US Is Throwing Away the Critical Minerals It Needs, Analysis Shows (phys.org) 85
alternative_right shares a report from Phys.org: All the critical minerals the U.S. needs annually for energy, defense and technology applications are already being mined at existing U.S. facilities, according to a new analysis published in the journal Science. The catch? These minerals, such as cobalt, lithium, gallium and rare earth elements like neodymium and yttrium, are currently being discarded as tailings of other mineral streams like gold and zinc, said Elizabeth Holley, associate professor of mining engineering at Colorado School of Mines and lead author of the new paper.
To conduct the analysis, Holley and her team built a database of annual production from federally permitted metal mines in the U.S. They used a statistical resampling technique to pair these data with the geochemical concentrations of critical minerals in ores, recently compiled by the U.S. Geological Survey, Geoscience Australia and the Geologic Survey of Canada. Using this approach, Holley's team was able to estimate the quantities of critical minerals being mined and processed every year at U.S. metal mines but not being recovered. Instead, these valuable minerals are ending up as discarded tailings that must be stored and monitored to prevent environmental contamination.
The analysis looks at a total of 70 elements used in applications ranging from consumer electronics like cell phones to medical devices to satellites to renewable energy to fighter jets and shows that unrecovered byproducts from other U.S. mines could meet the demand for all but two -- platinum and palladium. Among the elements included in the analysis are:
- Cobalt (Co): The lustrous bluish-gray metal, a key component in electric car batteries, is a byproduct of nickel and copper mining. Recovering less than 10% of the cobalt currently being mined and processed but not recovered would be more than enough to fuel the entire U.S. battery market.
- Germanium (Ge): The brittle silvery-white semi-metal used for electronics and infrared optics, including sensors on missiles and defense satellites, is present in zinc and molybdenum mines. If the U.S. recovered less than 1% of the germanium currently mined and processed but not recovered from U.S. mines, it would not have to import any germanium to meet industry needs.
To conduct the analysis, Holley and her team built a database of annual production from federally permitted metal mines in the U.S. They used a statistical resampling technique to pair these data with the geochemical concentrations of critical minerals in ores, recently compiled by the U.S. Geological Survey, Geoscience Australia and the Geologic Survey of Canada. Using this approach, Holley's team was able to estimate the quantities of critical minerals being mined and processed every year at U.S. metal mines but not being recovered. Instead, these valuable minerals are ending up as discarded tailings that must be stored and monitored to prevent environmental contamination.
The analysis looks at a total of 70 elements used in applications ranging from consumer electronics like cell phones to medical devices to satellites to renewable energy to fighter jets and shows that unrecovered byproducts from other U.S. mines could meet the demand for all but two -- platinum and palladium. Among the elements included in the analysis are:
- Cobalt (Co): The lustrous bluish-gray metal, a key component in electric car batteries, is a byproduct of nickel and copper mining. Recovering less than 10% of the cobalt currently being mined and processed but not recovered would be more than enough to fuel the entire U.S. battery market.
- Germanium (Ge): The brittle silvery-white semi-metal used for electronics and infrared optics, including sensors on missiles and defense satellites, is present in zinc and molybdenum mines. If the U.S. recovered less than 1% of the germanium currently mined and processed but not recovered from U.S. mines, it would not have to import any germanium to meet industry needs.
So um (Score:3)
. . . why not just charge the mining companies a storage fee, take possession of the tailings, and process them for valuable minerals? Surely there's a reason why no one has tried that already. Right?
Reprocessing (Score:1)
Re:Reprocessing (Score:5, Interesting)
I got my computer science degree at a college of engineering and mining.
There's a copper/gold mine where actual mining stopped a century or so ago, but they've reprocessed the tailings 7 times now. They're planning to keep operating forty years more.
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah that makes sense. What would they do with the radioactive stuff?
Re: Reprocessing (Score:2)
Sell it. It's all worth money if you have the capital for the processing equipment.
Re: (Score:2)
Not many people want thorium. Usually.
Re:So um (Score:4)
Actually, yes there is a reason. Refining those minerals is very dirty business. The environmental laws would rack up the costs. But do not fear, another year of la Presidenta and there will be no environmental laws to prevent the pollution that refining those minerals would cause. Make America Stupid Again.
