Technology Opens Promise, Perils Of Ocean Mining

"We want to be cautious about concluding, in effect, that all our problems are solved. But clearly there's a possibility of significant quantities of resource there," said Rod Eggert of the Colorado School of Mines.

High demand for metals has fueled interest in deep ocean mining, as land-based resources get stretched and need increases in nations such as China and India, which have growing economies but relatively few natural resources. The projects cost hundreds of millions of dollars just to get started, and widespread ocean mining is years away. But new technology has investors seeing possibilities.

The first full-scale deep ocean mining project is being run by Canada-based Nautilus Minerals Inc., which is negotiating to mine an area about 1,600 meters (5,249 feet) deep off Papua, New Guinea, and hopes to be operating by 2011 or 2012. The project is piggybacking on technology developed by oil companies for deep water drilling, said Scott Trebilcock, Nautilus's vice president of business development.

Deposits would be extracted by 180-ton, remotely operated machines that oil companies developed to dig trenches for pipelines. The material is pumped in a mix of sea water to a ship on the surface, then pumped down so that the highly acidic water doesn't kill surface level sea life.