The next real gold rush won’t be on a far flung asteroid. It will be under the sea.
In fact, The Wall Street Journal said earlier this month that underwater mining could be a $500 trillion business someday.
That means underwater mining stocks, which are cheap now, could be headed for monster gains.
Scientists now project there are over 10 million tons of gold to be found by sifting through the seas – but don’t go out with your shovel and sifter. Most of the gold is buried under a mile of water.
And that is just the gold.
Underwater mining companies also hope to extract copper, nickel, ore, silver, zinc, and even rare earth metals.
So for those of you who are worried that the earth will run out of these minerals, underwater mining should calm your fears.
“It’s unimaginable to think we’ll need to rely on asteroids from space to supply the Earth with metals,” Scott McLean, chief executive of Ontario-based mining company HTX Minerals Corp., told The Journal. He said the idea is “interesting, it is visionary to think about these things,” but he concludes: “The Earth’s mineral bounty is immense, and it will continue to provide for millennia.”
There is very little that is known about what exactly lies at the bottom of the ocean and how much of it there is. Yet engineers and scientists are coming up with newer ways to find out what is hidden below and how to extract those resources.
Last year scientists from the University of Tokyo discovered an estimated 80 billion to 100 billion metric tons of rare-earth deposits in the Pacific Ocean, or almost a thousand times more than current proven recoverable onshore rare-earth reserves, as estimated by the U.S. Geological Survey.
And the interest in underwater mining is booming on a global scale.
Over the last year, the International Seabed Authority, an independent body set up by the United Nations to control mining in international waters, signed four new contracts with groups interested in exploring the ocean floor, says Adam Cook, an ISA marine biologist.
That is a jump from the eight contracts previously, six of which were signed over 12 years ago, Cook said. The new contracts include agreements with state and private organizations from Japan, Korea, Russia and China.
Previously, underwater mining was too expensive and beyond our technologies to see to fruition. But recent advances in robotics, underwater drilling, computer mapping, and record high commodity prices now make underwater mining an attractive possibility.
Ben Gersten
Associate Editor, Money Morning
Publisher’s Note: This is an edited version of an article that first appeared in Money Morning (USA)
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