There are at least two versions of the pitch. One casts polymetallic nodules — metal-rich rocks scattered across flat stretches of the deep seafloor — as a crucial resource for electric vehicle batteries and other green technologies, positioning them as a solution to the accelerating climate crisis. The other frames these same nodules as strategic assets, essential for strengthening U.S. mineral dominance and enhancing national security. There is also a version of the pitch that mixes these two possibilities, presenting nodules as a critical material poised to both save the planet and secure it at the same time.
The company promoting these messages is Canada-based The Metals Company (TMC), a firm aiming to mine the deep sea — and the company’s charismatic and media-savvy CEO, Gerard Barron is the one usually delivering them. Barron, who used to work in sales, often speaks with image-rich, even metaphorical language. For instance, in media interviews, Barron has dubbed nodules as a “battery in a rock,” and also compared them to “golf balls on a driving range” that can easily be scooped up by machinery that would only disturb the top 5 centimeters (2 inches) of the seafloor — roughly the length of two bottle caps laid end to end.
Early on, starting a little before TMC went public in 2021, listing on the Nasdaq exchange in New York, Barron focused heavily on the first narrative, about harvesting nodules as a planet-saving necessity. But over time — and amid accusations from scientists and NGOs that the industry could, in reality, irreversibly damage the marine environment — Barron, and by extension TMC, began to shift this message. The company didn’t entirely drop its eco-conscious argument, but it began placing greater emphasis on the concept that seabed resources were essential to U.S. national security. As Barron wrote in a letter published in The Economist on June 26, 2025, deep-sea minerals are “not only essential to clean energy,” but are “foundational to national defence, supply-chain security and industrial resilience.”
TMC has used this national security rationale for its mission to cultivate support in Washington, D.C., as evidenced in the lobbying disclosures filed by firms working on the company’s behalf. These disclosures indicate the lobbying efforts focused not only on national security in broad terms, but also on specific legislation such as the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2025 and the Critical Minerals Security Act. The emphasis on national security seems to have helped TMC position itself to act on potential U.S. approval for deep-sea mining even before the Trump administration gave its formal authorization in April. Other deep-sea mining companies like Impossible Metals and American Metal espouse this rationale as well. TMC’s narrative pivot toward U.S. national security has aligned with the current political climate, and may well provide the momentum needed to launch this contentious and still highly speculative industry that some scientists say could trigger a new wave of harm on ocean ecosystems […]
Read more on Mongabay.