China Plans To Mine the Yellow Sea Floor

eldavojohn writes "Details are limited but state media is reporting on $75 million being put into a new research facility in Qingdao, Shandong Province that will conduct research into mining the sea floor. From the article: 'Scientists believe sea beds at a depth of 4,000 to 6,000 meters hold abundant deposits of rare metals and methane hydrate, a solidified form of natural gas bound into ice that can serve as a new energy source.' The research center's first goal is to do surveying and exploration with a new submersible named 'Jiaolong' (a mythical aquatic Chinese dragon). Hopefully these quests yield energy resources to meet growing demand for resources like liquefied coal in China."

Comments

Paying the Cost to Be the Boss

[Doc Ruby]

If only the true costs of carbon pollution were built into the price of causing it, China's repressedly low labor costs couldn't govern the vast amount of pollution it generates.

The Tragedy of the Commons can be protected against by only government, not market, action.

Re:Paying the Cost to Be the Boss

[interkin3tic]

China is putting in more work to reduce pollution than anywhere else and luckily they didn't stop after the Olympics.

I thought they stopped most sources of smog only temporarily before resuming them after the games. And did they clean up their act anywhere besides Beijing? Because it's fine if they're trying to lower pollution in Beijing, but it's a big country. For those of us who don't live there, a coal plant 100 miles from Beijing isn't that much different than one in the very center.

Re:Paying the Cost to Be the Boss

[sznupi]

You have some extreme (in a bit literal sense of the word here) ideas about Chinese (and US, for that matter) societies...

Picking few convenient numbers for easiest target doesn't tell much, too (why won't you go with Germany? And generally, look at this graph - the source document for it / methodology includes to the fullest practical extent imports/exports of all types; this one shows the end ballance)

Though ultimetely what you're doing is a good sign, I guess; such type of slight dismissal could relate to some level of guilt...might go somewhere, eventually.

Re:Paying the Cost to Be the Boss

[clarkkent09]

The point is that in a purely free market as espoused by many libertarians, sans tax and regulation, they don't HAVE to pay for the external costs like pollution.

That is simply not true. Can you name some examples of those "many" libertarians who promote not having ANY taxes and regulation? Is Ayn Rand libertarian enough: http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/government.html The mainstream view of libertarians (not anarchists) is that you cannot have liberty for all individuals without government providing laws and law enforcement that protects all individuals from harm caused by others (in this case by pollution). That is the main (some would say the only) proper role of the government. There is nothing inconsistent about it. If you have anarchy, you cannot have liberty for everybody because the first person with more power than you can and probably will take your liberty away from you. Anarchy and liberty are incompatible.

Re:Paying the Cost to Be the Boss

[Anonymous Coward]

China is putting in more work to reduce pollution than anywhere else

I hope this is a fucking sarcastic joke?? China doesn't give a shit about pollution.

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China_water_crisis

"China is facing a water crisis that includes water shortages, water pollution and a deterioration in water quality. 400 out of 600 cities in China are facing water shortages to varying degrees, including 30 out of the 32 largest cities.... the south has abundant water, there is a lack of clean water due to serious water pollution. Even water-abundant deltas like the Yangtze and the Pearl River suffer from water shortages."

http://factsanddetails.com/china.php?itemid=391&catid=10&subcatid=66

"About one third of the industrial waste water and more than 90 percent of household sewage in China is released into rivers and lakes without being treated. Nearly 80 percent of China's cities (278 of them) have no sewage treatment facilities and few have plans to build any and underground water supplies in 90 percent of the cites are contaminated.

Water consumed by people in China contains dangerous levels of arsenic, fluorine and sulfates. An estimated 980 million of China’s 1.3 billion people drink water every day that is partly polluted. More than 600 million Chinese drink water contaminated with human or animal wastes and 20 million people drink well water contaminated with high levels of radiation. A large number of arsenic-tainted water have been discovered. China’s high rates of liver, stomach and esophageal cancer have been linked to water pollution.
"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environment_of_China

But careful, chineese official censors are right there!! "This article may be inaccurate in or unbalanced towards certain viewpoints"

Air quality in China is shit. Chinese tourist come over to places like Toronto, itself smoggy during summer, and wander how it is possible for the sky to be this blue!

http://www.cnn.com/2007/TECH/science/06/04/china.environment/

But then CNN or BBC is only Capitalist Propaganda eh??? I guess you never heard of Fox News :P

Re:Paying the Cost to Be the Boss

[Doc Ruby]

If only Teabaggers like you would stop with the strawman fallacies, like where you accused me of saying "the free market = anarchy". You said that.

