Deep sea mission to give NIOT a leg-up
CHENNAI: The long wait is over. The 4,000 crore Deep Sea Mission, which was announced by Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has come at an opportune time with Chennai-based National Institute of Ocean Technology (NIOT) is gearing-up to conduct demonstrative trials of its mining technology in shallow waters next month.
For the past decade, NIOT scientists have been focused on developing an integrated mining system for demonstration of deep-sea mining of polymetallic nodules (manganese nodules). The Government of India has an area of 75,000 sq km in the Central Indian Ocean Basin (CIOB) for carrying out survey and exploration of these potato-shaped, largely porous nodules, found in abundance carpeting the sea floor. A rough estimate says that polymetallic nodules in the site allotted to India by International Seabed Authority (ISA) is about 380 Million Metric Tonne (MMT), with 0.55 MMT of Cobalt, 4.7 MMT of Nickel, 4.29 MMT of Copper and 92.59 MMT of Manganese.
M Rajeevan Nair, secretary, Ministry of Earth Sciences, told The New Indian Express, "Am happy the government has announced Deep Sea Mission with a budgetary allocation of Rs 4,000 crore. NIOT will be playing a key role along with several other national institutes like DRDO, ISRO, INCOIS in Hyderabad, CMLRE in Kochi and NCPOR in Goa. The ministry will be leading the mission."
Officials said the Expenditure Finance Committee has approved the Deep Sea Mission and the only thing pending before the mission is put into operational mode is the issuance of cabinet note.
NIOT director GA Ramadass told Express that the Deep Sea Mission comprises six different components. "NIOT will be playing a major role in development of technologies for deep sea mining, underwater vehicles and underwater robotics. Besides, technological innovations for exploration and conservation of deep sea biodiversity, energy and freshwater from the ocean and setting-up of advanced marine station for Ocean Biology will be our focus areas."
NIOT's Deep-sea Technologies and Ocean Mining Group has already developed the crawler, which weighs 12 tonnes and a soil tester that will determine the characteristics of soil on the seabed where the crawler is deployed. “Mining Crawler locomotion trials in shallow waters with depth of 500 meters are planned in March-April depending on ship and funds availability. Pumping System trials are planned in 2022. An integrated mining technology demonstration in the deep sea at the depth of 6 km is planned in 2024," he said.
The idea is to have an integrated mining system where a crawler-based mining machine collects, crushes and pumps nodules to the mother ship using a positive displacement pump through a flexible riser system. It is expected that multiple mining machines will cover the mining field during large scale commercial mining operations.
On manned submersible, Ramadass said the project was at the half-way mark. "Manned submersible 'MATSYA 6000' shallow water trials are planned in 2022/23. Deep water trials will begin in 2024. An MoU has been signed with ISRO for developing a sphere shaped capsule made of titanium which will be used to accommodate a three-member crew. All other associated technologies are being developed by NIOT. Norway-based DNV-GL will be certifying the technology and in fact the process is going on."
When realised, India would be among very few nations in the world having capability to send a man underwater in a craft. As of now, US, Russia, France, Japan and China have conducted manned deep-sea expeditions.