.

The fear of the engineers is called sediment plumes, if they escape they can affect ecosystems very far from the mining point. Defenders say that the impact would be less than on land, less deforestation without waste dams. fewer explosions and cleaner metal content.

And remember that other underwater routes, mountain crusts, sulfides in hydrothermal vents are much more intrusive than collecting nodules in avisal plains. Scientists are against it, we barely know the biodiversity there. The nodules take millions of years to form and are habitat even for the curious Squirrel Jelly, a gelatinous sea cucumber.

Uplifts can release carbon from sediment and plumes can travel miles, lesson from a 1979 test, the grooves are still there. Little sediment bugs returned, but the organisms that depend on the nodule did not, because the nodule disappeared.

And regulation, the International Seabed is the common heritage of humanity under the ISA, but the game heated up. There is push and pull between those who ask for death and those who press for exploitation, there is talk of leaving 15% of the areas intact from global royalties and of a transparent monitoring pact.

Meanwhile, there are countries and companies willing to move forward with national authorizations if the multilateral consensus gets stuck. The real dilemma, THERE IS NO ZERO IMPACT, the choice is which impacts, where and when; Moving forward, the minimum acceptable are well-designed ecological excursion zones, standards and performance, including real-time plume modeling and measurement, independent on-board science, open data, insurance and liability funds with stoppage clauses.

The technology is almost ready. Basic science still cannot save the climate while hurting the deep ocean or slow down and design well by accepting less metal in the short term for less “scar on the tree.”

That choice is not yours, nor mine, but tell me, if the price to make technologies cheaper were to mark the bottom of the sea for centuries, would you accept it; with strict rules and total transparency or would you defend the moratorium until science says advance without fear.