Without government action, Chinese industry pollution causing climate change everywhere else isn't going to have any mechanism for compensation. You just cited Friedman in tort cases and taxation, which are government actions in response to complaints, not market actions.

In other words, your actions agree with me, even while you attack me with fallacies. Teabagger inventing enemies who don't exist simply to exert some aggression. Pointless nonsense indeed.

Re:Paying the Cost to Be the Boss

[instarx]

Social Security is a taxpayer funded pension with wealth redistribution components. Low income households get back 27% more income than they put in while middle income get back 5% more than they put in and high income get back less than they put in.

Not true. Poorer people don't live as long as rich people so the rich draw SS benefits much longer than poorer or middle class workers. That's a fact. It is also a fact that rich retirees end up drawing a higher percentage of benefits vs the amount they contributed because of their longer lifespans. Although it is true that while drawing benefits the rich don't draw in proportion to the amount they contributed, their longer lives more than make up for the difference. The rich cost us more in SS than the poor do.

Re:Paying the Cost to Be the Boss

[Doc Ruby]

Yes, in order to make that 40% above poverty line pension payout, people who don't need the pension don't get as much, and people who would starve and freeze without it get more. Meanwhile, the portion of the salary from which Social Security is deducted is capped at a relatively low amount, so really rich people who don't really need it still get it, but don't pay as much as those who do. Yes, there's some "wealth redistribution", so people don't starve and freeze to death when they're old the way they used to.

As for the borrowing from and repayment to Social Security, it's "co-mingled" is a way that's meaningless, except that it keeps a lot of America's debt dependent on Americans rather than foreigners. The notion that the money is sitting somewhere waiting for the day it is needed might be ridiculous, but it's your strawman; nobody else said so. The 50% total interest over 30-40 years is an extremely low interest, over a long time, reflecting the extremely low risk - high quality Treasuries. Exactly how pension funds should be invested. Unlike how you Teabaggers would have put it all into Wall Street starting on Bush's watch, and lost it. The Social Security fund pays for itself, and will continue to do so until at least 2037. If we just lifted the cap on the highest income from which Social Security is collected, it would continue to pay for itself. Or any of a number of other tweaks that are entirely possible, and far enough into the future that they'll have plenty of time to work.

But for some bizarre reason, you Teabaggers are hellbent on not getting back the Social Security money you've already invested. You're hellbent on starving and freezing grandma to death - after you spent a year terrorizing her with lies about healthcare reform "death commissions". It's easy to tell you're the people who sent America into a tailspin while you had power over our government and economy. But we pulled out of your death spiral, and we're not going back.

Minerals on the floor

[countertrolling]

There's also a bunch dissolved in the water. Distillation can serve a dual purpose. I still don't know why we dig salt mines with the great abundance right there in the oceans. Yeah yeah yeah... "It's the economy, stupid" Same reason we'd rather fight wars over water itself.

Re:Religious Propaganda

[Anonymous Coward]

Care to explain that one to us?

Methyl hydrate apocalypse averted?

[Omnifarious]

Some people are worried that global warming will trigger a methyl hydrate apocalypse in which the vast stores of methyl hydrate locked into ice at the bottom of many bodies of water begins to boil and release all the methane into the atmosphere causing a greenhouse effect that's much, much worse than the CO2 one we're causing for ourselves now.

I suppose that having the methyl hydrate mined and turned into CO2 is better than having it released as methane. But that is somehow little comfort.

Re:Religious Propaganda

[turgid]

The Jehovahs once brought round a leaflet containing exciting news of this new stuff that "scientists" had discovered on the ocean floor. The same "scientists" who all believe that god is a fact and believe in biblical creation.

This new fuel source was going to provide all our energy needs without mention of any damage to the environment and cost of extraction.

Mind you, when the earth is only a few thousand years old and the end of it is nigh anyway, why does it matter if you ruin the environment?

I believe China is getting a bit god-botherery these days.

Methylhydrate Geyser

[SgtChaireBourne]

The pressure is keeping it from changing to gas. If you lift it, the pressure drops and it goes to gaseous state. If enough water above it is displaced by anything including bubbles, then the pressure drops and it goes to gas.

There is also the matter of the amount of sediment that the mining, if done on the surface of the ocean floor will stir up and how many years it will take to settle. Fish and other sea life do it in minutes. Sea life does not like changes in turbidity and there is the potential for very far reaching problems lasting a very long time. Water takes about 400 years to go full cycle from surface to bottom to surface again.

