Federal officials announced Tuesday they have chosen two mining initiatives to receive $134 million in government funding aimed at harvesting rare earth elements from industrial waste materials.
The federal government has been working to increase domestic production of these critical minerals while reducing America’s reliance on China, which controls most of the world’s rare earth supply network.
Approximately $67 million will go toward an initiative headed by the Colorado School of Mines and ElementUSA to construct a processing center in Louisiana. This facility will extract and process rare earth materials from bauxite waste products.
Officials expect the Louisiana plant to test commercial-scale operations and generate between 150 and 1,000 metric tons of rare earth materials each year from mining waste.
The Department of Energy also chose Phoenix Tailings for a second project to construct a testing facility in Oklahoma. Working alongside the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, this initiative will transform industrial waste materials into pure rare earth metals while creating a new domestic supply chain.
Last month, the federal agency had already chosen rare earth magnet manufacturer USA Rare Earth to receive as much as $19.3 million for a pilot processing operation designed to strengthen domestic supply networks.
