Deep Sea Mining: A Responsible Approach to Resource Extraction with Oliver Gunasekara
Jun 6, 2024
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Oliver Gunasekara, CEO of Impossible Metals, discusses the innovative approach to deep-sea mining for battery metals without harming marine ecosystems. They explore the economic factors, regulatory challenges, and advancements in robotics for sustainable resource extraction. The podcast also highlights the environmental benefits and career advice in climate tech solutions.
Deep-sea mining offers a sustainable alternative to land mining for critical battery metals.
Robotic technology in deep-sea mining minimizes environmental impact by avoiding disturbance to marine life.
Deep dives
Oliver Gunasagrand's Motivation for Climate Tech
Oliver Gunasagrand, the founder and CEO of Impossible Metals, shifted his focus to climate tech after experiencing the devastating wildfires in San Francisco in 2020. This catalyzed his decision to venture into a climate-focused company, leading to the creation of Impossible Metals with a goal to mine battery metals from the ocean floor with minimal environmental impact.
Importance of Ocean Mining in the Energy Transition
The shift to electrification for energy needs necessitates increased demand for battery metals like nickel, cobalt, copper, and manganese. With the challenge of meeting this demand sustainably, ocean mining emerges as a crucial alternative to traditional land-based mining. The use of underwater robotic technology by Impossible Metals aims to access these critical metals efficiently.
Environmental Concerns in Current Mining Practices
Traditional mining methods on land pose significant environmental and social challenges, including deforestation, pollution, and social impacts like hazardous working conditions. By transitioning to deep sea mining, companies like Impossible Metals aim to reduce these negative impacts by harvesting metals from areas with minimal biodiversity and human population.
Innovative Robotics for Responsible Deep Sea Mining
Impossible Metals' robotic technology employs AI-driven underwater vehicles equipped with multiple arms to pick up polymetallic nodules from the seabed floor. By utilizing advanced sensors and AI for life detection, the robots can avoid disturbing marine life and ensure targeted collection of critical battery metals, offering a more environmentally friendly alternative to traditional mining practices.
Welcome to this episode of Hardware to Save a Planet. Our guest today is Oliver Gunasekara, Co-Founder and CEO of Impossible Metals Inc., a company focused on responsible seabed mining to drive a transition to circularity in mining.
Join us as we discuss the controversial topic of deep-sea mining and its potential impact on the environment. Oliver shares his personal journey to climate tech and explains their innovative approach to collecting battery metals from the ocean floor without harming marine ecosystems. They discuss the economic factors, regulatory aspects, and challenges involved in deep-sea mining.
Oliver is a business leader with thirty+ years of experience that encompasses three major technology trends: mobile computing, cloud computing, and multimedia technologies. He is a three-time Founder, two-time CEO, Investor, and advisor in DeepTech / ClimateTech and an early employee at ARM.
Hardware to Save a Planet is handcrafted by our friends over at: fame.so
Previous guests include: Peter Reinhardt of Charm Industrial, Carlos Araque of Quaise, Noah McQueen of Heirloom, Areeb Malik of Glacier, Jeff Satwicz of Bigbelly, Abe Schneider of Natel Energy, Insiya Jafferjee of Shellworks, Paul Gross of Remora, Erika Boeing of Accelerate Wind and Daniel Betts of Blue Frontier.
If you have an interesting hardware solution to the climate crisis and would like the opportunity to share this with our audience, please complete this Guest Application form: https://fame.so/syn
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