Re:Unfortunately, this is what we do

[Bayoudegradeable]

You, too, are capable of some thought... Try this on for size... Population in the "not developed world" - How many iPods are those kids getting at Christmas? Elmo dolls? How many toys? What about XBox, PSP, Nintendo? Are they eating tons of beef and drinking gallons of milk produced in the "developed world"? What about the average caloric intake in the "not developed world"? Does it approach what fat American/European and developed Asian kids and grownups eat? How much energy goes into the production of their food compared to modern food? I would love to know exactly the ratios of child:resources in the developed and non-developed world. I think it's a fair guess (yup, that's all this is) that developed lifestyles over the span of a lifetime so far over-consume resources compared to those in the non developed world as to be scary. If I am wrong I would love to hear about it. (I didn't even get to construction, transportation, medicine, space exploration and defense spending) The non-developed world will not lead the way in consumption of resources until they become... the developed world. And then they join the all-you-can eat buffet. Calvin be damned (which he may be), it is going to be far beyond "interesting" in the next 50 years.

Jiaolong

[The Clockwork Troll]

What the media is not reporting is that "Jiaolong" is a 5,000 meter long tube that ferries disenfranchised peoples from the surface to the ocean floor. Unemployed manufacturing sector workers are put into protective suits and then get injected into the Jiaolong tube. They are whooshed to the bottom of the ocean floor, where they are instructed on pain of torture to their family to claw at the ocean floor. If they find hydrate or interesting metals, they are instructed to push a little orange button on their jumpsuit which triggers a collection mechanism in their gloves. If they are running short of breath, they push a little green button. Unfortunately the little green button is not wired to anything. When the clawer eventually expires, the vacuum sucks them out and they spend a little while floating to the top of the ocean whereupon their protective suit is reclaimed and the process is started anew.

Glomar Explorer?

[HonTakuan]

a cover for a deep-sea cable tapping sub?

Inaccurate title

[drmofe]

Should read: "China plans to tap fibre-optic cables on the sea floor".

Remember the "manganese nodules" cover story for Glomar Challenger from the 1970s?

This will require some pretty awesome robots!

[Dr. Spork]

Most people posting don't seem to acknowledge that there wouldn't be any people doing mining with five miles of water above them. This would all be done by autonomous robots. Quite honestly, I like the idea, as long as it doesn't pollute the water (I don't see why it should, if it's just the mechanical removal of stuff).

One reason why I love the idea of autonomous mining is because I want this sort of thing to happen on the moon. That ore, processed on the lunar surface, can be shot into orbit with a simple railgun and get used for whatever we want, like a permanent space station at a liberation point.

Debugging the technique in a hostile place on Earth sounds like a good idea to me.

I spend a lot of time in the developing world...

[Anonymous Coward]

Hi, I am in Peru right now, and I was in Bolivia before that, Brazil before that....

It is undeniably true that people in the west consume orders of magnitude more stuff than down here. It is also true that a lot of the environmental destruction happening here is to satiate consumer needs of the west. HOWEVER, it is important to note two things.

• First, while a lot of destruction is happening to produce western consumer goods, what is more damaging is what is happening to accommodate the exploding local population. Vast amounts of rainforest are being burned to make room for subsistence farming. I have seen this with my own eyes: the overwhelming majority of damage is not logging, it is slash-and-burn. Countries like Brazil and Bolivia dismiss environmentalists from the west, saying that they are only trying to develop as the west has done. But, what is going on is not development, it is the perpetuation of the same uncompetitive systems of production that makes these countries poor in the first place. As the way things stand now, it is the lack of efficiency that is so damaging, not the act of producing.
• Secondly, another problem is that a lot of countries are now beginning to attain western living standards for vast segments of their population without the accompanying concern for the environment that you see in the west. While it is true that the west does not have the amount of respect for the environment as it should, it is impossible to deny that if you build a power plant in Germany (or even the USA) it will produce as much less pollution than one built by the Chinese. Come down to the so-called third world some day. The place is trashed, and people don't care. Try as you might, you can't accuse the west of filling forests with used diapers, or of dumping raw sewage and industrial chemicals in the waterways. I worked on a project to try to clean up trash in Guatemala's Atitlan lake, and the locals laughed in our faces... a few months later a cyanobacteria problem closed the tourist industry in the lake and they stopped laughing. The thing is, you can generalize this attitude, and third-world pollution is just as mobile as that eminating from the west.

Sorry stud, but argue as you will, the west does not bear sole responsibility for this shit sandwich that we all have to eat, and it is legitimate for westerners to criticize China's growing penchant to pollute (and block efforts to curb greenhouse gasses).