Next generation of deep-sea mining machines developed in Collingwood

The next generation of deep-sea mining machines are being developed and tested in Collingwood.

Impossible Metals has been designing machines to mine critical minerals with an emphasis on the environment. This is a key contributing factor to Eureka II which is being tested in Georgian Bay waters.

Jason Gillham, chief technical officer and co-founder of Impossible Metals said Collingwood is a great test site for the machine.

“The bay becomes a good test site for us because of its similarity to the deep ocean,” said Gillham. “The deep ocean has very clear water and so to train our vision systems, to use our vision systems, we need that clear water, and the bay provides a fantastic test bed for that.”

Eureka II has been testing the waters of Georgian Bay collecting data and test nodules in preparation for the next model.

“Our deep-water prototype, autonomous underwater vehicle,” said Gilliam. “We’re really looking forward to demonstrating this system and then moving on to our Eureka III, which is our production sized autonomous underwater system for collecting these polymetallic nodules.”

Historically, dredge-based mining is not environmentally friendly, tearing up the ocean floor in the process.

Impossible Metals has developed brand new technology and mitigated environmental concerns that the public has addressed.

“So, our vehicle isn’t a dredging vehicle, it doesn’t have a riser system, and it’s not vacuuming up the nodules from the seabed floor,” said Oliver Gunasekara CEO and co-founder of Impossible Metals. “What we are doing is hovering and using selective harvest to pick up the nodules the ones that we don’t have any visible life on them.”

The company is currently testing their second prototype with an end goal of launching a fleet into international waters.

“The end goal would really be to get to production with Eureka III, which is our full-size system but a fleet of them,” said Gunasekara. “Ultimately we want to be a big mining operation but doing it in the most sustainable way.”

The company adding Impossible Metals has taken the extra steps to ensure they keep the environment in mind.

“There’s a lot of pushback against mining, but we believe we can do mining in the most sustainable way,” said Gunasekara. “We’re going to a location that has orders of magnitude less life. We don’t have human impacts and you compare that to a rainforest in Indonesia where there’s a huge amount of life that’s being impacted.”

Tim Fryer, deputy mayor of Collingwood, said the town is happy that the company chose to test and develop their prototype in the town.

“We couldn’t be more thrilled for them at this stage of their development,” said Fryer. “We are really pleased and thankful for them choosing Collingwood as their location to work from.”

Impossible Metals said it plans to develop Eureka III throughout 2026 with the goal of having Eureka III mining in international waters sometime the following year.