In Canada Lake, Robot Learns to Mine without Disrupting Marine Life 

A Impossible Metals worker workers help positioning the Eureka II, a robotic underwater vehicle while lifting up from the water in Collingwood, Ontario, on May 1, 2025. (AFP)
A Impossible Metals worker workers help positioning the Eureka II, a robotic underwater vehicle while lifting up from the water in Collingwood, Ontario, on May 1, 2025. (AFP)
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In Canada Lake, Robot Learns to Mine without Disrupting Marine Life 

A Impossible Metals worker workers help positioning the Eureka II, a robotic underwater vehicle while lifting up from the water in Collingwood, Ontario, on May 1, 2025. (AFP)
A Impossible Metals worker workers help positioning the Eureka II, a robotic underwater vehicle while lifting up from the water in Collingwood, Ontario, on May 1, 2025. (AFP)

Three robotic arms extended under the water in a Canadian lake, delicately selecting pebbles from the bed, before storing them back inside the machine.

The exercise was part of a series of tests the robot was undergoing before planned deployment in the ocean, where its operators hope the machine can transform the search for the world's most sought-after metals.

The robot was made by Impossible Metals, a company founded in California in 2020, which says it is trying to develop technology that allows the seabed to be harvested with limited ecological disruption.

Conventional underwater harvesting involves scooping up huge amounts of material in search of potato-sized things called poly-metallic nodules.

These nodules contain nickel, copper, cobalt, or other metals needed for electric vehicle batteries, among other key products.

Impossible Metals' co-founder Jason Gillham told AFP his company's robot looks for the nodules "in a selective way."

The prototype, being tested in the province of Ontario, remains stationary in the water, hovering over the lake bottom.

In a lab, company staff monitor the yellow robot on screens, using what looks like a video game console to direct its movements.

Using lights, cameras and artificial intelligence, the robot tries to identify the sought-after nodules while leaving aquatic life, such as octopuses' eggs, coral, or sponges, undisturbed.

- 'A bit like bulldozers' -

In a first for the nascent sector, Impossible Metals has requested a permit from US President Donald Trump to use its robot in American waters around Samoa, in the Pacific.

The company is hoping that its promise of limited ecological disruption will give it added appeal.

Competitors, like The Metals Company, use giant machines that roll along the seabed and suck up the nodules, a highly controversial technique.

Douglas McCauley, a marine biologist at the University of California, Santa Barbara, told AFP this method scoops up ocean floor using collectors or excavators, "a bit like bulldozers," he explained.

Everything is then brought up to ships, where the nodules are separated from waste, which is tossed back into the ocean.

This creates large plumes of sediment and toxins with a multitude of potential impacts, he said.

A less invasive approach, like that advocated by Impossible Metals, would reduce the risk of environmental damage, McCauley explained.

But he noted lighter-touch harvesting is not without risk.

The nodules themselves also harbor living organisms, and removing them even with a selective technique, involves destroying the habitat, he said.

Impossible Metals admits its technology cannot detect microscopic life, but the company claims to have a policy of leaving 60 percent of the nodules untouched.

McCauley is unconvinced, explaining "ecosystems in the deep ocean are especially fragile and sensitive."

"Life down there moves very slowly, so they reproduce very slowly, they grow very slowly."

Duncan Currie of the Deep Sea Conservation Coalition said it was impossible to assess the impact of any deep sea harvesting.

"We don't know enough yet either in terms of the biodiversity and the ecosystem down there," he told AFP.

According to the international scientific initiative Ocean Census, only 250,000 species are known, out of the two million that are estimated to populate the oceans.

- High demand -

Mining is "always going to have some impact," said Impossible Metals chief executive and co-founder Oliver Gunasekara, who has spent most of his career in the semiconductor field.

But, he added, "we need a lot more critical minerals, as we want to electrify everything."

Illustrating the global rush toward underwater mining, Impossible Metals has raised US$15 million from investors to build and test a first series of its Eureka 3 robot in 2026.

