WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Fossil Energy and Carbon Management (FECM), in collaboration with DOE’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE), announced up to $19.5 million in federal funding to advance technologies that will help reduce costs for recovering critical minerals and materials from domestic secondary and unconventional sources. The projects will help restore the United States as a world leader in the extraction, separation, and refining of these materials—needed to produce solar panels, wind turbines, and other clean energy technologies, as well as components for defense systems and other electronics—while reducing our reliance on foreign supply chains and helping to advance the Biden-Harris administration’s historic climate agenda.

“Transitioning the production of critical minerals and their associated supply chains to the United States is crucial for manufacturing materials and technologies needed to achieve a clean industrial and energy economy and strengthen our national security,” said Brad Crabtree, Assistant Secretary of Fossil Energy and Carbon Management. “Increasing our domestic supplies of these vital materials reduces our dependence on international supply chains, while also creating high-quality American jobs.”

“Securing sustainable critical materials supply chains is imperative for our nation to successfully transition to a clean energy economy,” said Jeff Marootian, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy. “Investing in innovative and environmentally conscious methods of extraction, separation, refining, and recycling will protect finite resources and strengthen our energy security.”

According to the U.S. Geological Survey, more than 95% of the U.S. demand for rare earth elements is met by foreign sources. More than 50% of most critical minerals come from foreign sources, and at least 12 critical minerals come exclusively from foreign sources.

Through this funding opportunity, FECM intends to advance an environmentally and economically secure, diverse, and resilient domestic critical minerals and materials supply chain. Selected projects will expand technology development beyond current portfolio areas to ensure the economic recovery of critical minerals and materials from secondary and unconventional sources, including but not limited to coal, mining and mineral processing waste, acid mine drainage, and produced water from fossil energy and carbon management operations. As a combined collaborative effort, FECM with EERE’s Advanced Materials and Manufacturing Technologies Office will address production of mixed rare earth oxides or salts from multiple feedstocks including recycled materials.

Specifically, the funding opportunity solicits applications in four areas of interest:

• Coproduction of Critical Minerals and Materials and Carbon Manufacturing Precursor Materials from Coal, Coal Waste, and Other Unconventional Carbon-based Feedstocks, to develop a process that uses existing technology to produce carbon manufacturing precursor materials from coal, coal wastes, coal byproducts or carbonaceous shale/clay that can be sold to manufacturers of end-use products (for instance, graphite). The process will be integrated into existing small pilot-scale (or larger) facilities extracting rare earth elements and other critical minerals and materials from unconventional carbon-based feedstocks using conventional extraction separation technologies.
   
• Recovery of Heavy Rare Earth Elements from Secondary and Unconventional Resources, using conventional separation and refining technologies or, preferably, building upon conventional technologies to develop new, advanced, unconventional rare earth element extraction, separation, and refining concepts specific to the recovery of individual heavy rare earth elements. Applicants must use secondary or unconventional feedstocks, such as coal mine waste/refuse, coal combustion residuals, carbonaceous shale/clay, or other waste materials such as hard rock mine waste, phosphogypsum, and red mud from bauxite.
   
• Critical Mineral Recovery from Produced Water, to develop methodologies to scale existing aqueous lithium extraction technologies to small pilot-scale lithium facilities using produced water associated with fossil energy and carbon management operations. Coproduction of critical minerals and materials (rare earth elements and non-rare earth elements) is encouraged.

• Process Diversification: Production of Rare Earth Elements from Secondary/Unconventional Resources and Recycled Materials, to provide proof-of-concept at the bench-scale to produce mixed rare earth oxides or salts from multiple feedstocks. Projects are required to include at least one secondary and unconventional feedstock (for instance, coal mine waste/refuse, coal combustion residuals, phosphogypsum, red mud) and one recycled feedstock (for instance, end-of-life magnets and electronic waste).

To support the goal of building a clean and equitable energy economy, projects funded under this funding opportunity announcement (FOA) are expected to advance diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility; facilitate robust community engagement; contribute to energy equality; and invest in America’s workforce.

Read more details about this FOA here. The application deadline is November 26, 2024 at 5:00 PM ET.

FECM minimizes environmental and climate impacts of fossil fuels and industrial processes while working to achieve net-zero emissions across the U.S economy. Priority areas of technology work include carbon capture, carbon conversion, carbon dioxide removal, carbon dioxide transport and storage, hydrogen production with carbon management, methane emissions reduction, and critical minerals production. To learn more, visit the FECM website, sign up for FECM news announcements, and visit the National Energy Technology Laboratory website.