alt Hacker NewsMy understanding is that deep-sea nodules produce oxygen by a process similar to electrolysis, where they generate currents that split seawater into hydrogen and oxygen.
The proportion of global abiotic and global total oxygen production this represents is not known, but may be significant.
Leaving aside the certainty of yet more cascading collapses of marine life in waters de-oxygenated by deep sea mining: do we want to risk finding out the hard way how significant?
Apparent consensus is we do, but I don’t have to like it, or think these are the plans of sane people who see the big picture.
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These are not the plans of sane people. They are the plans of capital / technology, which if you’re familiar with Nick Land’s work, operates as an independent entity with its own goals in mind. It does not value the planet in any capacity.
Profits must be pursued & we can always just regrow marine life after AGI gives us infinite knowledge of everything (which is going to happen any day now).
It's still quite controversial whether or not they produce oxygen that way. It's been hypothesized, but I wouldn't consider it a consensus or settled. There are also microbes that can produce oxygen without light, so there are other mechanisms to explain "dark oxygen" in deep sea ecosystems.
With that said, the simple truth of it is that we know next to nothing about these ecosystems and really can't accurately estimate impacts. They're quite possibly significant, but we just don't have much info to go off of and studies like this are sorely needed.