NETL recently created a framework to assess the economic viability of recovering rare earth elements (REEs) from unconventional feedstocks like coal and coal waste — an advance that is part of NETL efforts to unlock new domestic sources of critical minerals (CM) that can ease the Nation’s dependence on foreign sources for the minerals. The success was the subject of a new article in a prestigious science journal.

REEs are used in development of high-priority technologies to help transition to a clean energy future. The energy transition is causing demand for REEs to grow every year. The International Energy Agency estimates that demand may at least quadruple by 2040.

NETL has been at the forefront of efforts to discover unconventional sources for REEs and develop pathways to extract them, reestablishing the U.S. as a global leader in REE production. China has been the dominant global supplier of REEs since 1988, providing up to 95% of the global REE market annually. Unconventional REE sources like domestic coal and coal waste could yield the materials needed for the strong magnets necessary to turn wind into electricity and operate electric vehicles.  

In the new article appearing in the respected Nature Sustainability publication, NETL experts Alison Fritz, Ph.D., and Thomas Tarka and Stanford University’s Megan Mauter, Ph.D., describe their work to create a new framework for assessing the economic viability of unconventional REE feedstocks.

“There’s no doubt that sourcing REEs from unconventional feedstocks like secondary waste materials could have substantial environmental and societal–economic benefits if executed correctly,” Fritz, who served as the primary author, explained. “But its economic viability remains unclear. Without some clear metrics to evaluate recovery efforts, it is hard for industry leaders to understand whether the economics of important projects make sense.”

Fritz said NETL created a framework to answer economic viability questions. 

“We started by developing an effective database of capital and operating expenses for REE recovery,” she said. “That allowed us to establish consistent process unit costs for common stages in the conventional supply chain. We then used market prices to develop well-defined methods for determining diverse product values.”

The work is a critical part of the NETL’s effort to help make recovery of REEs from unconventional sources a common reality. 

According to a Department of Energy (DOE) report to Congress about REEs in 2022, “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.”

Fritz added that published information on aspects of the stages of commercial REE production is inconsistent. 

“In the absence of strong data on process costs, previous techno-economic assessments of unconventional feedstocks make highly inconsistent assumptions about refining costs and the appropriate discount applied for low-purity REE products,” she said. “This inconsistency stymies comparisons between techno-economic assessments. We believe our framework can help correct those deficiencies.”

The economic analysis work complements a range of significant progress made possible by NETL research. The lab has built strong partnerships with industries that are making considerable advances in the field.

NETL is a U.S. Department of Energy national laboratory that drives innovation and delivers technological solutions for an environmentally sustainable and prosperous energy future. By using its world-class talent and research facilities, NETL is ensuring affordable, abundant and reliable energy that drives a robust economy and national security, while developing technologies to manage carbon across the full life cycle, enabling environmental sustainability for all Americans.