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Dirty Coal is so yesterday...There's "Rare Earth Elements in 'dem 'darn 'bandoned Coal Mines and Ash heeps!"
The U. S. National Coal Council (NCC) also completed a report on REEs and CMs in October 2021, entitled “Carbon Forward – Advanced Markets for Value-Added Products from Coal.” The National Coal Council at that time was a Federal Advisory Committee established under the authority of the DOE. The NCC report addressed recovery of REEs and CMs from coal and concluded “Recovering REEs from coal waste resources would have numerous advantages. Mining and logistics costs would be negligible compared with traditional REE/CM mining methods. The carbon resources are “shovel ready” in that they are surface mine reserves and the material is already beneficiated for the most part, requiring less energy and expense to produce. These factors significantly reduce the cost of extraction and separation. Distribution of REE separation plants sited at or near the reserve sites would eliminate the need for extensive transportation. Finally, REE recovery from waste carbon material would aid in the mitigation of legacy environmental issues associated with waste coal disposal ponds.”
Enormous Cache of Rare Earth Elements Discovered in America
Coal ash, the powdery residue left after burning coal for fuel, has accumulated across the United States for decades. New research from the University of Texas at Austin reveals that this vast supply contains enough rare earth elements to significantly strengthen the nation’s reserves without the need for additional mining.
DOE has made many advancements toward the recovery of REE and CM from coal and coal byproducts—identifying significant REE resources in coal and coal byproducts and in what quantities and combinations, demonstrating that they can be extracted from coal, coal measures, coal ash, coal refuse, and acid mine drainage, and establishing first- of-a-kind pilots that produce high purity REE from these feedstocks. Nonetheless, there is much more work to be done before coal and coal byproducts can become part of the foundational supply for domestic critical mineral supply chains. Additional research activities have been initiated to address these research needs and technical challenges.
“The model is if you’re already moving rock, could you move a little more rock for resources towards energy transition?” Birgenheier said. “In those areas, we’re finding that the rare earth elements are concentrated in fine-grain shale units, the muddy shales that are above and below the coal seams.”
While nobody knows exactly how much rare earth material there is hiding in coal ash piles, waste ponds, and acid mine drainage sites around the country, Alvin says that in the Appalachian region alone, an estimated 6,000 metric tons of rare earths flow through acid mine drainage sites each year. The United States’ annual rare earth demand stands at around 12,000 to 13,000 metric tons.
"Distribution of CO2eq emissions from industrial processes in the U.S. in 2018 (BF/BOF: blast furnace / basic oxygen furnace, EAF: electric arc furnace) compared to the total production of the material. Data markers refer to the carbon intensity measured by the total emissions divided by the total production, resulting in an estimate of MtCO2eq per Mt of material produced." https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360128521000800
'On Monday Chris Wright, the energy secretary, declared — in a weirdly dated culture war cliché — that coal is “out of fashion with the chardonnay set in San Francisco, Boulder, and New York City.”'
Comments
Gotta bail out the red states!
Coal By-Products.pdf
U of Utah: can-coal-mines-be-tapped-for-rare-earth-elements
Another Biden Era Initiative: https://grist.org/technology/the-plan-to-turn-coal-country-into-a-rare-earth-powerhouse/
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2666790823000721
"Distribution of CO2eq emissions from industrial processes in the U.S. in 2018 (BF/BOF: blast furnace / basic oxygen furnace, EAF: electric arc furnace) compared to the total production of the material. Data markers refer to the carbon intensity measured by the total emissions divided by the total production, resulting in an estimate of MtCO2eq per Mt of material produced."
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360128521000800
'On Monday Chris Wright, the energy secretary, declared — in a weirdly dated culture war cliché — that coal is “out of fashion with the chardonnay set in San Francisco, Boulder, and New York City.”'