he is best known as hunky seadwelling superhero aquaman but actor jason momoa brought a stark and sober warning about the perils of deepsea mining to the sundance film festival on friday the hawaiianborn alister narrates deep rising a new documentary about the frenzied efforts by resourcehungry corporations to scrape valuable metals from vast swathes of the pacific floor supporters of deepsea mining claim that pellets of nickel and cobalt  used in electric car batteries  can be conveniently scooped off the seabed helping reduce our fossil fuel reliance but conservation groups and scientists fear this could devastate poorly understood marine systems that play a crucial role in regulating the climate and some nations have called for bans theres moments where i cried and got emotional narrating the film momoa told afp before its world premiere at the festival in utah its very important using your power for good its all the things im passionate about added the actor who took marine biology courses as a student and is a un environment program advocate for the oceans the documentary follows key players in the fledgling industry including the metals company a canadian group pushing to mine the clarion clipperton zone  a vast expanse of seafloor near hawaii the film goes behindthescenes as its chief executive gerard barron courts wealthy investors with promises that little harm will be done to the most barren desolate part of the planet in contrast to the devastation that ongoing mining is causing rainforests but deep rising director matthieu rytz told afp that we know so little about the real risk to the deep ocean extraction on the seafloor its just a rush because we dont have enough science to really understand whats happening there he said still the metals company has said it expects to be mining 10 million tons of material from the ocean floor every year starting in 2025 and it is just one of about 20 research institutes or corporations that hold ocean exploration contracts awaiting the goahead to begin commercialscale mining rytzs film argues that the energy crisis has no silver bullet and that the brewing race to harvest critical metals is not a solution but the new oil and could trigger future resource wars it shows meetings of the international seabed authority described by rytz as an obscure room in kingston jamaica where delegates decide the future of 65 percent of the planets surface this is beyond national jurisdiction its the high seas said rytz it belongs to all of us or none of us rytz speaks in the film with scientists who argue that alternative clean more abundant energy sources such as hydrogen should be explored for car engines or that transport options such as highspeed rail should be expanded we dont need these metals in the first place he said the places were going to be mining its total damage theres no half damage its like clearcutting a rainforest for momoa watching the film youre supposed to question things youre supposed to sit down and have breakfast talk about stuff and go we need to rethink everything