Key points
- CEO and co-founder Oliver Gunasekara tells host Eric Young that Impossible Metals designed its nodule collection system from scratch, replacing the dredging tractors and riser systems used in deep sea mining since the 1970s with autonomous, battery-powered robots.
- The Eureka 3 vehicle, about the size of a 20-foot shipping container, carries 12 robotic arms and an AI vision system that identifies nodules versus marine life, and is designed to leave roughly 30% of nodules on the seabed to preserve habitat.
- Gunasekara says the buoyancy-engine design avoids the need for dynamic positioning and could operate about 320 days a year, versus roughly 200 for dredging-based systems, at all-in sustaining costs he estimates are about 15 times lower than the average land-based nickel mine.
- The company plans to test the full-scale Eureka 3 in the ocean next year, build a fleet in 2027, and begin mining operations in 2028, contingent on a commercial partnership and exploitation approval from the International Seabed Authority.
