“We’re trying to better understand the environment at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean where there is a very large, abundant supply of these polymetallic nodules,” said Gerard Barron holding what looks like a lumpy black rock.
However, the CEO and chairman of Vancouver-based the Metals Company said, the black lump is an electric vehicle battery in a rock and there could be trillions of them on the ocean floor about 1,100 miles off the coast of San Diego. The company estimated there is enough for a billion electric vehicles.
“They literally just lie there like golf balls on a driving range,” Barron said with a smile.
Barron’s company has exclusive access to the area known as the Clarion Clipperton Zone, where the rocks have been found.