You’re listening to Unite and Heal America on KABC 790. This is Matt Matt and your host, and that a great program coming at you. We’ve got Renee Grogan, who worked as works at the Impossible Mining company. And Renee is going to tell us about seabed mining, and what is being done in that area and educate the listeners a bit about how the seabed are being mined by different mining companies to get minerals from the bottom of the ocean.

So, Renee, thanks for being on our show. Thank you for having me. lovely to be here. Well, Renee, if you could tell us a little bit about your background and how you got into the field of seabed mining? Sure,

I started out as an environmental advisor in the terrestrial mining world, so traditional land based mining. And I looked after environmental compliance on mine sites for about 10 years, and then segwayed into the seabed industry where I was also looking at environmental compliance and development of regulations and management of regulations in the seabed area.

So when I moved from terrestrial to seabed mining, the industry was really at the very beginning. It hasn’t hasn’t got much further than that, to be honest, but the world was really looking at that at how to effectively mine the seabed without destroying the environment.

And that is still the focus for much of what the discussions are around today. So while the regulations are progressing, the main issue is how do we do this in an environmentally sustainable way?

Well, there are some they’re calling for a moratorium on seabed mining. And what’s your thinking as to why why shouldn’t we have a moratorium since it seems like it is an industry in its infancy, and the potential consequences of messing up our seabed and messing up our oceans? could be catastrophic? Why shouldn’t we be a little bit safer? And, and do a little more study before we go on to start mining the seabed?

That’s a really great question. And it really does get to the heart of where the challenges are with with seabed mining, as an industry. From my perspective, if you create a moratorium on the progress of seabed mining, then you will stifle investment into the very studies that need to be done. So studying the seafloor is very expensive, it’s very logistically challenging. And the reality is that the companies that are best funded to do this kind of study resource companies.

So if you put a moratorium on ceiling mining, then you will see that the investment in those companies dry up. And the studies that need to be undertaken are less likely to actually be done. So from my perspective, the the real priority is actually to raise the bar really significantly. So we have a pretty strong history as a as a humanity as a race, of of sort of having slow progress in relation to how we govern, particularly extractive industries.

But I also include extractive industries like fisheries in. So we’ve learned our lessons slowly over time, and we haven’t potentially regulated as hard or as robustly as we could have. I feel like we have an option in going to the seafloor to really raise the bar and say, Absolutely, this is an industry has that has the potential to do significant damage. So what we need to do is to create a standard, whereby companies cannot get past the first hurdle without having demonstrated two things from my perspective, firstly, that they really understand the environment on the seafloor when they’re proposing to extract and secondly, that they have developed an engineering solution that does not cause serious harm to the environment.

So this is something that I really feel it should be the focus. Certainly, it’s the focus from Impossible Mining perspective. But the concept of a moratorium or a pause on the industry, whilst we collect more data will not drive the kind of innovation we need to develop the technology, like the technology that Impossible Mining is developing to do this extraction in a way that does not cause extensive damage to the ecosystem. And that’s the outcome that we need.

So we need the investment in innovation, but we also need strong regulatory presence and strong regulatory enforcement, such that if you’re a company and you develop a system that will cause serious harm, much like broad scale dredging in the deep ocean is likely to cause serious harm. Then we need a regulatory framework that actually says no sorry, you’re not not gonna get approval to mining that way you need to come up with a better option.

Well, that’s all well and good, but I guess maybe a preliminary question is why seabed mining at all? Don’t we have the resources or the ability to mine, the earth and terrestrial mining to gather the minerals that we need from those sources? Why not do that?

Yeah, that’s another really great question. And it’s, it’s really important to have an understanding of a couple of things when I talk to people about where we’re at, as in our transition to both a green economy and a circular economy, because we want both of those things, and they’re slightly different. So a green economy is obviously a carbon neutral world where we’re no longer relying on fossil fuels, to provide us with energy.

