Ministry has announced development of technologies for mining deep-sea resources
The National Institute of Ocean Technology (NIOT), an autonomous Institute under Ministry of Earth Sciences (MoES), has commenced work on an Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion plant with a capacity of 65kW at Kavaratti, the capital of Lakshadweep.
This plant will power the Low Temperature Thermal Desalination (LTTD) based desalination plant for conversion of sea water into potable water, Minister of State for Earth Sciences and Science & Technology, Dr. Jitendra Singh said in a written reply to the Lok Sabha on 3 Aug 2022.
The capacity of this LTTD plant is 1 lakh litre of potable water per day.
He said the Ministry of Earth Sciences (MoES) has also announced details of deep-sea mining, underwater robotics, development of ocean climate change advisory services and technological innovations for exploration and conservation of deep-sea biodiversity under Deep Ocean Mission (DOM) in the next few years.
Details of MoES-managed DOM are:
These are:
Design, and development of prototype manned Submersible rated for 6,000 metre water depth, which includes technologies for underwater vehicle and underwater robotics
Design and Development of technologies for mining of deep-sea resources like Polymetallic nodules from the Central Indian Ocean at a water depth of 5,500 m.
Inventorization, archival of specimens and development of DNA bank of deep-sea fauna of Northern Indian Ocean through systematic sampling using Remotely Operated Vehicle.
Development of Ocean Climate Change Advisory Services for climate risk assessment due to sea level rise, cyclone intensity and frequency, storm surges and wind waves, biogeochemistry, and changing harmful algal blooms in the coastal waters of India. fiinews.com
