Author: Derrick Lester

When an industry continues to change its narrative, there is something noteworthy. The only practical source of the cobalt and manganese nodules required to construct the batteries that would power the future was deep-sea mining, which was marketed a few years ago as the key driver of the green energy transition. Then the argument began to falter. With the Trump administration actively promoting seabed extraction in international waters, completely eschewing the established procedures of the International Seabed Authority, the discussion has now subtly shifted to national security and vital mineral supply chains. The goalposts have not simply shifted. They have…

Negotiating the fate of an ecosystem you hardly understand has a subtle, unsettling quality. At the 31st session of the International Seabed Authority, a body established to regulate deep-sea mining in international waters, delegates once again convened in a building under fluorescent lights in Kingston, Jamaica, to discuss an environment that none of them will ever be able to see firsthand. About 200 meters below the surface is where the deep seabed starts. The majority of its inhabitants have never been given names. Nevertheless, there is growing pressure to start removing manganese, nickel, and cobalt from those depths. These minerals…

The ship is located thousands of meters above a seafloor that has never been completely mapped, somewhere in the Pacific. There are rocks beneath it in almost complete darkness. Mineral-rich, avocado-shaped, and untouched for millions of years. Additionally, The Metals Company, or TMC, wishes to discuss them. When you put it simply, it sounds almost ridiculous. However, the closer you look, the more difficult it is to ignore. In the Clarion-Clipperton Zone, a region of the Pacific floor about the size of the continental United States, TMC has spent more than ten years developing a scientific and practical case for…

The ease with which the Sun can decide to rearrange things is almost unnerving. At precisely 14:01 UTC on June 6, 2026, an M1.8 solar flare was released by Active Region 4461, a region of the solar surface that scientists had been closely monitoring. Not the strongest class. Not an X. M1.8 has a tenth of the energy of an X-class event, placing it in the middle of the solar eruption hierarchy. Nevertheless, a G3 geomagnetic storm watch was issued by NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center in a matter of hours. It’s important to pay attention to that escalation, which…

A certain type of ambition doesn’t make a big announcement. Instead, it manifests as four ships circling a section of the Norwegian Sea for almost 200 days, lowering 2,500-meter mooring lines into 1,300 meters of chilly, dark water, and declaring it a season’s work. That’s essentially what transpired at the Aasta Hansteen field, and it’s difficult not to see something bigger emerging as you watch it play out. One of the most difficult areas of the Norwegian coast is where Aasta Hansteen is located. The field is farther from shore than most operators would find comfortable, the weather windows are…

The fact that the organization in charge of hurricane forecasts and fisheries management is also, inadvertently, one of the key players in maintaining the operation of America’s commercial shipping lanes seems almost paradoxical. However, that surprise quickly fades when you look at what NOAA’s unmanned systems actually accomplish. The majority of people view ocean data in the same way that they view weather data: as something hazily occurring in the background that is only important during a storm. The reality is much more complex. Every time a container ship carrying electronics, apparel, or food makes its way into a coastal…

The fact that NOAA chose Valentine’s Day to highlight the connection between weather data and ocean drones has a subtle poetic quality. It was neither a funding announcement nor a press conference. It was more akin to a summary of research, a lighthearted review of what has been successful, what is still being investigated, and what truly excites scientists. Beneath all the technical updates, there was something that strangely resembled a love story. It’s not very dramatic. It’s more akin to the slow, dependable type—two things that simply complement each other better. Saildrones are the name of the aforementioned ocean…

Seeing a fish float through water so dark and deep that sunlight has never touched it has a subtly humble quality. That is geography, not poetry. Most marine biologists dedicate their entire careers to gathering the kind of footage that scientists using remotely operated vehicles and submersibles captured in waters off Puerto Rico at depths exceeding 6,000 meters. There was more than just data returned. It was a window into a world that continues to astonish despite all of our ocean exploration. Under the direction of SUNY Geneseo researchers and with funding from NOAA Ocean Exploration, the study examined video…

Reading NOAA’s updates on North Atlantic right whales has a subtly depressing quality. They don’t read like reports on conservation. Each whale is given a number, sometimes a name, a last known location, and a list of injuries; they read like case files. The 5-year-old male whale #5192 was observed on June 8th with a fishing line trailing behind his flukes and sinking into the water column beneath him along the left side of his mouth. Two days later, researchers made another attempt to contact him in the vicinity of the Magdalen Islands. The weather was uncooperative. He’s still out…

Standing in, say, northern Wisconsin at eleven at night and watching green ribbons pulse across the sky has a subtle disorienting quality. Those who have never given geomagnetic storms much thought now find themselves murmuring. Phones emerge. Necks are a crane. Despite everyone’s best efforts, the internet is unable to fully capture this kind of moment. This week, the aurora borealis pushed abnormally far south, well beyond its usual territory near the Canadian border, creating that scene across twenty U.S. states. The geomagnetic activity had been closely monitored by NOAA, and their records provided a wealth of information. At level…