And a circular economy is where we no longer need to extract minerals. So we which is absolutely ultimately where we want to be, unfortunately, those two, very misaligned from a supply and demand perspective. So to transition to a green economy, we need really vast resources of what we call critical metals in the industry. So that’s copper, nickel, cobalt, lithium, the things we need to develop the infrastructure, so the solar panels and the wind towers, but also the battery technology to store and transmit the energy, the resources that we have on land. There’s two problems with the first is that they are they’re being depleted.

The volumes of some of these critical resources just do not exist on land anymore in the volumes that we need in order to meet our targets, for instance, I saw one one document a little while ago that indicated that the terrestrial resources of cobalt are not sufficient even to achieve the United Kingdom’s goals for electrification. So firstly, yep, there’s not enough on land. And then secondly, the the terrestrial mining world, from my perspective, has a kind of free pass in this discussion in that the concept of just continuing to mine terrestrial resources is not without very significant impacts as well. And that’s, that’s the nature of the industry, for sure.

But it’s also related to the fact that the resources themselves are depleting. And so you have much more waste rock will what’s called waste rock, in in every mind, then you would have done 10 or 20, or 30 years ago. So you’re in very simple terms, you’re making a much bigger mess to mine the same amount of metals that you were mining 30 years ago. So when I talk about the concept of raising the bar, on seabed mining and standard of seabed mining, I actually extend that concept to the extractive industries in general. And that’s, that’s really where I see it went.

And it’s one of the things that I talk about, when we talk about a moratorium, I say that there shouldn’t, the discussion should actually not be about where you get your minerals from, it should be about how you get your minerals. And so if we’re going to raise the bar, which I absolutely think we should, on seabed mining, we also need to raise the bar on terrestrial mining.

Because we’re in the 21st century as a, as a humanity, we are innovating faster and more effectively than we ever have before. And I think now is exactly the right time to say, You know what, we do still need these metals for at least a couple of decades until we can achieve circularity or you know, recycling of everything. But if we’re going to continue to mine, under no circumstances, should we apply the standards that have been valid for the last 100 years, to the next 30 or two years.

So what I would love to see is a standard which which we refer to as responsible metals, which is really raising the bar on on the way that you extract metals, and that could be in the seat, or it could be on land. And what it refers to is it’s got really eight simple sort of checklists. It has things like not displacing communities, lots of terrestrial mines, displaced communities, not competing with other users of freshwater, because we know freshwater resources are becoming more precious, not destroying biodiversity, not destroying ecosystems in a widespread way.

If we’re not not producing toxic waste, that’s another massive one. If we could move the industry as a whole to a more responsible place, then I think as a as an outcome that would be much more effective. And we would be able to have a much more responsible conversation about how we extract metals until we get to that point where we no longer need to extract some.

But I think that leads me to think that we should be focusing more of our efforts on creating a hydrogen economy because in a hydrogen economy, you don’t need as much of the metals because you don’t need it. You’re not as reliant upon batteries for holding the electricity. And I think it is. To me, it’s a cleaner economy. And now that you’re saying that we absolutely have to do even more mining, to have an economy that’s powered by battery technology.

Well, then unless we get cleaner batteries, why not hydrogen? So I’m going to ask Rene to talk about that when we get back from our break. You’ve been listening to Unite and Heal America and KABC 790. This is Matt Matern, I’m your host. And our guest today is Renee Grogan from Impossible Mining. I need to see bet. So we’ll be back in just one minute.

You’re listening to the Unite and Heal America on KABC 790, I’m Matt Matern, your host and Renee Grogan is with us today, Renee is with Impossible Mining. And she’s we’re talking a little bit about seabed mining. And, Renee, just to tee this back up, you were talking about the limitations that we don’t have enough cobalt, for instance, to even sufficient for the UK to go to kind of their electrification goals. And I assume that means mostly electric batteries for electric power cars.

If we’re going to have that kind of limitation that we don’t have enough cobalt to do that, then obviously, we wouldn’t have enough to run the rest of the world on electric cars. So that that’s a pretty substantial problem. That’s why I said why not hydrogen instead of these electric power carbs? Can you respond to that?

