Article in German newspaper

[observer]

...from early May this year.

The "Sueddeutsche" is considered a highbrow newspaper. The opinions on whether deep sea mining activities are technically feasible are presented in a balanced fashion, I would say. The article also briefly outlines the method and equipment Nautilus intends to apply.

http://www.sueddeutsche.de/wissen/tiefseebergbau-goldgrund-1.2457954

[observer]

A few excerpts, translated into English using google translate:

feasibility & economics

And the chances are not so bad: "For a long time, for more than 100 years, the mining industry was in deep waters no more than an idea," says Mark Hannington, head of marine raw materials in Kiel Marine Research Center Geomar. "But now the economic, political, technical and scientific challenges have reached a point at which they seem feasible....

Technically seems the little to stand in the way. "We have recently made significant progress in deep-sea robots, we have access to the ocean floor like never before, we get there and can perform tasks," says marine biologist Cindy Lee Van Dover of Duke University in North Carolina American....

To gain access to the treasures should first flatten the ground a small robot. A second, large milling machine is then the sulfide layers. A third crawler sucks them and bring them to a huge underwater pump. From there, the slurry is forced through a thick pipe 30Zentimeter to a ship at the surface. He is dehydrated, the waste water is filtered and again 1500 meters in depth pumped - where it came from. The remaining debris is reloaded and hauled in a port 50 kilometers away, where he is to be further processed.

Much of the technology comes from the oil and gas production, which studied for decades in similar depths, drilling and welding. Mark Hannington is still skeptical. "Who speaks with engineers, especially in the oil industry, gets to hear that the degradation is a purely technical and therefore solvable problem was", says the oceanographer. "However, we have worked long enough at GEOMAR in such depths, to know that this is a particularly hostile place -. For machinery and for any other activity....

Even today, the spirit of optimism not untarnished. On the one side are the raw numbers, and they sound promising: In a typical sulfide field as Van Dover, 1.5 million tons of degradable material could be located. At an average copper content of only eight percent of the degradation of the reddish metal would bring nearly 700 million dollars, to say nothing of the additional gold and silver throughout. On the other hand, there are incalculable costs: The chunk must not only be mined and brought to the surface, the engineers they must also process, boats ashore, extract the metal, clean it and sell. And they need to be aware that costs can happen to them, they not even imagine today - it was due to technical difficulties or new environmental regulations. "Only when all this is added up, it will be clear whether can really earn with deep seabed mining money," says Hannington. "All in the industry are waiting therefore eagerly that finally someone starts."

environment (Nautilus-related info only)

Nautilus Minerals wants before Papua New Guinea also resettle snails, artificial substrate deploy on the seabed and a portion of the degraded area renature - while another part is left untreated for comparison purposes.