U.S. Mines Are Literally Throwing Away Critical Minerals
“We could focus on mines that are already corporate and simply add additional circuits to their process,” said Holley. “It would be a really quick way of bringing a needed mineral into production.”
This latest research is “very valuable,” said Hamidreza Samouei, a professor of petroleum engineering at Texas A&M University who wasn’t involved in the study. He sees it as a great starting point for a multipronged approach to tackling the byproduct problem and moving toward a zero-waste system. Other areas that will need attention, he said, include looking beyond discarded rock to the “huge” amounts of water that a mine uses. He also believes that the government should play a more aggressive policy and regulatory role in pushing for critical mineral recovery.
“Mining is a very old-fashioned industry,” said Samouei. “Who is going to take the risk?”
The Department of Energy recently announced a byproduct recovery pilot program, and the Pentagon took a $400 million stake in the operator of the country’s only rare-earth metal mine. At the same time, Congress recently repealed large chunks of the Inflation Reduction Act, which would have driven demand for critical minerals, and has slashed federal funding to the U.S. Geological Survey and the Department of Energy’s Office of Science, among other research arms.
The general thrust of the Science study is “not new,” said Isabel Barton, a professor of geological engineering at the University of Arizona. “It is a very hot topic in mining these days.”
The attention is contributing to a burgeoning shift in thinking, from an intense focus on the target mineral to consideration of what else could be produced, including critical minerals. “There are some that are probably relatively simple. There are others that are heinously difficult to get to,” said Barton, and whether a mineral is recovered will ultimately come down to cost. “Mining companies are there to make a profit.”
Figuring out the most economically viable way forward is exactly the next step Holley hopes this research will inform. Byproduct potential varies considerably by mine, and the analysis, she said, can help pinpoint where to potentially find which minerals. For instance, the Red Dog mine in Alaska appears to have the largest germanium potential in the country, while nickel could be found at the Stillwater and East Boulder mines in Montana.
“The [research and development] funding on critical minerals has been a little bit of a scattershot,” she said. “Our paper allows the development of a strategy.”
Tik Root is a Senior Staff Writer at Grist. This story was originally published by Grist. You can subscribe to its weekly newsletter here.