Yeah, for sure. So the first thing I want to just remind listeners in relation to Cobalt is that that statistic I gave you about cobalt and supply relates to terrestrial cobalt. So there are actually very significant resources of cobalt on the seafloor, which is one of the reasons why the seafloor is is so topical right now.

So that’s a that’s a potential gap in the in a supply chain that can be filled by seafloor mining, if it’s done responsibly, but to the broader issue around, you know, what is the solution if we have this critical metals shortage, and and hydrogen, certainly we all know, can and should play a role in that. I think one of the things that that is being acknowledged slowly, as companies sort of look at the different options, and nations look at the different options for heading towards the green economy is that there is no one solution to this problem.

Because the problem is so vast, you know, we’re looking at transitioning the entire globe to green energy within the next 30 years or less than 30 years, if we’re to meet our targets in relation to the Paris Agreement, for example. And this is such a big problem, I don’t think we have ever faced a problem of this magnitude before in terms of the different solutions that will be required to work in tandem. So for instance, hydrogen had certainly has a role to play and and there are lots of applications where hydrogen is being prioritized.

One of the key issues that remains is that regardless of the battery that you’re producing, the infrastructure that you’re producing, so the car itself, or the wind tower, or the solar panel, or the transmission lines, they still require these quite vast amounts of critical metals. So the copper and the nickel, you know, anything that’s made out of stainless steel, anything that has copper tubing, copper wiring, or copper piping, is going to demand this kind of increased supply, at least for the next decade or two until we until we reach a circularity.

And so I think one of the one of the luxuries that we don’t have is kind of this simplistic approach that we might have taken in the past, you know, where we’ve said, Oh, fossil fuels are the answer, they are the answer to everything. and on we go, that was a that’s an old mentality, because the not only are the ESG, or environmental, social and governance concerns, bigger today than they’ve ever been.

But the problem itself is much larger. And even even when you take away some of the developed more developed nations that are a long way progress in their green journey, we still need to turn our minds to the developing world as well.

And you know, the development of both infrastructure in general, as well as green infrastructure in developing nations is also a huge priority and will also require a large volumes of metals. And traditionally, there’s been You know, less focus on the ESG outcomes, or the environmental and social outcomes of that kind of development, and more focus on targets.

And this is where something like the green economy and the circular economy and also things like the Sustainable Development Goals are causing us to have a broader conversation. It’s a much more complicated conversation.

And that’s the tricky part. It’s no longer easy. But it’s from my perspective, there’s a, there’s a whole bucket of solutions to this problem. And we need to put them all together in in the least impactful way.

But certainly, we do need to choose the right options to invest trillions of dollars to solve this problem. The question is, where should those trillions of dollars be spent? And I have a question in terms of an electric car versus say, a hydrogen powered car? What is the amount of metals, these special specialty metals that are required for a hydrogen vehicle as opposed to an electric car?

That is a great question. I can’t answer that question. I am not. Yeah, I’m not an expert in that space. But it is a good question. I think, I guess, I guess, to our listeners, will we will find that person, you know, next week or some following week? And we’ll try to answer that question. Because that’s obviously from what Renee is saying, you know, this is a, this is an important question. And it will be determinative, it was what is the best decision because if we’re going to run out of these metals, and we have to mine the seabed, we should be making that calculation as to which is more sustainable, and which requires less mining.

I, I agree with you, Rene, that we should be looking to get not only a green economy, but a circular economy in a circular economy, you don’t need to extract metal, and hydrogen is probably less extractive or has less needs as far as extraction, as opposed to an electric battery powered vehicles is that least is that a fair statement?

It’s uh, it is a little bit more complicated than that. But if you can, if you can bring an expert on to talk with your listeners about hydrogen in general, as a power supply, I think that’s a great idea. The other thing that I that I really think is, is a really positive thing for listeners, is just to start to think about the footprint that you have in general. So, you know, the question of a different car batteries is certainly a relevant one. But it’s also from my perspective, really useful for people to start to think about their footprint in general terms.

