ECONOMIC SIMULATIONS FOR A SMALL SCALE MANGANESE NODULE MINING SYSTEM TAKING INTO ACCOUNT NEW TECHNOLOGIES

摘要

In this paper, the authors analyse various existing economic studies on the exploitation of manganese nodules. The investment and operating costs of these studies are adjusted to the year 2001 using the US Consumer Price index. The adjusted values are then used to examine the profitability of a potential investment using the net present value method, showing that with 2001 metal prices none of the reported ventures would be economically interesting. New concepts with tremendous research potential are then presented considering processing on the open sea, the use of alternative energies such as wave energy, wind energy and thermal energy conversion.