Use of English - Multiple Choice

Deep-Sea Trade-Offs

For years, deep-sea mining was treated as a speculative venture hovering at the (0) MARGINS of industrial policy. That is no longer the case. As demand for battery metals intensifies, governments and corporations alike are weighing whether the extraction of seabed minerals might help shore (1) .......... supply chains and reduce dependence on politically volatile producers. Proponents argue that the industry could bring strategic resilience, export revenue and technological spillovers. Critics, however, warn that such claims may gloss (2) .......... ecological unknowns and saddle coastal states with liabilities that far outweigh any short-term gains. The socio-economic case is therefore far from straightforward. While advocates insist that new mining zones could act as a catalyst (3) .......... infrastructure investment, sceptics note that resource booms have often failed to trickle down, instead entrenching inequality and leaving local communities to pick (4) .......... the pieces when prices fall. There is also the question of governance: unless regulators keep a close (5) .......... on licensing, taxation and remediation, public trust may quickly erode. In that event, even carefully framed development plans could come (6) .......... as little more than corporate window dressing. What is at stake, then, is not merely access to minerals, but whether states can strike a balance between industrial ambition and social legitimacy without storing up problems for later. If they misjudge the mood, the sector may yet prove a political liability rather than the economic lifeline its backers have (7) .......... it up to be. For all the rhetoric about innovation, policymakers would do well not to take it (8) .......... granted that technological capability automatically translates into public consent.