So this is something that we’ve kind of shied away from in the past. And and it’s because when I talk to other people about this, I often talk about the psychological sort of implications of something like a carbon footprint, because if you feel like you’re having a negative impact, but you don’t feel like you know how to fix that, or to contribute positively, then you’ll naturally kind of stop thinking about it, because it’s an uncomfortable place to be right.

Like if you have an iPhone, and you know, intrinsically that your iPhone contains metals that were mined, you know, with with vast human rights impacts, child labor, and things like that, or any kind of phone, then you’re, you’re less likely to, to really take hold of that issue, because you need your phone, right.

And also, you can’t do anything about the fact that there might have been human rights violations in that supply chain. So you’re you’re sort of your mindset is naturally attuned to try not to think about that. Whereas where we’re going today is that companies that produce things like phones are being required to take much greater interest and governance around things like human rights, but also environmental and social impacts. And so as a consumer, you do have an opportunity to make a difference, you know, you can vote with your wallet, you can choose to buy products that do have a lower impact.

And part of that process is just becoming aware and having a think about, well, what aspects of my life might have a larger footprint than I realized. And if I identify them, how might I make some changes in my life, or in my lifestyle that might have any positive impact on that? And I think that’s a really healthy and timely conversation.

I’m not opposed to people being reflective and trying to lower their individual impact. And I do think there’s a place in this conversation for it, though, many Hicks said and I tend to agree with them. Is that that is kind of industry’s propaganda for some time is to have the focus beyond the consumer and kind of shame us into thinking we’ve created these problems. And the truth of the matter is that no individual is going to accomplish the kinds of changes that are necessary to get to a circular economy, that’s going to require some governmental direction. And the government is going to make some choices about how we can move in what is hopefully the right direction.

For instance, California for many years has had laws related to pollution control of automobiles, those decisions were made by government and not by individuals, because no individual could move the car market, because basically, your neighbor is going to cheat the system. By buying the polluting car, you spend the extra money to buy a non polluting car, for the most part, there are too many people that are going to cheat the system. And, and the air would be unbreathable if we did not have regulations in California to reduce emissions.

So, you know, also, the government in the state of California has set emission free vehicle targets, and that has driven the industry and consumer towards the direction of having a cleaner environment here in California, that could not be done by individual choices. So I think that we need to really focus on the most important choices that can be made are going to be made by governmental entities, not by individuals, individuals are part of the puzzle, but until government aligns their goals and positions towards the outcomes that we need to attain, then individuals will be flagging in the wind, because any group of individuals just isn’t strong enough to change the entire tide of human development.

So you’re listening KABC 790. This is that Matern, your host of United heal America, we’re talking to Rene Grogan, it’s been possible mining and we’ll be back in just a minute to talk to Rene and love to hear her response to demine position and hopefully, we’ll hear hear something very interesting. So we’ll be back in just one minute.

You’re looking to unite to America on KBC, seven, it doesn’t matter and your host and get Renee Grogan from Impossible Mining here with us today. And Rene I kind of was stating my position or the position of many, which is that it’s really going to take government to change the direction on environmental standards and not private industry or not individuals, I should say, because it really is the government that can be the driver of enormous change, whereas individual will take it those minor changes will take decades, if not longer, to really have a substantial impact that we’ve got to move very rapidly if we believe the scientists be behind the reports that are coming out that global warming is, is a existential threat to humanity, which I believe that myself so kind of cutting back to your expertise, which is in mining on seabed there is a organization called the International Seabed Authority, the ISA. And my understanding is that they’re an arm of the UN, but somewhat less than fully regulated by the UN. And some would say a little bit open to corruption by the mining industry. What What would you say to that?

So the International Seabed Authority is the regulator. So it’s basically it takes the place of a government agency in what’s called areas beyond national jurisdiction, which listeners would know colloquially as the high seas. So once you are outside of your exclusive economic zone, or the waters that belong to or attributed to the United States, for instance, then you are in the high seas. And the the ISA or the International Seabed Authority was established under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea.

