TMC the metals company Inc.

The conclusion of the research was that although levels of Thorium-234 were elevated after mining, they declined to background levels after plumes reached one to two kilometres from the mining site implying that potentially damaging effects of mining operations were very locally limited and therefore not problematic in the way that some have suggested.

Nauru Ocean Resources Inc is a wholly owned subsidiary of The Metals Company which is arguably the most visible, best capitalised and most advanced commercial proponent of polymetallic nodule mining and certainly one of the industry's most outspoken advocates.

On the back of the Thorium-234 research findings, the mining company published its own interpretation which stated, The sheer scale of the ocean means sediment concentrations in commercial-scale mid-water plumes dilute rapidly within a few kilometres.

By coincidence in December 2025 a completely separate piece of research was published by a team at the University of California Santa Barbara showing how organisms on the deep ocean floor were capturing and storing carbon in ways that were previously not understood and which could have profound implications for the entire marine food chain and the capacity for our oceans to continue absorbing carbon dioxide from our atmosphere.

They are polymetallic.

They typically contain cobalt, nickel and manganese, all materials that now play a crucial role in our modern world.

Developers like The Metals Company argue that sending machines down to the deep ocean seabed to scoop these nodules up will be far less environmentally damaging than the existing terrestrial mining operations that currently liberate these materials.

Opponents point out that more than 99.99% of the biology of the deep ocean floor is as yet undiscovered, and that far more research is required before deep sea mining should be allowed to go ahead.

Whether current deep sea mining ventures succeed or not, investors are willing to give them a try and they're going to get well paid.

Senate Democrats sent a letter to the Trump administration in July seeking information on any connections the Trump family and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick may have with critical minerals companies, including the Metals Company and American Ocean Minerals Corporation.

You are listening to reading of today's issue of USA Today on the Niagara Frontier Radio Reading Service, where the time is 23 minutes after the hour.

Group admits to faking polls cited by news outlets.

which in a very weird and real way makes our grandfather's mission pretty timely.

And the head of one company leading the charge, the Metals Company, has gone on to argue that those nodules could end up saving the planet.

And one of the reasons it's so crazy to hear John Oliver talk about this in 2024 is because in the 1960s, deep sea ocean mining was an industry that the CIA completely made up.

So tonight, let's talk about deep sea mining.

Um, and we inter- uh, in, on that score, we, uh, another interview we did this week was, uh, with Brian Paes Braga, who together with Michael Hess, invested in size, uh, in Surge Battery Materials, um, uh, placing, uh, I don't know if it was in, in June.

Uh, Brian also is, invested significantly in the Metals Company, uh, last year and, and even before that, and talks about, um, you know, TMC and TMCR, his royalty company, both, uh, stocks of which have been hard hit, um, in, in, in recent times as has, uh, as lithium.

But he just-- That-- I'd encourage viewers to listen to that interview because he's...

We- you talk about like, "Oh, no one's focusing on the long term." That-that's always the case, right? Like, the market's always very focused on the short term, but he is a long-term investor and has had a great deal of success and talks about how, you know, his first lithium investment in eight years after the success he had with Lithium X was into Surge because he saw a super large, super high grade.

Uh, I want to make-- You were sort of talking about, uh, the clay and America.

I, I had an opportunity-- There, there were two conferences in New York, um, at, at least, um, this week.

Uh, one was Maxim, another was ThinkEquity, and a number of, uh, clients of ours who have been, uh, you know, on here, including First Phosphate, um, as well as, uh, I, I think Anson and, um, and the Metals Company.

Y- you know, were all presenting there, among others.

But we also want to broaden the conversation.

Regular Rockstock viewers know of our coverage of the metals company on NASDAQ to resemble TMC and his plans to recover nickel, copper, cobalt, manganese from seafloor nodules.

Brian's been a large investor and a former board member of TMC, who we interviewed briefly during the TMC Strategy Day last August.

Brian listed his metals royalty company, as I said earlier, on NASDAQ, and that holds a royalty not only on TMC's Nori D project, but also the Misabi iron ore mine in Minnesota.

Clean Elements has invested more than $30 million to date and is currently the largest shareholder of both Galan Lithium and NOAA Lithium Brines, two companies advancing high-grade lithium brine projects in Argentina.

Let's pivot.

Because I know you don't have that much time, but to the metals company and the metals royalty company, because in addition to Gold X and, you know, the two gold companies you were involved with, you were a very early investor in what was Deep Green before it became the metals company.

And, you know, what convinced you about the opportunity in seafloor nodules?

Is that right? I don't know if you remember that.

Uh, no, you're thinking about the Metals Company-

Which

... which is kind of, uh-

Um, Kraken Robotics is doing more, like, batteries and components for undersea, uh, submersible unmanned vehicles.

Hmm.

Uh, where the Metals Company is going undersea to mine the deep sea nodules that have the cobalt and other minerals that we need for batteries and AI and then whatnot.

Yeah, that's really interesting.