Re: (Score:3)
Actually, yes there is a reason. Refining those minerals is very dirty business. The environmental laws would rack up the costs. But do not fear, another year of la Presidenta and there will be no environmental laws to prevent the pollution that refining those minerals would cause. Make America Stupid Again.
Politics aside, it is in the end a cost issue. As long as we can buy enough import minerals no one is going to spend the money to properly process them here; it's easier and cheaper to simply export the environmental damage. OTOH, having the tailings means we still have the minerals available for extraction should the situation arise where imported ones are not available.
Re: (Score:2)
Just build the refining plant close to Washington DC because there's enough hot air getting around there for it to work.
Re: (Score:2)
It isn't just environmental costs. The yield from tailings may be so poor that mining higher-purity ore overseas is more cost-effective. In the case of the tailings mentioned in the summary, the desired mineral content is low enough that refining doesn't yet make any sense.
Re: (Score:2)
Exactly... it'd be like digging a hole in your backyard (if you have one), and progressively sifting it to get every mineral possible (whatever it might be, where ever you are)... the amount of copper & iron & quartz & silicon & whatever-else-you-wanna-name is gonna be so small, the effort isn't worth it.
Going through the gold mine tailings pits might get you some of the gold... spend a year sifting and washing and collecting... you might get enough to be a pebble... "in Philadelphia, that'l
Re: (Score:2)
It isn't just environmental costs. The yield from tailings may be so poor that mining higher-purity ore overseas is more cost-effective. In the case of the tailings mentioned in the summary, the desired mineral content is low enough that refining doesn't yet make any sense.
I fully agree, which was why I initially said it was a cost issue. I highlighted environmental, just on of the costs, since it would likely be the most political and public issue around constructing such an extraction facility. The supply would have to b almost completely constrained, IMHO, to even consider extraction and then it likely would be a government project given all the costs and issues involved.
Re: (Score:2)
Do you have any idea of the volume of material we're talking about here? Further, the amount of minerals they're talking about in this volume of tailings is miniscule, and there is no reasonable technology to extract that small of a ratio of minerals out of that volume of material at this time.
This is just a geologist pointing out that as some mine is processing the actual valuable thing they are in business to mine (and that they are mining in that specific area because that thing is concentrated there eno
NASA Advanced Automation for Space Missions (1980) (Score:2)
See the HF Acid Leach Process on page 290-291 (and in general the rest of Appendix 5E LMF Chemical Processing Sector, all outlined with an eye towards self-replicating lunar factories, from NASA under the Carter presidency): https://archive.org/details/Ad... [archive.org]
"[From the Intro] Mission complexity has increased enormously as instrumentation and scientific objectives have become more sophisticated. In the next two decades there is little doubt that NASA will shift its major focus fro
Re: (Score:2)
Yes, others have pointed out the fact that the mineral concentrations are quite low.
Re: (Score:2)
So why not just nationalize all mining for national security purposes and streamline the continual processing of all mine tailings for useful material until there is nothing left?
Re: (Score:2)
You don't have to go that far. There's probably a less-intrusive way for the government to regulate these tailings.
Re: (Score:2)
Gee if only we had thorium reactors. Also isn't telluride a problem in some mines?
Re: (Score:2)
Sorry tellurium.
The reason is right there at the top of the story (Score:5, Insightful)
> The challenge lies in recovery," Holley said. "It's like getting salt out of bread doughâ"we need to do a lot more research, development and policy to make the recovery of these critical minerals economically feasible."
Just because a mineral exists in tailings doesn't mean it's in any way economically reasonable to recover it. This is a geologist pointing out that research needs to be done to make these recovery processes more efficient, and he's right. But the headline is all wrong.
Re: (Score:3)
That answers my question, thanks.
Re:The reason is right there at the top of the sto (Score:5, Insightful)
But this article is a reminder, to treat/store this waste product, that in the future the critical parts can be recovered easily.
in the future:
- For example when China has an export ban (oohh, then expensive will become feasible)
- For example when China and the US go to war
Re:The reason is right there at the top of the sto (Score:5, Insightful)
Penny wise and pound foolish and all that.