So it was born from a United Nations Convention, and it is set up as the regulator to regulate activities on the seabed in international waters. So its job is to do what in the domestic environment, a Department of Mines would do in terms of regulating the mining activity and the Department of Environment in terms of regulating environmental impact. The fact that you have both of those departments in one does bring some challenges, because those two departments clearly have slightly different mandates.

And the ISA is charged with being both of those departments, which can can be challenging The other concern or area of really important focus, from my perspective, is on implementation of regulations. So the ISA is in the process of finalizing the regulations for seabed mining in the areas beyond national jurisdiction. And that process has has been rather fraught. And there have been a lot of stakeholders with with concerns about that process. But my concern, my biggest concern is, is the way that these regulations will be implemented.

And that’s, I think, a challenge we have a lot of, unfortunately, we have a lot of precedent that shows that it’s really challenging to regulate in international waters. If you look at the fishing industry, for instance, we have pretty strong regulations around fishing in international waters, and what that should look like. And we also have a lot of difficulty enforcing those regulations for lots of reasons, you know, not just political, but also logistically, you know, it’s really hard to get to some of these places, they’re really remote. And they’re really challenging to, to police, I guess.

So the ISA does have a really challenging process ahead of it. From my perspective, this kind of does dovetail into your your earlier comment around the fact that governments must lead the way for sure I agree with you. But that it probably will to be most effective, become a multi pronged process, whereby you have, hopefully, really strong regulations, and really strong enforcement, although I’m not sure what that would look like at the moment.

But you also have an industry that is potentially being guided by other independent standards, that is being guided by consumer sentiments. And that is being guided even by you know, activism and social justice and the the role that the likes of you know, climate bodies are having these days in terms of influencing not only influencing the pathway that we take, but also raising awareness, so that the general public as well as the industry can understand, you know, where the risks are and where they think they should be aligned. So I want to give you just a really quick example, if we if we have time, which is of a mining company that did that. It’s Australian mining companies, Rio Tinto is its name. And it destroyed a very significant cultural heritage site a few years ago, and the there was a loophole in legislation and that that action did not have any governmental consequences. But what did happen was that the shareholders of that company said, I’m sorry, that’s completely unacceptable, and the CEO needs to go.

And so the CEO left the organization, as well as a couple of other senior executives. And the pressure that was placed on that company from a environmental and social standpoint did not come from the government, it actually came from the shareholders. And some of those shareholders were institutional when some of them were, you know, Joe Bloggs down the road, who cared enough to have a voice at the at the Annual General Meeting.

So again, like just exactly in the way that the transition to the green economy is a complex challenge. So is the way that reregulate and the way that we govern? Yes, absolutely. The the government’s should be leading from the top. And that is the kind of situation that we want to see. And we want to see really strong regulation and both in in forced and developed in response to the changing issues of the day. But I think there’s a there’s definitely a place for shareholders and industry and civil society to be a part of that dialogue as well. Well, certainly say that, yeah. Sorry.

Certainly, I agree with you that shareholders and individuals and companies should all be a part of this process. One thing that I will say is that the, the situation you were talking about the the cultural heritage site was destroyed, or certainly imperiled because of this company’s conduct, and its little comfort to the persons who are adversely affected by the loss of this cultural heritage site, which is all of us because all of humanity loses when our when our home, Mother Earth gets destroyed.

So we all lose in that situation. And having a CEO get booted from the organization is just cold comfort to me, I just I it doesn’t make me happy, because they still destroy the site, which may be impossible to restore. So. So that’s point number one. Point number two is the budget of the ISA, the International Seabed Authority and what kind of budget does it have to write You’re late, which dovetails to your point, which you made before, which is that it is challenging to police these remote areas and study these things and the environmental impact of these complex mining operations that have never really taken free of man and the history of the planet for the last 5 billion years, so now we’re messing with something that’s 5 billion years old.

