Deep Sea Mining, with Pliant Energy Systems

18 Jan 2021

I followed up with Benjamin Pietro Filardo, founder of Pliant Energy Systems and NACROM, the North American Consortium for Responsible Ocean Mining. Pietro talks about the deep sea mining industry, an untapped market with a massive potential for growth. Pietro discusses the current proposed solutions for deep sea mining which are environmentally destructive, and he offers an alternative solution using swarm robots which could mine the depths of the ocean while creating minimal disturbance to this mysterious habitat.

What made me gravitate to doing a second interview with Pietro is that while talking to him about applications for his robot, I learned a lot about the potential for deep sea mining. The incredible amount of resources laying openly on the seafloor can fuel the battery powered selfless car revolution that is happening on the surface of the Earth. What is stopping us today is how extremely inaccesible this environment is to any type of operations, especially manned vehicles.

There is an industry that will open up around deep sea mining. It is not a question of “if”, but “when” technology can advance enough to do so.