Green light for Scandinavian Ocean Minerals – Exploration of the mineral deposits in the Bothnian Bay has been granted!
Scandinavian Ocean Minerals has been granted an exploration permit from the Swedish Ministry of Climate and Enterprise. The background is the mineral deposits located in two areas in the Bothnian Bay.
"The permit gives us the opportunity to take the next step in our vision of creating the conditions necessary for a fossil-free society!" says Peter Lindberg, CEO of Scandinavian Ocean Minerals.
An exploration permit for sampling the mineral deposits, which consist of poly-metallic nodules has now been granted. The total recoverable amount of nodules in the Bothnian Bay is calculated to approximately 20 million tonnes. Once the business is fully operational, the goal is that approximately one million tonnes of nodules will be extracted annually. This business paves the way for a new and unique industry for Sweden: a green, offshore industry which reconciles climate benefits, commercial interests, and job creation.
"The fact that we have now been granted permission to explore the Bothnian Bay is an important political signal. The purpose of the business is to increase Sweden's and Europe's self-sufficiency in terms of innovation-critical minerals including those needed for the production of batteries and semiconductors,” explains Peter Lindberg.
Minimal environmental impact
The studies, which have now been approved by the Ministry of Climate and Enterprise, will ensure that future harvesting of the minerals can be carried out in a sustainable and environmentally-friendly way. To succeed, Scandinavian Ocean Minerals is developing a technology that enables gentle uptake, so-called harvesting, of the nodules in a circular process which returns oxygenated water to the bottom. The method is unique and should not be confused with conventional land mining or deep sea mining.
"The nodules are extracted using a gentle technique. You could say that we harvest the sea floor with our method, which has less environmental impact than conventional mining," says Bengt Simonsson, research manager at Scandinavian Ocean Minerals.
The method can help the Baltic Sea to recover
The method of harvesting nodules can also be used to help restore the Baltic Sea, where the situation with oxygen-free and polluted sea floor is acute. By removing the polluted bottom-sediments the source of eutrophication is diminished and simultaneously the sea floor is oxygenated. From the removed sediments different products can be produced such as: green carbon and silicon (Si), important for fossil-free steelmaking, semi-conductors, electronics- and solar cell industry.
The exploration permit allows for bottom-samples to be taken at 25 different points within the operational areas, although this will not include significant uptake of nodules. In the two areas, approximately 450 km2, it is expected that 6-9 million tonnes of poly-metallic nodules will be found. The nodules consists of 27 different minerals and 90 percent of the mineral content can be extracted. In addition to high levels of pure iron, manganese, silicon and phosphorus, there is, also enough cobalt to reduce Sweden's import needs by 70 percent annually. The project increases EU:s degree of self-sufficiency in innovation-critical minerals and reduces the need for imports from authoritarian states (European critical raw materials act).
Peter Lindberg, CEO SOM AB
peter.lindberg@som-ab.se, +46(0)73-617 95 20
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On theBothnia Bayseafloor lies small potato-sized lumps – nodules – that contain minerals. In theBaltic Sealies sediments.
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Via an air-lift technique, developed by Scandinavian Ocean Minerals, the seafloor is gently harvested for nodules or bottom sediment.
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On board the ship, nodules are filtered or, if sediment centrifuged
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Water and material that is not used is returned directly to the seafloor, which becomes oxygenated in the process.
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Nodules and sediment are transported to land where nodules are refined into, among other things, manganese, iron, silicon (used for batteries, solar cells and semiconductors) while sediment becomes biogas, hydrogen gas or green coal (used for fossil-free steel) .