Funding to support additional research in extracting rare earth elements from coal byproducts, enhancing sustainability and domestic supply.

As part of ongoing efforts to bolster domestic supplies of critical minerals, the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Fossil Energy and Carbon Management has announced an additional $10 million investment aimed at lowering costs and reducing the environmental impact of producing rare earth elements and other critical minerals from coal and its byproducts.

The U.S. currently imports more than 80% of its rare earths. However, these elements naturally occur in domestic coal, coal wastes, and coal byproducts, which comprise more than 250 billion tons of coal reserves, over 4 billion tons of waste coal, and about 2 billion tons of coal ash.

In recent years, DOE has sought methods to harness these secondary and unconventional resources to help build a sustainable domestic supply chain supporting U.S. economic growth, clean energy deployment, and national security.

Since January 2021, DOE has committed an estimated $151 million to projects that support the exploration, resource identification, production, and processing of critical minerals and materials in traditional mining and fossil fuel-producing communities across the country.

This includes $17.5 million from the first round of selections under this funding opportunity and $33.4 million from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law for detailed engineering and design studies.

These studies have focused on developing domestic, intermediate-to-demonstration-scale rare earth production facilities that utilize unconventional, coal-based feedstock materials.

The most recent investment will fund two projects to improve the economic viability and environmental sustainability of producing rare earth elements and critical minerals from coal-based resources.

The first project, led by the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, will integrate both traditional and innovative rare earth separation methods to obtain individual rare earth elements in a highly pure form while simultaneously generating critical minerals and materials.

The second project, undertaken by the University of Utah in Salt Lake City, plans to produce individually separated high-purity rare earth oxides, salts, metals, and critical minerals from abundant, low-grade coal byproducts using advanced mineral and chemical separation technologies.

These projects will be managed by DOE's National Energy Technology Laboratory under FECM. The selected teams have also committed to the Community Benefits Plan, which aims to demonstrate meaningful engagement and tangible benefits to the communities in which these projects will be located.

These initiatives are part of a broader strategy to enhance national security, create high-quality jobs, and promote environmental stewardship. By developing domestic sources of critical minerals, the U.S. aims to reduce its reliance on foreign supply chains and support the clean energy transition.

"President Biden's Investing in America agenda is reducing the nation's dependence on foreign supply chains by reimagining the use of coal waste and by-products as a domestic source of the critical minerals needed for clean energy technologies," said U.S. Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm. "The investments announced today will not only increase our national security and ensure a cleaner environment but will also help deliver high-quality jobs throughout the country."

The projects funded by this investment are also expected to advance the production technologies for rare earth elements, ensuring a more resilient and sustainable supply chain for the future.

In addition to job creation, these projects are set to provide significant environmental benefits. By utilizing coal byproducts, the projects will help to remediate land and water impacted by coal mining, turning waste into valuable resources.