logo
episode-header-image
Apr 2021
17m 59s

Mining the ocean

Bbc World Service
About this episode

How rocks on the ocean floor could be key to the transition to electric cars. Justin Rowlatt speaks to Gerard Barron, boss of DeepGreen, a company that wants to gather rocks from the ocean floors rich in the metals essential for making electric car batteries. He tells us why this kind of mining is crucial to transitioning away from fossil fuels. Louisa Casson, senior campaigner with Greenpeace, warns of the environmental devastation this could cause. And zoologist Adrian Glover tells us how mining could take place alongside conservation of the deep seabed.

(Photo: A sunset over an ocean, Credit: Getty Images)

Up next
Yesterday
Taking stock: China gains in the AI race
Is China rapidly catching up with the United States in the race to dominate artificial intelligence? Rahul Tandon is joined by Walter Todd in the US and Rebecca Choong Wilkins in Singapore to discuss, following a week of sharp moves in AI-related markets and growing questions ove ... Show More
24m 19s
Apr 7
Headspace: from mindfulness app to military partner
Headspace started life as a mindfulness app. Now it's partnering with the US Navy and investing in artificial intelligence for mental health support.The company's CEO Tom Pickett speaks to us about therapy, the increasing role of technology, and tackling burnout at scale.If you'd ... Show More
17m 28s
Apr 7
Anthropic: the $300bn AI firm at war with the White House
Anthropic’s rise from startup to one of the world’s leading players in artificial intelligence has been staggering, but so in recent weeks has been its row with the US Government.Today, we look at that journey to becoming a 380 billion dollar company, ask why Claude has become on ... Show More
17m 28s
Recommended Episodes
Sep 2022
Promise and Peril at the Bottom of the Sea
<p>The adoption of electric cars has been hailed as an important step in curbing the use of fossil fuels and fighting climate change. There is a snag, however: such vehicles require around six times as many metals as their gasoline-powered counterparts.</p><p>A giant storehouse o ... Show More
33m 37s
Dec 2023
C&EN Uncovered: The ocean floor is littered with valuable minerals. Should we go get them?
<p dir="ltr">Resting on the bottom of the ocean are potato-sized nodules of valuable minerals that are more or less up for grabs. Multiple corporations and some nations are racing to build deep-sea drones that can withstand the extreme conditions at the seafloor and bring these 1 ... Show More
15m 57s
Sep 2022
Should we mine the deep sea?
The first license of its kind has been granted for deep-sea mining. It will be used to run early tests to see whether the seabed could be good place to harvest rare earth materials in the future. These earth minerals are what powers much of our modern technology, and the demand i ... Show More
26m 33s
Oct 2023
The energy transition needs minerals. Is deep sea mining the best way to get them?
The International Energy Agency last month held its first ever summit to discuss Critical Minerals and Clean Energy. It was attended by more than 50 countries, which came together to discuss ways to secure the critical minerals that are needed to make the transition to low-carbon ... Show More
53m 14s
Oct 2021
The Necessary Evil
<p>Mining is a complicated business. It’s destructive, it’s dangerous. But in order to get the lithium we need to power the energy transition, mining could be a necessary evil.</p><br/><p>In this episode, we go from protests in South America to a gold mine in Nevada, where we tak ... Show More
32m 25s
Sep 2022
Should we mine the deep sea?
The first license of its kind has been granted for deep-sea mining. It will be used to run early tests to see whether the seabed could be good place to harvest rare earth materials in the future. These earth minerals are what powers much of our modern technology, and the demand i ... Show More
53m 37s