Deep sea mining for rare earths is pie in the sky despite Donald Trump’s decree and Japan’s initial charge

The Australian-led company at the forefront of Donald Trump’s expedition to hoover up coveted minerals from the seabed has ruled out looking for rare earth elements. The US President last week signed an executive order aimed at fast-tracking deep sea mining to shore up his country’s supply of critical minerals, including the bundle of 17 chemically-similar elements labelled as rare earths. “The executive order prioritises US leadership in seabed mapping and mineral exploration, ensuring reliable access to critical minerals like manganese, nickel, cobalt and rare earth elements,” the US Department of Commerce stated. Deep sea mining involves a vacuum-like device sucking up nodules found on the ocean floor. These poly-metallic nodules are then processed to unlock the mineral bounty they contain. The Metals Company, led by Queenslander Gerard Barron, has been the biggest beneficiary of Mr Trump’s policy — its share price on the Nasdaq has more than doubled within the past month. TMC on Tuesday lodged the first application — and the only one to date — seeking the Trump administration’s permission to mine the ocean floor. The Canadian-domiciled explorer is eyeing a vast stretch of Pacific Ocean between Australia and the US. Media outlets at home and abroad have trumpeted TMC’s trailblazing deep sea mining venture as the focal point of the US President’s recent challenge to Chinese dominance of the rare earths market. But a spokesman for TMC poured cold water on that theory. “We’re not seeking to develop rare earths, rather base metals like nickel, cobalt, copper and manganese,” he told The West Australian. Rare earth elements are used extensively in high-tech military and medical equipment, making China’s stranglehold of the supply chain a concern for the US and allies. The Albanese Government last week unveiled a plan to build a $1.2 billion critical minerals stockpile centred around rare earths. The Western World’s two key producers of rare earth products — Perth’s Lynas Rare Earths and Las Vegas’ MP Materials — are looking to build their customer base outside of China, predominately in Japan, amid trade tensions between Washington and Beijing that has prompted the Middle Kingdom to further tighten its grip on the opaque market. Japan was leading the way in the Western World on the deep sea mining front, but its plans are looking increasingly unlikely to become reality anytime soon. The Nippon Foundation and the University of Tokyo in July claimed to have found 200 million tonnes of nodules containing “rare metals” on the ocean floor near a far-flung island nearly 2000km south-east of Tokyo in the Pacific Ocean. Large-scale extraction of the modules was originally targeted by March next year. However, that timeline was shredded sometime in the past few months following fierce environmentalist opposition within Japan. “At the Nippon Foundation, we believe that before considering the development of seabed mineral resources, it is essential to first understand the environmental impact,” a spokeswoman for the foundation said. “Therefore, we now plan to conduct an environmental impact assessment as a first step. “The assessment will be conducted carefully over the course of several years.” Greenpeace has long been a vocal critic of deep sea mining and on Wednesday called on Australian political parties to support a moratorium. “Now is the time for all Australian political parties, including Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Opposition Leader Peter Dutton, to set themselves apart from Trump and publicly and strongly support a moratorium on deep sea mining, and be a good neighbour to Pacific nations,” Greenpeace Australia-Pacific head of nature Glenn Walker said.