And we don’t really know the consequence. But and something else that you said, which was you, you don’t know exactly how this strong enforcement is going to occur. And I don’t know how it’s going to occur with the limited resources of the ISA, but why don’t you speak to that? If you could start with the budget of the ISA regarding enforcing these rules on on mining companies?

Yeah, that’s, uh, you make some great points. And there’s, there’s a lot to unpack there. Let me take your first first and then come back to your second. So I totally agree with you the the concept of of the ramifications for a company like Rio Tinto, over the destruction of the dukan gorge caves is called comfort to the traditional owners in that area. What I think is important is that companies are being held to account in a way that they haven’t in the past, I totally agree that this needs to go way further, and that we need to change much more dramatically in order to protect the things that we as humanity value. I couldn’t agree with you more that I think that the extractive industry in general has a very steep hill to climb in terms of improving its performance. The the budget of the ISA is something that is a really long discussion, the the financial framework for extraction in the areas beyond national jurisdiction is still being finalized.

So the process for determining how much money will be available to the ISA and what the enforcement regime will look like, is still under discussion. And I hope that there is a long way to go in terms of progress on both of those issues. Before we have the regulations finalize, because we need a medium to do a lot more work in that space. And when I say we I obviously mean, we as humanity. And again, back to your point, yes, the government needs to take the lead on that. And in relation to the ISA that’s the 168 nations that have signed the Convention on the Law of the Sea. They they make up to the governing body, which is the ISA Council.

Yeah. So just getting back to the budget of the ISA, as far as you know, it has not been set and as far as the amount of money that they’re gonna have to regulate. seabed mining, correct? Yes, that’s right.

Okay, so you’ve been listening to KABC 790. This is Matt Matern, your host of Unite and Heal America, you’ve been talking to Renee Grogan of Impossible Mining and Renee is an expert in seabed mining works for a company called, like I said, Impossibl Minin. So we’ll be back in just a minute to ask Renee some more questions about the type of mining that her company is about to do and what steps they’re going to take to protect the environment. So we’ll be back in just one minute.

You’re looking to Unite and Heal America on KABC 790. This is Matt Matern, your host and talking to Rene Grogan of Impossible Mining. And Rene, what are the projects that your company is looking to do and, and the steps that you’re planning to take to protect the sea? When and if you get to go ahead to go ahead and do this?

Yeah, thank you for that question. Because that’s the that’s really our reason for being so Impossible Mining was born, basically from all of the concerns that we’ve talked about in the last half an hour or so this concept of that we have a critical metals shortage, and that the mining industry in general, both terrestrially and potentially on the seafloor has a pretty bad rap so far.

So I was approached to join Impossible Mining by a couple of entrepreneurs who basically looked at mining and said, You know what, this stinks, we’ve got to do better than this, which really excited me because that’s my that’s my reason for being. So we are developing underwater robotics that traveled down to the seafloor.

So the robots, they have artificial intelligence systems that allow them to detect and pick up nodules, which are these little rocks, they’re about the size of a potato, they just sit on the seafloor, they’re not connected, and so there’s no drilling or blasting or anything, you’re just picking them up. And rather than dredging and destroying the ecosystem on the seafloor, our robotics will hover above the seafloor, we will not touch the seafloor, and we’ll just pick up the rocks one by one.

So everything that lives on the seafloor and in the set cement that is not attached to the rock will be left intact. And that’s where the bulk of the biodiversity in these really deep oceans exists. The other part of the technology is that the remote sensing and the artificial intelligence will detect those rocks that have something growing on them, which might be a deep ocean coral, or it might be a sponge.

Or it might be you know, habitat for lobster or something is residing on that nodule, or that rock, then it will be left behind the system will automatically exclude it. And we’ll leave it in place so that the biodiversity that’s attached to that rock will remain intact. At the same time, the robots are capable of leaving behind a percentage of the rocks as habitat for everything that lives down there. And we’re working with scientists to try and work out firstly, what that number is, what percentage of the rocks should we leave behind?

