All of which raises the question: Is Law of the Sea Treaty, as critics contend, a nefarious global socialist experiment conferring on the UN the power to control and redistribute a vast swath of the world's resource wealth, or an impenetrable bureaucratic shield to ensure no one ever extracts so much as an ounce of kilogram of that wealth? Thus far, it's been the latter: In its 17 years of existence, the International Seabed Authority has disbursed exactly zero dollars, euros, rubles or renminbi in mining royalties. Having succeeded in privatizing the risk while socializing the reward, the world is still waiting for its first deep-sea mine.
Thus far, the leading private-sector deep-sea metals miner has set its sights on a project off the coast of Papua New Guinea, but the claim sits within that nation's Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) - a boundary that extends 200 nautical miles off each nation's coastline - not in international waters. As a result, approval for mining resides with the government of Papua New Guinea, not the UN's lords of the sea in Jamaica.
Plus, the project calls for drilling at a seabed depth of around one mile, not double or triple that depth as in the case of the Pacific's Rare Earths. Even so, the going will be slow: As one indicator of viability, in the weeks prior to the Rare Earths announcement, the company pulled the plug on a private stock placement, citing "weak financial market conditions."
Turning back to the story that sparked the metals sea quest, in the case of bringing a trove of Rare Earths up from the undersea muck, it's worth noting that a deep-sea mining rig thousands of kilometers from land would need its own power source. Wind power or solar would do nicely; ironically, either one would require Rare Earths to function. So either we ask China for the raw materials supply to diversify our raw materials supply - or we'd best get busy developing new resources on dry land, or at most, compared to open ocean depths, in the global kiddie pool that is each nation's EEZ.
Of course science marches on, and our knowledge on how to economically extract resources while minimizing environmental impact will increase, as it has without pause for the past half-century and more. So when the technical folks work out the deep-sea details, UN authorities in Kingston, Jamaica will be ready and waiting. Until we navigate that process, an unknown portion of our planet's mineral wealth is destined to remain LoST at sea.
