Sustainable Deep-Sea Harvesting Robots

Impossible Metals is a Canadian engineering start-up and recently, it made headlines with its innovative robot that can reportedly harvest deep-sea metals like cobalt and nickel—materials necessary for the manufacturing of electric vehicle batteries, for example—in sustainable ways. Impossible Metals completed its first proof of concept in shallow waters in Canada's Georgian Bay. However, there is still worry from scientists that no matter what we do, deep-sea mining will always have a harmful effect on the environment. The worries are well-founded as deep-sea mining is not a widespread practice yet it is "on the verge of becoming a reality." Concerns about loss of biodiversity and pollution are some of these worries. Impossible Metals, however, says that it is working on a design solution to "minimize this problem."

Image Credit: Impossible Metals