A giant storehouse of metals that could fulfill the environmental promise of electric cars is buried at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean. retrieving all those metals may itself badly damage the environment. Natalie Kitroff spoke with our colleague, Eric Lipton, about how a mining company and a regulator are balancing billions of dollars in profits against the future of the ocean floor.
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.
A giant storehouse of the necessary resources sits at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean. But retrieving them may, in turn, badly damage the environment.
Guest: Eric Lipton, an investigative reporter for The New York Times.
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