Updated 1 October 2026: This article has been revised to discuss newer research on seabed disturbance and recovery, developments in battery technology and recycling, and important uncertainty surrounding the reported discovery of “dark oxygen”.
Clean energy should help protect the planet we live on. It should not become an excuse to damage another habitat because it is too deep for most people to see.
Far below the Pacific Ocean, mining companies are interested in metal-rich lumps called polymetallic nodules. These nodules are also part of a living seabed. Removing them would change places that support animals and microbes, many of which scientists are still trying to understand.
Since our earlier article, more research has measured the effects of mining tests. Battery technology has also continued to change, and the rules around proposed mining remain contested. One much-discussed oxygen discovery now needs especially careful treatment.
Our position remains firm: leave deep-sea nodules in place. Put greater effort into reducing material demand, repairing products, recovering metals already in circulation, and mining our landfill sites should also be considered. The case for protecting the ocean is strong enough to present honestly, without making uncertain findings sound settled.
What companies want from the seabed
Polymetallic means “many metals”. Nodules contain materials such as manganese, nickel, copper and cobalt. They form slowly around a small starting point, as minerals collect in layers. On human timescales, the natural process cannot replace a field of nodules once removed by a mining operation.
Much attention focuses on the Clarion–Clipperton Zone, a large region of the Pacific between Hawaii and Mexico. The abyssal seabed there lies several kilometres below the surface. At those depths, sunlight does not reach the bottom.
Nodule collection is only one form of proposed deep-sea mining. Other proposals target mineral deposits around hydrothermal vents or crusts on underwater mountains. Their habitats and risks differ. This article focuses mainly on nodule mining because it was central to our earlier post and to recent impact studies.
A proposed operation would use a collector vehicle on the seabed, connected to equipment that brings material towards a surface ship. That is an industrial activity, with a footprint extending beyond simply picking up a few loose stones.
The deep sea is already occupied
A muddy seabed can look empty in a distant image. That appearance is misleading. Animals live on its surface, within the sediment and attached to harder structures. A nodule can provide an anchor in a landscape where solid surfaces are scarce.
Research has shown that nodules support relationships within seabed food webs. Removing them changes the physical habitat as well as the animals directly collected or disturbed. A replacement patch of bare mud is not the same environment.
In 2023, a research team including the Natural History Museum assembled a record of animals in the Clarion–Clipperton Zone. Around nine in ten of the species recorded were unnamed. That does not mean every species lives only in a single mining area. It shows how much basic identification work is still needed.
We should not confuse “not yet described” with “not important”. A species does not need a familiar name, bright feathers or a tourist industry to have value. Protecting habitat includes protecting life that people may never see or have not yet discovered.
What recent mining tests found
A study published online in December 2025, and appearing in a 2026 journal volume, examined a large mining test conducted in 2022. Researchers compared samples collected before the disturbance with samples collected two months afterwards.
Inside the collector’s tracks, the density of the studied sediment animals fell by 37 per cent and the number of species recorded fell by 32 per cent. These figures describe a particular animal group, location and sampling period. They should not be repeated as a prediction that all ocean life would fall by the same amount.
The findings outside the tracks were more mixed. The researchers did not detect the same reduction in animal abundance in the sampled plume area, although the balance between species changed. Some measures of diversity also responded differently from others.
That detail matters. It shows why good research needs measurements before and after disturbance, comparison sites and more than one indicator. It also shows that the direct mining path cannot be described as harmless. Even a short test left measurable biological effects.
Recovery can take far longer than a business plan
Another study, published in Nature in 2025, revisited the site of a 1979 mining test after 44 years. Physical changes were still present, and the communities in directly disturbed areas remained altered. Some animals had returned, while impacts persisted in other groups.
It would be inaccurate to say that nothing had recovered anywhere. The researchers found some recolonisation, and some areas affected by the small test’s sediment plume showed limited remaining effects. But it would be equally misleading to describe the mined seabed as fully restored.
Forty-four years is enough for a child to grow up and have children of their own. When damage remains over that period, “we will fix it later” needs much more evidence than a company promise. Promises of repair cannot erase the evidence that some impacts remain decades later.