Re:The reason is right there at the top of the sto (Score:4, Interesting)
I do not concur.
The reason for the US economy is the still existing dollar dependence,
despite the whopping US spending deficit, the dollar is a pillar stone of international trade and the basis for the US economy.
Trump with his dumb idea is going to hurt the dollar standing, indeed,
but the next war needs to be fought, for the future of the US economy.
If it isn't, China will rise, and the US economy will be valued at its real price, which is considerably less valuable that people might think, because from the export-perspective nobody really wants to buy "things" made in america - not even the Trumpy hypocrite Hillbilly Shotgunweddingfolks that brought a Taco to the picknick.
Re:The reason is right there at the top of the sto (Score:5, Insightful)
It doesn't make sense for China to go to war with the US any time soon.
It only makes "sense" for the US to attack China, to preserve the economic order, in which the US is in control.
The reason for the US economy is the still existing dollar dependence,
Yes, and the only logical reason for us to go to war with China would be to preserve that dependence. We can't actually conquer China, though. That's just not feasible.
Meanwhile, China doesn't need to go to war with us to end dollar dependence, because our being big assholes is going to do that all by itself.
If you wanted to preserve dollar dependence, the best move would have been to prevent a second Trump presidency. Or, for that matter, the first one.
Re: (Score:3)
It makes sense for China to invade Taiwan, which in turn then makes sense for the US to go to war with China.
Re: (Score:2)
It makes sense for China to invade Taiwan, which in turn then makes sense for the US to go to war with China.
It makes more sense to do what we have been doing, getting Taiwanese companies to build factories here in the USA. This accomplishes the same strategic goal for a lot less money.
Re: (Score:2)
The US will not go to war with China if China takes over Taiwan. And if it does, it will give up real quick.
There's no appetite in America to send people to die for decades across the other side of the world. China can fight a longer regional war than the US can.
It also makes no sense logistically: China has supply lines and industrial capacity right next door to Taiwan, the US does not, only allies.
China has no incentive to back down. The US allies, South Korea and Japan on the other hand, have plenty
Re: (Score:2)
Replacing the USD as the reserve currency and currency for international trades is a high priority now for the EU and China, and probably other groups like ASEAN. The instability, the use of USD as a cudgel, the legal over-reach, and the general feeling that the US is both an unreliable partner and likely on a downward economic trajectory over the long term.
If it was just Trump for another few years they might wait it out, but even if he does hand over power at the end of his term, it doesn't seem like the
Re: The reason is right there at the top of the st (Score:2)
JFC, fuck off. How about we scrap your insane idea and invest in other countries. You'd rather go to war with China than invest anywhere else with cheap labor? See that doesn't add up.
The only way you know out of a bad situation is to do something worse and say it had to be done. We all know people like that around us in every stage of life, they're morons and can't be trusted with anything.
Re: (Score:2)
"invest anywhere else with cheap labor?" You mean offshore everything... I can probably find 50 people in my apartment building who'd like one of those jobs that are offshored.
Maybe, just maybe (my opinion, which is worth, well... not much)... keep jobs (especially manufacturing) in the US. I'm sure, given enough time... somebody will figure out a way to offshore flipping burgers (they do the burger flipping in India, ship them here, the usual suspects sell them for a massive mark-up).
Re: (Score:2)
When Trump started his
Re: (Score:2)
The problem is... none of those manufacturing jobs are anywhere close to the people who want/need them, and not everyone has the luxury of a car (city busses, walking, bumming a ride, or taxi).
Just like, I wouldn't have a problem working a wheat field and milking cows all day... if only there was a farm near me that I could get to.
Re: (Score:3)
Thank you for proving that time travel is real, .. or was it just a slight hint of karma from HIV and Kennedy, spiced up by a syringe filled with bleach, that could cure every illness?
but for the sake of the timeline integrity just don't give me the correct horses I am just interested in how they did remove Donald J(erk) Trump from office
Re:The reason is right there at the top of the sto (Score:5, Interesting)
It gets better, the American birthrate is dropping sharply and la Presdienta is shipping the migrants out as fast as he can find them. The migrants hold jobs, pay taxes including Social Security taxes, raise families, etc.