The commercial version will be the size of a shipping container and will expand from three to 16 arms, and its battery will grow from 14 to nearly 200 kilowatt-hours.

The robot will be fully autonomous and self-propel, without cables or tethers to the surface, and be equipped with sensors.

While awaiting the US green light, the company hopes to finalize its technology within two to three years, conduct ocean tests, build a fleet, and operate through partnerships elsewhere in the world.



Trump Offers Support to Musk's Car Company in a Surprising Post as Tesla Stock Plunges

Mar 22, 2025; Philadelphia, PA, USA; Elon Musk and President Donald Trump during the Division I Men's Wrestling Championship held at Wells Fargo Center. Mandatory Credit: Eric Hartline-Imagn Images/File Photo
Mar 22, 2025; Philadelphia, PA, USA; Elon Musk and President Donald Trump during the Division I Men's Wrestling Championship held at Wells Fargo Center. Mandatory Credit: Eric Hartline-Imagn Images/File Photo
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Trump Offers Support to Musk's Car Company in a Surprising Post as Tesla Stock Plunges

Mar 22, 2025; Philadelphia, PA, USA; Elon Musk and President Donald Trump during the Division I Men's Wrestling Championship held at Wells Fargo Center. Mandatory Credit: Eric Hartline-Imagn Images/File Photo
Mar 22, 2025; Philadelphia, PA, USA; Elon Musk and President Donald Trump during the Division I Men's Wrestling Championship held at Wells Fargo Center. Mandatory Credit: Eric Hartline-Imagn Images/File Photo

President Donald Trump took to social media Thursday morning to support Elon Musk's car company, a startling development given their bitter public feud.

”I want Elon, and all businesses within our Country, to THRIVE,” Trump wrote on Truth Social, Reuters reported.

The post wasn't enough to help Tesla's stock, which fell sharply after the company reported another quarter of lackluster financial results and Musk warned of some potentially “rough quarters” into next year. At midday, the stock was down around 9%.

Late Wednesday, Tesla said revenue fell 12% and profit dropped 16% in the April-June quarter. Many prospective buyers have been turned off by Musk’s foray into right-wing politics, and the competition has ramped up in key markets such as Europe and China.

Investors have been unnerved by Musk's social media spat with the president because Trump has threatened to retaliate by ending government contracts and breaks for Musk's various businesses, including Tesla.

But Trump struck a starkly different tone Thursday morning.

“Everyone is stating that I will destroy Elon’s companies by taking away some, if not all, of the large scale subsidies he receives from the US Government. This is not so!" Trump wrote. “The better they do, the better the USA does, and that’s good for all of us.”

After Trump's massive budget bill passed earlier this month, Tesla faces the loss of the $7,500 EV tax credit and stands to make much less money from selling regulatory credits to other automakers. Trump’s tariffs on countries including China and Mexico will also cost Tesla hundreds of millions of dollars, the company said on its earnings call.

Musk has blasted the budget bill on his own social media platform X for adding to US debt at a time when it is already too large. The Tesla CEO has called the budget pushed by the president a “disgusting abomination” and has threatened to form a new political party.

On Wednesday's call, Musk said the electric vehicle maker will face “a few rough quarters” as it moves into a future focused less on selling cars and more on offering people rides in self-driving cars. He also talked up the company's business making humanoid robotics. But he acknowledged those businesses are a ways off from contributing to Tesla’s bottom line.

Tesla began a rollout in June of its paid robotaxi service in Austin, Texas, and hopes to introduce the driverless cabs in several other cities soon. Musk told analysts that the service will be available to probably “half of the population of the US by the end of the year — that’s at least our goal, subject to regulatory approvals.”

“We’re in this weird transition period where we’ll lose a lot of incentives in the US,” Musk said, adding that Tesla “probably could have a few rough quarters” ahead. He added, though, “Once you get to autonomy at scale in the second half of next year, certainly by the end of next year, I would be surprised if Tesla’s economics are not very compelling.”