A test is also smaller than a long-running commercial industry. We cannot assume every result scales up neatly. That uncertainty strengthens the need for caution; it does not prove that larger operations would be safe.
Mud clouds do not follow property lines
Collecting nodules disturbs fine seabed sediment. Some of that material forms a plume: a cloud of particles suspended in water. Where it travels and settles depends on currents, particle size, equipment design and the way an operation is run.
Field research published in 2025 measured plumes, sediment settling and vehicle imprints during a collector trial. Such studies help replace guesswork with observations. However, measurements from one trial cannot settle every question about several operations working for years across a wider region.
For animals that filter food from the water or live on the seabed, extra particles may change their surroundings and could harm animals and disrupt their feeding. The size and duration of biological effects need to be tested, rather than assumed to be identical everywhere.
Our concern is not that a single plume has been shown to poison the whole ocean. It is that direct damage, spreading disturbance and repeated operations create risks that remain difficult to measure and manage. Claims of safety should meet that challenge openly.
The important update on dark oxygen
Our earlier article discussed research suggesting that oxygen might be produced in darkness around nodules. A 2024 Nature Geoscience paper reported rising oxygen levels in seabed chambers and proposed that an electrical process involving nodules could help explain them.
On 8 April 2026, the journal added an editor’s note stating that concerns about aspects of the paper were being considered. At the time of this update, that notice remained on the article. It is not the same as a retraction, but it means the finding must not be presented as settled science.
The proposed mechanism, its wider importance and the reliability of the evidence need further resolution. We should not claim that removing nodules has been proven to threaten the oxygen people breathe.
The environmental argument does not depend on winning that debate. Habitat removal and measured changes to seabed animals are reasons for concern in their own right. Honest conservation means correcting the strength of a claim when the evidence changes.
What we do know about ocean oxygen
NOAA estimates that roughly half of Earth’s oxygen production comes from the ocean, mainly from organisms such as microscopic algae and other photosynthetic plankton. Photosynthesis uses light, so this is a different process from the proposed dark-oxygen mechanism. Much of the oxygen produced is also consumed by marine life and decay.
These facts should not be combined into the claim that half our breathable oxygen comes from deep-sea nodules. There is no basis for that statement in the sources reviewed here.
The ocean’s importance is broader than any single oxygen claim. It supports habitats, food systems and the lives of communities around the world. The UN’s World Meteorological Organization reported record ocean heat content in 2025, another sign of the pressure the ocean already faces.
Adding new industrial disturbance demands careful scrutiny. Protecting the ocean should stand on accurate science, including a clear boundary between what is measured and what remains unknown.
Where the mining rules stand
The International Seabed Authority, or ISA, is responsible under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea for mineral activities in the international seabed area beyond national jurisdiction. It is not the manager of every activity in every part of the ocean.
Its public information, checked for this article, states that it has issued exploration contracts but has not approved commercial exploitation. Exploration and commercial extraction are different stages. The absence of an ISA commercial approval does not mean there have been no mining tests.
There is also a separate United States process. NOAA changed its application rules in January 2026 and is reviewing applications under US legislation. Its public register listed no existing commercial recovery permits when checked. An application, an approved permit and actual production are three different things.
The ISA has challenged unilateral mining outside its framework. This is a live international disagreement, not a simple story of one universally accepted permission system. HFTF’s response is to call for protection and restraint, rather than a race to exploit gaps or disputed authority.
Clean energy does not require every battery to use cobalt
The argument for mining often begins with a genuine need: modern energy systems use minerals. Electricity networks need metals, and batteries require materials. The question is which technologies we choose, how much material we use and where it comes from.
Lithium iron phosphate batteries, usually called LFP batteries, do not use nickel or cobalt in their battery chemistry. They still need lithium and other materials. Their existence does not make all mining unnecessary, but it challenges the idea that every new battery requires the metals commonly promoted in the nodule debate.
The International Energy Agency’s Global Energy Review 2026 reports that LFP accounted for around 90 per cent of new battery storage deployments in 2025. This figure concerns battery storage, not all electric-car batteries.
That is a useful reminder that technology changes. Decisions that could permanently remove habitat should not rest on a fixed picture of yesterday’s battery market. Better product choices can change future demand as well as future supply.
