Key points
- CEO Oliver Gunasekara says Impossible Metals aims to produce 9 million metric tons of seabed material annually by 2030, using a large fleet of untethered autonomous underwater vehicles instead of traditional dredging.
- The company’s AUVs hover above the seabed and use AI and computer vision to selectively pick up polymetallic nodules, skipping ones with visible marine life, unlike the vacuum-style dredging collectors developed in the 1970s.
- Gunasekara cites data showing seabed nickel reserves are more than 4,000 times larger than known land-based reserves, with cobalt reserves about 26 times larger.
- The company’s first prototype, Eureka One, was tested picking up rocks at about 75 feet of depth, and a new deep-water vehicle is planned for trials off Florida’s east coast in December under a scientific permit from the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management.
