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Now, Chelsea, I know we're used to the doom and gloom kind of fringy minis coming from me.

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I tend to think of them not as doom and gloom or pessimistic, but just information that needs to

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be conveyed, which is like the one topic I have. I think this one is less doomy and gloomy,

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but there may be an implication of doom gloom stuff in it. So let's just go into this.

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Not quite sure how to take that. Yeah, we'll see. We'll see what you think when we're done.

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Okay, so this comes from the BBC. It was published on July 22, 2024, written by Victoria Gill.

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Title, Oxygen Discovery defies knowledge of the deep ocean. What? We'll read it.

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Scientists have discovered what they call dark oxygen being produced in the deep ocean,

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apparently by lumps of metal on the sea floor. About half of the oxygen we breathe comes from

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the ocean. Before this discovery, it was understood that it was made by marine plants

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photosynthesizing, something that requires sunlight. Here at depths of five kilometers where no sunlight

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can penetrate, the oxygen appears to be produced by naturally occurring metallic nodules, which

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split seawater, H2O, into hydrogen and oxygen. Several mining companies have plans to collect

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these nodules, which marine scientists fear could disrupt the newly discovered process and damage

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any marine life that depends on the oxygen they make. I was just thinking, and it's just sitting

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there not being mined. Yeah, exactly. Those fools. Surely he can't be doing that.

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Quote, I first saw this in 2013, an enormous amount of oxygen being produced at the sea floor

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in complete darkness. I just ignored it because I'd been taught you only get oxygen through

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photosynthesis. Explains lead researcher Professor Andrew Sweetman from the Scott's Association for

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Marine Science. Eventually, I realized that for years, I had been ignoring this potentially

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huge discovery. He and his colleagues carried out their research in an area of the deep sea between

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Hawaiian Mexico, part of a vast swath of seafloor that is covered with these metal nodules. The

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nodules form when dissolved, metals in seawater collect on fragments of shell or other debris.

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It's a process that takes millions of years. And because these nodules contain metals like

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lithium, cobalt and copper, all of which are needed to make batteries, many mining companies

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are developing technology to collect them and bring them to the surface. But Professor Sweetman

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says the dark oxygen that they make could also support life on the seafloor. And this discovery,

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published in the journal Nature Geoscience, raises new concerns about the risk of proposed deep

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sea mining ventures. The scientists worked out that the metal nodules are able to make oxygen

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precisely because they act like batteries. If you put a battery into seawater, it starts fizzing,

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explained Professor Sweetman. That's because the electric current is actually splitting seawater

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into oxygen and nitrogen, which are bubbles. We think that's happening with these nodules in

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their natural state. Like a battery in a torch, he added, you put one battery in by torch, they

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mean a flashlight. Just so you know, that's British for flashlight. We're just gonna say what

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language are we reading? Yes. I think Scottish might be British. But who knows? Who knows? You

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put one battery in, it doesn't light up, you put two batteries in, you've got enough voltage to

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light up the torch. So when the nodules are sitting at the seafloor in contact with one another,

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they're working in unison like multiple batteries. The researchers put this theory to the test in

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the lab, collecting and studying potato sized metal nodules. Their experiments measured the

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voltage on the surface of each metallic lump, essentially the strength of their electric current.

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They found it to be almost equal to the voltage of a typical AA sized battery. This means they

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say that the nodules sitting on the seabed could generate electric current large enough to split

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or electrolyze molecules of seawater. The researchers think the same process, battery powered oxygen

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production that requires no light and no biological process could be happening on other moons and

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planets creating oxygen rich environments where life could thrive. That took a turn from what I

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thought the article was about. Yeah, I know. They've really not talked about the mining at all.

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I know. I thought it was going to be about mining. Yeah. The Clarion Clipperton Zone,

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where the discovery was made, is a site already being explored by a number of seabed mining

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companies. Here we go. Which are developing technologies to collect the nodules and bring

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them to a ship at the surface. The US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration at OAA

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has warned that the seabed mining could, quote, result in destruction of life and the seabed

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habitat in the mined areas, that quote. More than 800 marine scientists from 44 countries have signed

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a petition highlighting the environmental risk and calling for a pause on mining activity.

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New species are being discovered in the deep ocean all the time and it is often said that we know more

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about the surface of the moon than we do about the deep sea. And this discovery suggests that the

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nodules themselves could be providing the oxygen to support their life. Professor Marie Roberts,

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a marine biologist from the University of Edinburgh, is one of the scientists who signed the seabed

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mining petition and quote, there's already overwhelming evidence that the strip mining

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deep sea nodule fields will destroy ecosystems we barely understand, he told the BBC News.

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Because these fields cover such a huge area of our planet, it would be crazy to press ahead with

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deep sea mining knowing they may be a significant source of oxygen production. I don't see this

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study as something that will put an end to mining, said Professor Swiman. But we need to explore it in

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greater detail and we need to use this information and the data we gather in future if we are going

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to go into the deep ocean and mine it in the most environmentally friendly way possible. That's the

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article. We still must mine it. Yeah, it's kind of sad that he's just like resigned himself, so it's

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gonna get mine. So I guess like we'll try to do it responsibly, I guess. No one's gonna stop this. I do

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have a few thoughts did take a twist in there about the implications about life elsewhere. Yeah, just

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kind of off handed suggestions of like, yeah, you actually could very easily get oxygen and oceans

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without photosynthesis, which is crazy because yeah, that does have implications for other

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planets that have oceans. But my thoughts on this, I would say generally as a rule that like

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everything in nature has a purpose. I don't think anything really happens in nature without a purpose.

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Everything kind of balances each other out. Oh, well, you say that we've gone through like what five

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mass extinctions, six mass extensions, I can't remember which, but kind of because nature isn't

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doesn't inherently balance itself. So you end up with huge issues. That that's balance. It's

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balancing. That's fair. It needs to bring the balance back. You give some you lose. Yeah,

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yeah, exactly. It seems ballsy to just be like, we don't know what this is for. Yeah, we don't

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know anything about the devotion, but we're definitely mining it as environmentally friendly

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as we can, which is probably not very because we don't know what that oxygen is doing there.

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Yeah, and especially when they say right off the bat, hey, by the way, most are oxygen actually

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comes from the ocean. This might actually be part of the reason why we've always kind of just assumed

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this vital plankton, but maybe it's not. This could be our source of air. Yeah, but we're just

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going to mine that. I also it kind of bothers me a little bit. They didn't reach out to any of the

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companies who are mining to see what their position is on it. It probably doesn't matter

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because they're the mining companies. Yeah, yeah. Well, yeah, that's probably what they said. And

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therefore the company pushed this aside as inconvenient or something like that. Oh, yeah.

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Yeah. But yeah, that's that's a huge discovery. The fact that it's not just photosynthesis that's

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creating oxygen in our environments. And we're also just going to do some shit with it. So, yeah,

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that we need batteries, not for making oxygen for, I don't know, moving around go-karts or

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something like that. I feel like this is on par for your regular type of episode because I'm

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feeling uncomfortable about this. But it started with a new scientific breakthrough, which was fun.

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We need to mine. Yes. We can't just discover that and not mine it. No. It's like an itch you need

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to scratch. You gotta mine. Yeah, you gotta mine. Anyhow, you guys, you go have fun mining whatever

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it is you mine for the next 48 hours. Do it responsibly, at least a reasonable amount

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responsiveness. And we'll see you back here. Bye. Bye.