Rare Earth Elements

[TigerGrowls]

Great news!!!



🚨🇺🇸 $8.4 BILLION RARE EARTH DISCOVERY COULD END U.S. DEPENDENCE ON CHINA

Scientists at The University of Texas at Austin have uncovered a massive domestic supply of rare earth elements buried in coal ash landfills across the U.S.

With an estimated 11 million tons available, this discovery could significantly reduce reliance on China, which currently supplies 75% of the U.S.’s rare earth needs.

The study, backed by the U.S. Department of Energy, estimates the materials hold $8.4 billion in value.

If successful, this breakthrough could reshape global supply chains and secure America’s energy future.

Source: University of Texas at Austin

 

[southerncaltiger]

Doesn’t surprise me; mining landfills for what was previously thought to be useless waste products isn’t a new idea. There’s a lot of trace elements in coal (part of my masters thesis) and much of that is retained in the ash. You know how to find at least one of the ash landfills at a coal-fired power plant? Find the onsite baseball/softaball field…it’s very likely underneath it. 🤣

When there isn’t a market for “waste”, no one tries to save it; they chuck it in the landfill. I remember watching our crews at Plant Bowen crush the spent vanadium pentoxide scrubbers with a D9 Dozer and throw them in the onsite landfill. When vanadium gets high enough, they’ll dig them back up & smelt them.

How many of those “waste rock” and “spoil piles” from former gold mines do you think are going to go unprocessed when Gold is now (checks his APMEX account) well over $3,000/oz?

 

[wrw311]

Agreed that ash having trace elements is not surprising, landfills are full of industrial waste with trace. However I can't find an article that really indicates the concentration or even anything beyond just saying "rare earths". If you have to process tons and tons of it just to yield a small fraction, it's not going to be economical.

 

[southerncaltiger]

Going from memory, but Appalachian coals are higher in impurities (and trace elements) than say Powder River basin coals from the west. Strangely enough, PRB coal created air quality issues when we didn’t blend it with higher sulfur coals.

I remember that fly ash had concentrated amounts of certain elements because of combustion, but I agree that it would be good to see a detailed article about this.

 

[southerncaltiger]

Found it. Link