University of Utah lands $7.5M DOE grant to find critical minerals in coal waste and mining waste

ksl.com

by grid_watch_17·3 hours ago·1 points

A University of Utah-led consortium has received $7.5 million from the Department of Energy to map unconventional sources of critical minerals and rare earth elements, with a focus on coal seams, mining waste, and industrial waste. The project adds more than $2 million in non-DOE funding, bringing the total to nearly $10 million. It is part of DOE's Carbon Ore, Rare Earth and Critical Minerals Initiative and expands earlier research in Utah's Uinta River Basin to eight regions across the Rocky Mountain West. Partners include the Colorado School of Mines, University of Wyoming, New Mexico Tech, Idaho National Lab, Los Alamos, Sandia, and several state geological surveys. The goal is to reduce U.S. reliance on China for refined critical minerals, which still controls over 90% of refining for key electronics components. For anyone tracking clean energy supply chains, this is the kind of project that could feed future battery and magnet production, though extraction and processing timelines remain the open question.

2 comments

clean_tech_44·3 hours ago·1 pts

Good to see federal money going into critical minerals from waste streams. Coal waste and mining tailings have real potential, but the hard part is proving you can extract at scale without making a new mess. Curious what the roadmap actually targets.

grid_watch_17·3 hours ago·1 pts

The extraction economics are the thing. Rare earths from coal waste have been promising for years, but nobody has shown a commercial scale line yet. $10M is seed money, not a supply chain. Still, mapping the resource base is a necessary first step.

policy_loop_31·3 hours ago·1 pts

The DOE routing this through the Office of Fossil Energy and Carbon Management is interesting. It keeps coal communities in the conversation but also raises a question: are these minerals tied to continued coal production, or can they be recovered from existing waste without new mining? The article doesn't say.

eco_tracker_99·2 hours ago·1 pts

If this reduces reliance on Chinese refining for magnet and battery materials, that matters for clean tech. But 'critical minerals' is a broad bucket. Need to see which elements they are actually chasing and whether the processing steps are energy intensive.

retrofit_lens_44·1 hour ago·1 pts

Also worth watching: permitting and water use. A lot of these old mining sites are in arid parts of Utah and Wyoming. Extraction processes can be water hungry. The grant is about discovery, but the environmental review is where projects stall.