Can Giant Robots Successfully Mine The Mile-Deep Seafloor?

Metal-rich "smoke" billows from a volcanic vent on the seafloor near the Galápagos Islands. UCSB/Univ S Carolina/NOAA/WHO

From Discover Magazine:

The economic collapse threatens the long-held dream of underwater mining.

After September 11, 2001, David Heydon was a dreamer in need of a dream, an entrepreneur in search of an enterprise. A native of Brisbane, Australia, he had transplanted himself to New York during the dot-com boom and had tried to flog a new kind of customer-relations software to airlines—an idea that did not survive the post-9/11 travel slump. Heydon slunk back to Brisbane. There he reconnected with Julian Malnic, an old friend from his student days at the University of New South Wales, and unexpectedly found himself on a whole new path.

Read more ....