So you might ask, who is going to shore up Social Security? No one. The rich will make sure it isn't them, there won't be enough Americans and there will not be enough immigration to make up the difference. The rich will finally get their dream of ditching SS. They figure if they are mean enough, the poor people will all die off and they will be able to keep their wealth all to themselves with no social responsibility news stories to nag at them.
Re: (Score:2)
So you might ask, who is going to shore up Social Security?
Social Security doesn't need shoring up. There is plenty of money there, which the government has been spending on other projects, without paying back the money that was 'loaned'.
The current government is nothing but lies to enrich certain people at the expense of everyone else. It has been trending towards that end for almost 50 years now, but now is when it is happening.
My parents contributions to Social Security were fully funded and had 300 billion in unspent money in 1978. Then, a law was passed to all
Getting rid of Xi to avoid a war over Taiwan? (Score:2)
Great idea. How much do think it will cost?
Re: The reason is right there at the top of the st (Score:2)
But he stopped all the wars! That one with Iran, there was Eastasia, there's no more fighting in North Korea, windmills are no longer a threat, Christmas and drugs are safe, and the big one, Godzilla will never be back.
Hang on, I need to get my boss a towel.
Rare earth's aren't rare (Score:5, Informative)
These minerals aren't actually rare at all. They are everywhere, including in those mine tailings. Their "rarity" is just that they never appear in high concentrations, compared to iron, copper, etc..
It's all about the refining effort and side-effects. Maybe further refining of mine tailings makes sense, if the concentrations are reasonable. Maybe it doesn't. It's not a given.
I said it 6 years ago (Score:3)
In Trump we trust... (Score:5, Funny)
Please, do not listen to scientists. They all are witches...
Remark: Yes, with time going on, I am becoming more and more cynical:-(
Re:In Trump we trust... (Score:5, Insightful)
Now is no time to listen to scientists, they only study science for a living. If we get another pandemic before la Presidenta and his mini-me are out of office, then we can expect Robert Kennedy Jr. to be on national TV dressing in voodoo attire and chanting spells to make the Evil Epidemic Force go back to Hell and all will be safe.
Re: In Trump we trust... (Score:1)
Would the outcome be the same as the scientists gave us?
Re: (Score:1)
Probably, because people are too fucking stupid to listen. Farmers have had to deal with this shit for thousands of years. Any farmer that DIDN'T quarantine new cattle and just tossed them into the herd soon found disease ravaging his herds.
But but but! I HAVE to go to the bar! I HAVE to go to the restaurant! I HAVE to go to the football game! And I definitely HAVE to go to the party where everyone is coughing!
You can't MUZZLE me, masks don't work! Never mind that the doctors and nurses aren't dropping like
Re: (Score:2)
I know... we're all witches!
-- science nerd, and witch :-P
Not new or interesting (Score:4, Insightful)
For those not in the know, "rare earths" are hilariously common. Their problem isn't their rarity. It's the toxicity of separation processes from main ores that contain them.
The main reason their extraction moved to PRC is rise of stringent environmental protections across the Western nations. The nature of separation process is such that it's exceedingly costly to do it and obey newer environmental protection regulations, if even possible at all. No such problem in PRC, and so they cornered pretty much entirety of the market.
If Western nations want to solve this problem within a year, they just need to repeal relevant environmental protections long term, to make building and operating separators cost-effective.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Cold War-Era Uranium Mining Is Causing Widespread Cancer In Navajo Women And Newborns [allthatsinteresting.com]
Because it's all about being "cost effective" and you don't give a rats ass abou
Re: (Score:1)
It's funny you claim "racism" considering you're typing this out on a device that uses rare earths to be made, and you have externalized the human cost of their mining to East Asians.
Stop projecting your flaws on others. I'm pointing out that we don't have to be racist to Chinese and have them bear this burden, and that we should shoulder at least some of it. You're insisting that we should continue.
Re: (Score:2)
If I'm wrong about you I'll admit it, but all I see so far is boiler plate nonsense about the "cost of business" that ignore who plays the real personal cost
Re: (Score:1)
You're still using that same device made with rare earth metals, extraction of which caused immense suffering by your own accusations, to pretend really hard that someone beside you is a racist in this thread.
