Analysis of manganese nodules for US Department of Commerce

For the U.S. Department of Commerce, CRA analyzed the energy required to recover and process the metallic raw materials contained in manganese nodules. The study was intended to provide an objective comparison of the energy requirements to produce metals from ocean nodules with those involved in the production of the metals from land- based sources. Because of the simultaneous production of metals (nickel, copper, cobalt and manganese), energy was not assigned by individual metals but rather they were calculated to produce the same annual quantities of metals.