And what sort of patterns should they be left behind it because the obviously, you know, the world is not a straight line. And the the ecosystems need certain islands and connections of rocks on the seafloor in order to promote the healthy ecosystem function. So we are aiming to show the world that you can extract or you can harvest these rocks from the seafloor, whilst keeping the ecosystem intact, in a way that is much more responsible than any other form of mining anywhere in the world, on land or in water. And that this is the kind of innovation that the mining industry should be forced into through regulations.

So for instance, the ISA and the other regulators in this space, have a requirement to ensure that mining does not cause serious harm. We believe that what we’re developing is the only option. So far, it might not be the only option in general. And certainly we’re supportive of all kinds of innovation, even if it’s competition. But right now, we believe that what we’re developing is the only way that you could harvest minerals for the green economy in a way that does not seriously impact on the ecosystem and the environment.

So we are aiming to show firstly, that it’s possible, because it’s pretty hard technology to develop. And secondly, that it can compete economically, with all of the other forms of mining both on land and and in the ocean, that others have put forward, you know, if we can do this responsibly, and it can be just as economically viable as a form of mining that destroys the environment. What we ultimately hope is that the governments will say, You know what, you’re not allowed to destroy the environment anymore, you have to do it in a way that protects it.

So well, that sounds all well and good. I just, I obviously have questions. What’s the status of your project? When will it be ready to actually launch? Where will you make mining? What minerals? Will you be mined?

That’s a lot of questions. So we are developing proof of concept at the moment. So the first the first step is to develop the robotics to be able to do everything they need to do, but in shallow water. And the reason we do it in shallow water first is just for cost. Because anything that needs to go to the depths of the ocean becomes really expensive. So when you’re developing proof of concept, you do it in shallow water for us. So that’s our first objective.

And we were hoping to achieve that proof of concept this year. And then we would be looking to simply duplicate all of that technology, but for the deep ocean. So there’s not a there’s not a huge amount of change required. But it’s a it’s a cost basis in terms of developing the prototype that can go down to the depths where these nodules occur. And then we would be looking to test to test a deep ocean prototype in about the middle of next year. Impossible Mining does not have any tournaments, which is like a mining lease or a mining license.

So what we’re doing is developing the technology to enable companies that do have those tournaments to to work with us to mined sustainably. So we will be that we will be the company that brings the technology to the industry. In a similar way that has happened in the mining industry before where you have companies that have developed the technology to do the mining and then taking that to market. What we would like to see ultimately is every seabed mining company using our technology, because that would mean that we have influenced the industry to the extent that it becomes more responsible and more environmentally caring than or safe than any other form of seabed mining.

So if we could influence the industry to to use our technology, which we call selective pharmacy over some of the options that are also on the table like like broad scale dredging, then we would consider that we have been successful. But the two things that I want to say sorry, is that yeah, it’s really hard. This is really tricky technology to develop. And this goes back to the concept of where you innovate and where you spend the money and we I believe that by harvesting, so nodules, these rocks that I referred to have cobalt, nickel, and copper and manganese.

So they’re multi. They’re a multinational deposit, which makes them potentially attractive for for the green economy. But it’s, as I said a couple of times already, this is just one part of the solution. At no stage, would we ever consider that this should take the place of increased focus on investment in circularity and recycling. In fact, we’re also developing mineral processing technology or refinery technology that is carbon neutral and has no toxic waste and could also be applied to the recycling of metals.

So where we’re also sort of working to support the recycling industry, and to promote the circular economy, because as I said, at the very start, we know that we need to mine right now. But we want just as much as everyone to get to a point where we have circularity, and we’re no longer required. And at that point, we become a company that simply refines metals as part of the recycling process. And from my perspective, that would be a pretty exciting endpoint.

Well, certainly that would be exciting. Now, in terms of your company, are they in any way seeking a mining license? And then also regarding the cost of what it’s taken to develop? The the technology that you have regarding the robots and the AI? What is it? What does it cost the company to do this? And what is it going to take in order to fully roll it out based upon your projections at this point in time?

