The Elements of Innovation Discovered
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Natural Resources Canada formalizes funding of Ucore's RapidSX REE separation demo plant in Ontario. In support of a homegrown technology that will help bolster Canada's leadership in responsible production of critical minerals needed for the clean energy and digital economy, Natural Resources Canada's (NRCan) Critical Minerals Research, Development, and Demonstration program is investing C$4.2 million (US$3.1 million) into Ucore Rare Metals Inc.'s RapidSX rare earths...
In what may be a watershed moment for U.S. state laws regarding critical mineral mining, South Dakota Rep. Kirk Chaffee has taken a second swing at taxing lithium, and this time it may stick. Last year, a similar effort to classify lithium as an energy mineral passed the state House but was rejected in the Senate. The current bill, for which Chaffee is the main sponsor, classifies South Dakota's future lithium as a precious metal and imposes a 10% tax on mining profits, with...
Global industry ramps up as VRFB appeals to grid renewables Solar and wind renewables can generate very cheap electricity, but like good weather, they're intermittent. To achieve a green-energy future of grids running off renewables, enormous amounts of battery storage will be needed to avoid blackouts. The first redox-flow batteries were developed by Lawrence Thaller and his group at NASA in the 1970s as potential energy storage for solar-powered deep-space missions. They...
EV executives and dignitaries from the Salton Sea to the White House joined CTR to break ground on the Lithium Valley Campus in SoCal. In a landmark event that marks the start of a clean supply of lithium to support America's clean energy transition, industry executives and political dignitaries joined Controlled Thermal Resources on the groundbreaking of the Lithium Valley Campus at its Hell's Kitchen geothermal lithium project in the Salton Sea region of Southern...
Sens. Murkowski, Manchin contend administration is misinterpreting Congress intent when it comes to funding domestic mining projects. While the U.S. Department of Energy is investing billions of taxpayer dollars into establishing robust battery material processing and battery manufacturing capacity in the United States, the federal agency has done little to support domestic mines that would feed critical minerals into domestic electric vehicle supply chains. Sen. Lisa Murkowsk...
Canada Nickel Company is well on its way to developing zero-carbon production of nickel, cobalt and iron in what they've coined the emerging Timmins Zero Carbon Nickel District. Founded by CEO Mark Selby in 2019, Canada Nickel's flagship development is Crawford, a nickel project timed perfectly to bolster the shrinking global supply after losing problematic Russian and Chinese resources to a rising need for stable supply with measurable environmental, social, and corporate gov...
Reshoring mineral supply chains lost to globalization is a key part of DOD National Defense Industrial Strategy The urgency to onshore critical mineral supply chains in the United States has begun to shift away from a need to secure reliable sources of the minerals and metals needed to support the nation's economy and clean energy ambitions toward the need for these same mined commodities to defend American ideals and interests at home and abroad. "Establishing a fully...
Nouveau Monde Graphite to buy 100% interest in the Lac Guéret graphite deposit. In a strategic move that positions Nouveau Monde Graphite Inc. to further ramp up its capacity to offer a reliable and environmentally sound supply of graphite for the lithium batteries powering electric vehicles, the Canadian mining and processing company has acquired full ownership of Mason Resources Inc.'s world-class Uatnan graphite project in Quebec. Uatnan is a road-accessible project about 1...
In December, China implemented new export controls on graphite, further compounding trade tensions with the United States and other Western nations. This decision reinforces concerns over the fragility of the West's over-reliance on import monopolies and serves to intensify the ongoing search for alternative sources that would otherwise have been considered economically unattractive. Outside of its use in electric vehicle batteries, an application that is rocketing its...
UW researchers explore capacity of tantalum cold spray technology to protect fusion reactors, prevent hydrogen loss. On the coattails of mankind's breakthrough in fusion technology, the University of Wisconsin-Madison is preemptively preparing a technology that could further stabilize the potential energy of a man-made micro-sun with a spray coating technology that could simultaneously maintain temperature integrity while also extracting the very fuel of a star – hydrogen. "...
Copper has had a wild ride in 2023, going from expected surplus to deficit within the last few months due to labor disputes, environmental protests, and volatile demand. The supply-demand roller coaster in 2023 was reflected in the price of this energy metal, which dropped from a high above $9,400 per metric ton last January to fluctuating to lows of around $7,800 in May and again in October before rebounding above $8,700 by year's end. Part of the reason for the late 2023...
Oklahoma port town selected as ideal location to build refinery that produces battery-grade lithium for energy transition. Further solidifying its plans to offer a domestic supply of the lithium needed for America's energy transition, Stardust Power Inc. has selected Southside Industrial Park in Muskogee, Okla., as the home of a refinery that is slated to produce enough battery-grade lithium for roughly 1 million sedan sized electric vehicles per year. "When fully operational,...
