484: Tom Albanese—The Metals at the Bottom of the Ocean
5/12/20261 hr 32 min
In this episode Mike explores the growing race for critical minerals hidden deep beneath the Pacific Ocean with mining executive Tom Albanese, Chairman of American Ocean Minerals and former CEO of Rio Tinto and Vedanta Resources.
Tom has spent more than four decades in the global mining and metals business, overseeing some of the largest resource projects on earth. Now he's focused on something even more ambitious: harvesting polymetallic nodules from the ocean floor—potato-sized rocks packed with nickel, cobalt, copper, manganese, and rare earth elements that are critical to batteries, AI infrastructure, defense systems, smartphones, and modern energy technology.
Mike and Tom discuss why these nodules have become one of the most hotly contested resources in the world and how the race for critical minerals has evolved into both an economic and geopolitical battle. They also explain why many companies see the deep ocean as an alternative to opening hundreds of new land mines. Hint: These nodules sit unattached on the ocean floor just waiting to be vacuumed up without need for blasting or tunneling.
It's a conversation that feels part science fiction, part industrial history, and part treasure hunt. Because sometimes the next gold rush isn't in the mountains. It's sitting three miles beneath the top of the ocean.
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Transcript preview
First 90 secondsMike Rowe· Host0:00
[bass music] Hey guys, this is The Way I Heard It. I'm Mike Rowe. My guest today is a fella named Tom Albanese. I guess, Chuck, I could say he's a, a miner, or a miner's miner. How are you spelling that? [laughs] Well, we deal with that quickly enough. [laughs] M-I-N-E-R. He's also a citizen of the world, and an American patriot, and a partner of mine- Mm ... in a new venture. So there are a couple things I wanna disclose before we jump into this conversation right in the middle of a sentence. As we often do. As we are prone to do. I met Tom about six, maybe eight months ago. He is the former CEO of, I think, the second largest mine in the world, Rio Tinto. He also was way up the food chain at, uh, Vendetta Resources. He's, he's lived and worked on every continent, I think, but for one. He's been to 100-some countries. Yep. He, along with some other big-brained individuals who I've been lucky enough to conspire with over the last few months, have formed a company called American Ocean Minerals. And, uh, the purpose of this company is to go to the bottom of the ocean and bring up billions of polymetallic nodules, these golf ball-shaped little nuggets packed with metals the entire world is suddenly desperate