NACROM

North American Consortium for Responsible Ocean Mining

“History’s Largest Mining Operation is About to Begin”
The Atlantic Magazine, January 2020

mission

The NACROM proposition is that seabed mining of polymetallic nodules will commence, at some point, in some way, regardless of how NACROM members may personally feel about that. The potential financial awards are too great, and, for the first time in history, a claim can be made that a mining operation will be a net positive for the planetary ecosystem. NACROM neither advocates for nor refutes this claim.

NACROM’s purpose is to explore, share and discuss how nodule mining can be achieved with minimum or even zero environmental harm to the seabed and larger marine ecosystem. NACROM is at the very beginning of its mission and welcomes new members from industry, academia, and the general public.

first case study - blue swarm

Founding member Pliant Energy Systems begins the conversation with a blue swarm concept. The predominant nodule mining methodology today is shown below and compared to Pliant Energy’s proposed methodology.

The conventional crawler methodology places all eggs in two large, very expensive baskets. The first being the single-point-of-failure crawler, the second being the single-point-of-failure pumped riser. The autonomous swarm methodology distributes risk among multiple baskets. Whereas a single bolt in the caterpillar tracks of the crawler may halt operations, the swarm method allows several robots to fail without interrupting operations. The swarm method even introduces the possibility of swapping-out nodules for low-value rocks, maintaining a substrate for sessile marine organisms to attach themselves and grow.

Pliant Energy proposes that recent and emerging advances in AI such as machine-learning, machine-sensing, and autonomous controls make this a robotic task within reach. Robots will soon be deployed to pick ripe fruit without bruising in a cluttered three dimensional environment. By comparison, identifying metallic objects that do not bruise on a two dimensional plane is a far easier task. Since there will be no humans around, there is no concern over injuries from human-robot-interactions, a concern that is slowing the roll-out of autonomous systems on land.

Why C-Ray robots? Characteristics of Pliant Energy’s next generation C-Ray platform include a very high static thrust/Watt, instantaneous thrust and high maneuverability. Compared to state of the art propeller-driven vehicles, this translates into more nodules collected in less time with less energy. Pliant Energy thrusters will also produce less sediment disturbance. Pliant Energy recognizes that extensive collaboration will be required to achieve the vision shown in their rendering below, and that other platforms besides C-Ray may also be effective.

The Beginning of Something Greater

Seabed mining has the potential to be the catalyst that pushes autonomous robots into a new era. It takes deep pockets to advance a new technology into ubiquitous usefulness. The US government in particular has traditionally played this role, and is doing so today by funding and supporting marine robotics development in a number of ways. Motivated by profit, the undersea oil and gas industry has also funded the development of marine robotics. The nascent seabed mining industry has the potential to light the fuse that funds the development of mass produced, low-cost robotic platforms incorporating computer vision, autonomy, swarming and other AI advancements.

NACROM proposes that autonomy’s greatest value will be realized by machines performing tasks humans can not easily do, in environments where humans cannot easily go.

Pliant Energy proposes that technology developed for autonomous ocean mining can be transferred to the application of important missions closer to shore. One such mission is the re-planting of seagrass beds on the massive scale required for coastal habitat restoration and carbon sequestration. Another is autonomous hunting of invasive species such as the lionfish currently devastating US Atlantic coastal waters. Another is the harvesting of scallops without seabed-dragging trawlers.

To quote Pietro Filardo, Pliant Energy’s founder and CEO: “The environmental and technical challenges of nodule mining present marine roboticists with an opportunity to lead a paradigm shift towards the use of multiple semi-autonomous agents to execute large-scale operations”.

News

B. Pietro Filardo, CEO of founding NACROM member Pliant Energy Systems, presented at the 2020 Underwater Minerals Conference, the world’s largest gathering of ocean minerals stakeholders. The title of Mr. Filardo’s presentation was Environmentally Benign Nodule Extraction Method Using Swarm Robotics, The twenty minute presentation may be viewed below or here.