Discussion on:

China's nuclear powered ocean floor mining station drills for oil, gold

The UN should determine where this type of future "bottom mining' will be allowed and what mitigation is required "after" an area is mined to return it to a stable ecological state after it has been mined; otherwise this process will be nothing but underwater "strip" mining with no oversight, destroying the ocean floor and everything that lives on or above it.

Contrary to what the black helicopter conspiracy theory crowd would have us believe, the UN only has as much authority as the Security Council votes to enforce. Yes, sea floor mining should be regulated to protect the ocean ecology. This would be an ideal place for the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea except 1 country that is expected to do a lot of sea floor mining hasn't signed the treaty - the USA. China has.

Trawlers do a lot of damage to the sea floor and there is no regulation about that. The oceans have a lot of resources but the enviroment is delicate and that effects all of us.

I would like to see the US get there first. We were first to the moon and overtook Sputnik. Mining the ocean would be much easier than mining asteroids. We have no need to sign treaties like LOST which are contrary to our national self interest. The US does more for the UN than we get in return. We have more Pacific shoreline than China and are entitled to it. We liberated the Marianas from the Japanese while Japan was making slaves out of the Chinese. Now which dolphin hugger wants to argue with me? This can be done cleanly and at a profit if carefully planned. I agree that bottom based manned rigs are safer than surface rigs. The new Chinese are correct. Look what happened with the deepwater horizon. Those 11 men's bodies are not coming back.

great, a military totalitarian power with few to no problems mashing human rights, worker rights, and environmental issues is going for it all far down away from enemy eyes -- and with nuclear yet.
thank God the Communists are nothing like the Capitalists.

I hope they film this stuff - if nothing else, they'll have a premium reality show on the side!