And the Mineral Source of the Future Remains a Decade Away

Just like it did in 1963, 1973, 1983, 1993, 2003, and 2013.

I am referring, of course to mining ocean beds for manganese nodules, which have been touted as a source for  manganese, nickel, copper,and cobalt.

There has always been something preventing the development of this resource.  This time high levels of radioactivity in the nodules:

Manganese nodules at the bottom of the deep sea contain a wealth of valuable metals that are vital to the electronics and steelmaking industries. Accordingly, these sectors and many countries have pinned their hopes on deep-sea mining to meet the growing demand for raw materials like cobalt and rare-earth elements.

In a study just released in the journal Scientific Reports, experts from the Alfred Wegener Institute show that such activities could not only have ecological impacts, but also pose health hazards, for example, in connection with the industrial mining and processing of the nodules. According to their findings, in some cases, the radioactivity of radium-226 in the nodules exceeds the safe limit defined in the German Strahlenschutzverordnung (Radiation Protection Ordinance) 100- to 1,000-fold.

Large areas of the ocean floor are covered with polymetallic nodules and crusts. The potato-sized manganese nodules can be found in all oceans, especially in the Pacific Ocean, at water depths between 4,000 and 6,000 meters. Formed over millions of years, they contain valuable metals like copper, nickel, cobalt and rare-earth elements—in other words, a range of elements required for the manufacture of electronic products like computers, smartphones, batteries, magnets, motors and high-tech components.

I don't expect meaningful mining of manganese modules in my lifetime.