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Lifecycle Assessment by Benchmark Shows TMC’s NORI-D Nodule Project Could Outperform Land-Based Routes of Producing Nickel, Copper and Cobalt in Almost Every Impact Category Analyzed
Reviewed by an independent third-party expert, the ISO-standard-compliant Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) completed by Benchmark Mineral Intelligence compared the
About this update from Tmc The Metals Company Inc.
[{"type":"text","content":"Reviewed by an independent third-party expert, the ISO-standard-compliant Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) completed by Benchmark Mineral Intelligence compared the production of key energy transition metals (nickel, cobalt and copper) from the NORI-D Nodule Project to key land-based production routes for the same metalsThe LCA scope covered mining, transport, processing and refining, and focused on seven impact categories including: carbon dioxide-equivalent (CO2e) and particulate emissions; marine and freshwater eutrophication; terrestrial acidification; stratospheric ozone depletion; as well as additional research into waste generationBenchmark’s LCA shows the NORI-D Nodule Project model performed better in almost every impact category analyzed than all the land-based routes chosen for comparisonThis LCA follows several years of investment by TMC in peer-reviewed industry-level LCA research to understand global environmental and social impacts of producing battery metals from seafloor nodules and how they compare to current metal production from land ores NEW YORK, March 21, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- TMC the metals company Inc. (“TMC” or “The Metals Company”), an explorer of lower-impact battery metals from seafloor polymetallic nodules, today announced that leading lithium-ion battery supply chain research firm, Benchmark Mineral Intelligence (“Benchmark”), has completed an independent third-party lifecycle assessment of the environmental impacts of the Company’s planned NORI-D Polymetallic Nodule Project as it looks to bring online the planet’s largest undeveloped deposit of critical battery metals. The full LCA report can be downloaded here and a summary document here. Benchmark’s team of LCA practitioners set out to assess the potential impacts of mining, transport, processing and refining ('cradle-to-gate’) of important battery materials including an intermediate NiCuCo matte product and final end-products nickel sulfate, cobalt sulfate and copper cathode from seafloor polymetallic nodules collected from the NORI-D area. They then compared these impacts to producing the same metals via key land-based routes, including from Indonesian nickel laterites and mixed sulfides and oxides mined in the DRC. These raw material inputs are widely used in active cathode materials (CAM) for nickel-rich cathode chemistries for lithium-ion batt...