U.S. Energy Department Supports Critical Minerals & Materials Supply Chain

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The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) made enormous progress supporting the growth of critical mineral and material supply chains under President Joe Biden and Democrats in Congress. After some delays and uncertainty with regard to support of this industry, the Trump administration is now continuing the support. The DOE has just issued “notices of funding opportunities (NOFO) totaling nearly $1 billion to advance and scale mining, processing, and manufacturing technologies across key stages of the critical minerals and materials supply chains.”

Presumably, enough people in the industry had ties to Trump and Republicans that they determined this industry was not actually “too woke” to support. Heck, maybe someone even convinced them that this is a critical industry for the future of technology and the economy and that it would make sense to follow Biden’s lead (while giving him no credit) and continue support for companies in the industry.

Here’s more info on the proposed NOFOs announced yesterday:

Critical Minerals and Materials Accelerator

The Advanced Materials and Manufacturing Technologies Office expects to release a NOFO of up to $50 million early this fall through the Critical Minerals and Materials (CMM) Accelerator program. The CMM Accelerator promotes technology maturation that can unlock capital investments and facilitate domestic commercialization. The proposed NOFO addresses several areas of interest, including processes in the rare-earth magnet supply chain; processes to refine and alloy gallium, gallium nitride, germanium, and silicon carbide for use in semiconductors; cost-competitive technologies for direct lithium extraction and separation; and critical-material separation technologies that allow for the co-production of useful products from byproducts and scrap.

Mines & Metals Capacity Expansion — Piloting Byproduct Critical Minerals and Materials Recovery at Domestic Industrial Facilities

The Office of Fossil Energy and Carbon Management is announcing its intent to issue a NOFO to support approximately $250 million of financial assistance for American industrial facilities that have the potential to produce valuable mineral byproducts from existing industrial processes. To derisk the technical uncertainty and financial risk for commercial deployment, many technologies must be piloted at an industrial scale in an industrial facility where material feedstocks can be processed. The proposed NOFO addresses topic areas pertaining to both industry at large and the coal-based industry.

Rare Earth Elements Demonstration Facility

The Office of Manufacturing and Energy Supply Chains (MESC) is announcing its intent to issue a NOFO of up to $135 million to enhance domestic supply chains for rare earth elements (REEs). The goal of this initiative is to reduce America’s dependence on foreign sources of REEs by demonstrating the commercial viability of methods for domestically refining and recovering REEs from mine tailings, deleterious material, and waste streams. An academic partner is required as a part of the project team and an award requires a cost-share of at least 50% by the recipient.

Battery Materials Processing and Battery Manufacturing and Recycling Grant Program

MESC is announcing its intent to issue a NOFO of up to $500 million to expand U.S. critical mineral and materials processing and derivative battery manufacturing and recycling. The proposed funding opportunity supports demonstration and/or commercial facilities processing, recycling, or utilizing for manufacturing critical materials which may include traditional battery minerals such as lithium, graphite, nickel, copper, aluminum, as well as other minerals that are contained within commercially available batteries, such as rare earth elements. An award requires a cost-share of at least 50% by the recipient.

Recover Critical Minerals from Industrial Wastewater

The Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) is planning to announce project selections for its $40 million program to develop technologies to recover critical minerals from industrial wastewater early this fall. ARPA-E’s Realize Energy-rich Compound Opportunities Valorizing Extraction from Refuse waters (RECOVER) program aims to enable the U.S. to reduce its dependence on critical mineral imports and replace them with secure, domestic sources. Significant amounts of critical minerals exist in domestic wastewater systems, untreated and discarded. RECOVER technologies complement more traditional mining operations to access these materials and potentially meet a significant portion of America’s needs using supplies that might otherwise go to waste.

It’s nice to see a rare story that shows the Trump administration doing something that helps the USA’s footing in cleantech industries of the future, but here we are.

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