So the first the first question first, at this stage, we are completely focused on the technology. So we we are not looking for a mining lease at the moment, we are 100% focused on getting the technology to market and being able to supply those organizations or companies that do have mining licenses with this technology. So that’s our that’s our main focus.

And at the moment, that’s that’s all we’re focusing on. In terms of the cost to develop it, we have, we have investors at the moment at what we call the seed phase. So the early stages of the company, and they have invested in us to develop the proof of concept, technology for what I’ve described to you, both from the harvesting side of things, the robotic side of things, as well as the mineral processing side of things.

Once we’ve proven that technology, at the concept level, then for sure, we will need significant investment in order to scale this up and take it to market. And that’s really where where the concept of the moratorium comes back to the discussion that if there’s if there’s stronger support for moratorium, then the concept of investment in some of the solutions that we believe are really responsible, is likely to dry up. And that’s why we were really strong in our advocacy for Responsible innovation and investment in innovative solutions, rather than a kind of stop work order.

But certainly, as you said, the potential impact of broad scale dredging of the ocean floor, which is basically what other companies are doing and have done or plan to do, can be devastating to the ocean.

So certainly a moratorium on that type of mining would be reasonable when you say, and this is where this is where the concept of a really strong regulation comes into play. If you have a regulation that says, You know what, you’re not allowed to do that, okay, you’re allowed to extract resources in a responsible way. And if you can’t do it responsibly, then you’re not going to get a license. And that’s exactly what I think we should have.

Well, so where are we at in terms of having that occur? Because it looks like that the ISA, the International Seabed Authority is kind of in the pocket of these mining companies that are willing to do broad scale dredging to extract minerals. Is that Is that a fair statement? Or am I off base?

It’s very difficult to to work out right now, from my perspective, where the ISA will land on this, but certainly the pressure that’s faced that’s facing them now to to make a clear stand on the fact that broadscale habitat destruction should be banned. That pressure is mounting every day. And that’s what I would like to see is the pressure results in a clear decision that technology that causes broad scale destruction of the safe flow is banned.

So how can our listeners engage with the powers that be in order to put some pressure on the ISA to develop stronger regulation? How is this possible?

So there are some ways that that listeners can engage in terms of being able to comment On drafts of lations, when they’re when they’re made public by the ISA. And certainly that’s something that I would encourage. And you can do that as an individual, or you can do that through through an organization or an NGO.

And the other thing that and you can go to the isas website to to find out more about that process, it’s isa.org dot j m, I think you can check that for me. The other thing I would really encourage listeners to do is to continue the discussion and to learn more about the fact that there are so many options available to us. And that saying no to deep sea mining may not be the most appropriate one. But saying no to broad scale, environmental destruction certainly is.

And this dialogue is something that I think we really want to promote amongst your listeners amongst civil society, so that everybody is has a chance to be part of the conversation and has a chance to learn more, which is ultimately going to help us in our in our journey along this path.

Well, Renee, I appreciate your coming on the program and sharing with the listeners and me the the importance of this issue as well as some of the technical details and as we educate ourselves on how to promote a cleaner, greener economy and, and ultimately one that is circular. I may not agree with you entirely.

But I certainly appreciate the efforts that your company is taking to to improve the potential of mining in an ethical, safe way that’s environmentally, at least more friendly than some of the alternatives out there. And that is a reasonable question to ask is what is the least invasive, the least destructive method of getting these metals?

And then of course, the question I posed earlier, which is, what method or technology use uses the least of these metals, because if we can use a technology that takes that requires less metal, then we don’t have to do as much mining so then we don’t have to destroy as much of our environment. That’s certainly certainly a question worth asking.

And listeners, stay tuned for our next week’s program where we will ask experts these very questions to get to the bottom of this so that we can be better informed citizens and speak out to make the changes that will make our environment a cleaner one. So, Renee, again, thank you and do keep in touch with us moving forward.

Thank you very much for having me. It’s been a pleasure talking to you.