As 2024 gets underway, the direction of rechargeable battery design continues to have major implications for the mining industry. A range of renewable power technologies are under development and expansion across the globe to replace fossil fuels. These advancements and the continued electric vehicle push driving the need for increased energy storage capacity, continue to add to the world's energy transition minerals shopping list. The numbers are already in – the new mines n...
HydroGraph Clean Power Inc. is a commercial manufacturer of high-quality nanomaterials whose graphene product has been selected and successfully trialed in Hawkeye Bio's biomedical sensor designed for the early detection of lung cancer. Only the third company to be certified globally by the Graphene Council, HydroGraph is headquartered in Toronto, with a manufacturing facility in Kansas where the company has exclusive license from Kansas State University to produce both...
More than 20 countries gathered for the 2023 United Nations Climate Change Conference, better known as COP28, agree that nuclear energy has a major role to play in achieving the global goal of net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. The Declaration to Triple Nuclear Energy endorsed by these nations gathered in Dubai for COP28 includes global resolutions to work together to advance a goal of tripling nuclear energy capacity by 2050 and encourages international financial...
Shenghe acquires ore stockpile that symbolized a shift away from China for REEs critical to North America's green energy and high-tech sectors. High-grade ore dug up from a small open pit at Vital Metal Ltd.'s Nechalacho project in the summer of 2021 marked the start of Canada's first rare earth elements mine and the first link in an REE supply chain that was envisioned to be completely independent of China. "The combination of our efforts clearly work together towards the...
On the same day that China bans exports of REE processing tech; Ucore, RER hit milestones on cleaner and more efficient methods. In a move to hold onto its dominant position as the world's supplier of rare earths, China is now banning the exports of technologies for the processing and separation of this tightly bonded group of 15 elements needed for green energy, high-tech devices, and countless industrial and household goods. While China maintains a strong position in the...
Two companies are in close competition to be the first to officially break ground on commercially productive lithium mines in Ontario, Canada – one local and the other Australian – and that's only a taste of Ontario's promise in the North American lithium rush. Green Technology Metals is a lithium exploration company based in Perth with 100%-owned high-grade spodumene assets in Ontario. The company is prepping for its multi-stage C$1.8 billion Seymour project to start out...
The only rare earths mine in the United States – accounting for about 16% of the world's rare earths production – is the Mountain Pass mine in California's Mojave Desert, operated by MP Materials. The mine is partly owned by Chinese interests, which export most of what is produced out of the country for processing. China controls 91% of refining activity, 87% of oxide separation and 94% of magnet production, as recently reported in the Wall Street Journal, a supply concentrati...
As part of its plan to initially produce synthetic graphite anode material in the U.S., G1 ships samples to future clients for testing. As part of its strategy to quickly establish a domestic mine-to-battery graphite anode material supply chain, Graphite One Inc. has delivered samples of synthetic graphite lithium battery anode material to battery manufacturers and automakers in the United States. "With the U.S. currently not producing any natural and synthetic anode materials...
Agency founded to fight terrorism views mining and critical minerals as vital to economic, national security of the homeland. For most Americans, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security conjures up images of an intelligence agency borne from the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon that employs TSA airport screenings, border checkpoints, and internet monitoring to protect Americans from terrorist threats, both foreign and domestic. And these airport, border,...
Awarded a five-year Blanket Purchase Agreement from the United States Army toward the end of September, 6K Additive LLC announced the receipt of $23.4 million in funding from the Department of Defense to expand its refining capabilities for defense and commercial supply chains. Considered a leader in the sustainable production of materials for additive manufacturing, 6K Additive is a division of 6K Inc., a company focused on delivering next-generation materials at the highest...
GM-backed tech, battery materials company ships initial iron-based cathode samples to global EV and battery makers. One month after closing a $60 million Series B round of financing led by General Motors, Mitra Chem has already shipped multiple samples of commercial-grade lithium-manganese-iron-phosphate (LMFP) cathode active material to major global electric vehicle manufacturers and battery makers. Led by Vivas Kumar, an engineer who previously served as a senior manager on...
On Dec. 12, 2015, delegates from almost every country on the planet signed a landmark climate accord, the Paris Agreement, that united more than 190 parties in support of a legally binding treaty pledging to drive the overall planetary temperature down by slashing the use of fossil fuels and adopting solutions for a massive transition to renewable energy and green transportation. This requires extensive economic and social transformation, measured in five-year cycles of...
The world's leading lithium producer, Albemarle, is working to revive the Kings Mountain mine in North Carolina, which has been dormant since the 1980s and historically contains one of the nation's largest lithium deposits. Kings Mountain boasts one of the few known hard rock lithium deposits in the United States, and a miner there is expected to produce enough of the namesake metal in lithium-ion batteries to support the manufacturing of approximately 1.2 million electric...