Recover the metals we already have
A worn-out cable, battery or appliance is not just rubbish. It contains materials that took energy, money and environmental disturbance to produce. Letting those materials disappear into landfill wastes that effort.
The International Energy Agency finds that recycling can reduce future demand for newly mined minerals. Its 2024 analysis estimated that battery recycling could meet around 20–30 per cent of demand for lithium, nickel and cobalt by 2050 in its announced-pledges scenario, assuming improving collection rates. This is a conditional projection, not a guarantee.
Recycling cannot meet all demand immediately. Many batteries are still being used, some materials are lost during processing, and demand can grow faster than discarded products become available. The sensible response is to build better recovery systems now, not pretend the limits do not exist.
Our priority should be keeping materials in service: repair first where practical, reuse suitable equipment, and recycle products when they genuinely reach the end of their useful lives. Design should make each of those steps easier.
Urban mining needs practical rules
Our earlier post proposed looking at old rubbish dumps instead of the seabed. That idea needs a careful distinction. Recovering sorted electronics, scrap metal and end-of-life batteries is different from digging through mixed, contaminated landfill.
HFTF supports investigating recovery from existing waste where it can be done safely and with a clear environmental benefit. We do not assume every old dump is a workable mineral resource. A project should show what it can recover, what waste it creates and how it will protect people and nearby water.
Governments can start with clearer collection systems and producer responsibility. Manufacturers should help fund the collection and processing of products they sell. Designs should allow useful components and materials to be separated rather than glued into disposable combinations.
If a solution is truly green, it should be readily recyclable through a system people can actually access. Reducing emissions should not create mountains of hard-to-process rubbish or become an excuse to open another fragile habitat to extraction.
Protecting oceans must also protect people
The alternative to seabed mining cannot simply be careless mining on land. Forests, rivers, workers and communities need strong protection too. Our position is to reduce avoidable demand and improve material use, while requiring high standards for supplies that are still needed.
Pacific communities should have a meaningful voice in decisions affecting their ocean. Consultation should explain risks and uncertainty in language people can understand. Promised revenue deserves scrutiny alongside possible losses, monitoring costs and long-term responsibility.
Who would pay if damage lasted beyond a company’s life? How would independent researchers obtain data? What happens when predictions are wrong? These questions should be answered before a project receives permission, not after machinery is working on the seabed.
HFTF supports a halt to commercial deep-sea mining and investment in independent science, circular design and accessible recycling. Protection should not depend on proving that every unknown species has a price greater than the metal beside it.
Their home is worth more than the metals beneath it
For the animals living on the deep seabed, this is home. It is where they feed, shelter and survive. Many belong to species we have barely begun to understand.
What gives us the right to destroy their home before we have even learned what lives there?
We need clean energy, but how we build it matters. Reducing emissions must go hand in hand with protecting habitats. It should not leave us with more rubbish in landfill and more damaged ecosystems.
Start with the materials already in our hands. Make products last longer. Repair what can be repaired. Reuse useful parts. Recover metals from discarded electronics and batteries through safe, accessible recycling systems.
If a solution is truly green, it should be readily recyclable—and there should be a practical way for people to recycle it.
Recycling cannot meet every need immediately. That is a reason to invest in better systems, reduce waste and use materials carefully. It does not justify treating the deep ocean as disposable.
Ask your federal representative to support a halt to commercial deep-sea mining. Ask manufacturers how they will collect and recover the products they sell. Share this article to help others understand what is at stake.
The decisions we make now will leave a mark long after today’s technology has been replaced.
When the technology is obsolete, will the damage still be there?
Let us leave future generations a living ocean worth protecting.
One Planet. One Home. One Chance.
Further Reading
Why Undersea Mining Is Bad for Everyone
As pressure mounts to exploit the ocean floor for minerals, a growing number of scientists and environmental advocates are sounding the alarm: undersea mining is bad for everyone—not just for marine ecosystems, but for the future of humanity. While proponents claim it’s necessary to secure materials for batteries and renewable technologies, they ignore a crucial…
Polymetallic Nodules: Why We Shouldn’t Mine Our Oceans
Polymetallic nodules may create “dark oxygen” in the deep sea. Mining them risks destroying unknown species and vital ecosystems. Protect our oceans — the real treasure is life.