It's doubly ironic in light of the fact that California-left-progressive axis adherents prefer Chinese as their slave class. It's the primary difference from mainline East Coast left-progressive axis, who's adherents prefer blacks as their main slave class.
It's been that way for well over a century, an
Re: (Score:2)
If Western nations want to solve this problem within a year, they just need to repeal relevant environmental protections long term, to make building and operating separators cost-effective.
Seems like there might be some downsides to that. We should probably understand those first.
Re: (Score:2)
Sure... we'll start the 50-year study and see what comes from that.
Meanwhile, we could build a double semi trailer-sized separator, and just haul it from site to site and just stage filter the hell out of the tailings (various methods) until we can't get a damn thing outta it... if it's that important.
If the big deposits of the minerals that we need are under someone's property... maybe buy the property and help them move to someplace similar... don't just say 'eminent domain' and steal it (the buying the p
Re: (Score:2)
Sure... we'll start the 50-year study and see what comes from that
How about a one-year study instead?
Re: (Score:2)
This pretentious, utterly fake internet moral grandstanding is truly the bane of modernity.
You are typing this message on a device that required rare earths to be manufactured. Which are separated... in other nations. Because we refuse to do it domestically across the West.
There are people who are experiencing extreme downsides right now. They had to extract and refine rare earths so that your utterly fake moral grandstanding on how awful it would be if we moved this problem back home and dealt with it dom
Re: (Score:2)
Recycling? (Score:5, Funny)
If the U.S. recovered less than 1% of the germanium currently mined and processed but not recovered from U.S. mines, it would not have to import any germanium to meet industry needs.
Unfortunately this is not an option for the US because 'recovering' Germanium is just another way of saying 'recycling' and that is both 'woke' and equivalent to practicing communism. Plus, Trump doesn't like Germany much so there's that too.
Re: (Score:2)
In this context, "recovering" a metal is not a synonym for "recycling" it. It's a lot harder to do because the concentration of the metal is a lot lower, and because it's mixed in random ore rather than in some alloy that people found commercially useful.
Re: (Score:2)
In this context, "recovering" a metal is not a synonym for "recycling" it. It's a lot harder to do because the concentration of the metal is a lot lower, and because it's mixed in random ore rather than in some alloy that people found commercially useful.
Nope, It's woke communism all the way down.
Re: (Score:2)
I just can't believe we were tossing them before though. If I can rip
Re: (Score:3)
Recycling a hard drive is possible. I don't know how often it's done, but I recycle mine (after wiping them).
The suggestion in TFA is extracting rare earth elements from the tailings that are left over when mining for other metals. Those are pretty much rocks that are mostly the abundant stuff in the crust such as silicates -- rare earths are typically trace impurities rather than veins. One has to process a huge amount of those tailings to get much neodymium or whatever else. Their chemistries make it
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
The head actuator magnets make a helluva fridge magnet! Yeah, it'll hold your kid's drawing, no problem... and you could just hold a phonebook or a kid :-)
Re: (Score:2)
Gravel, Sand, Bricks, Limestone, Concrete, Klinker, Steel, Iron, Lead, Rebar, Copper, Brass and Bronze, Water, Wood, Wood Ash, Pallets, Cardboard and Paper and PCB/components. Manure amd Sanitary Products have been liquid gold sine the beginning of farming.
All these companies that do this recycling are under assault by regulators (for sins that occured 50+ years ago), the loca
Re: (Score:3)
Processing a circuit board to recover the rare earth stuff and gold and stuff is a very nasty process... safer to make meth (unless a blender full of sulfuric acid sounds like a fun afternoon)
Re: (Score:3)
That is easily solved, just promise el Bunko a cut of the profits. You won't be able to keep him away. And if we get Putin interested, then it is a slam dunk. Extra credit for poor people who died on the way to the extraction processes.
Re: (Score:2)
That is easily solved, just promise el Bunko a cut of the profits. You won't be able to keep him away. And if we get Putin interested, then it is a slam dunk. Extra credit for poor people who died on the way to the extraction processes.
Maybe we should just rename "Germanium" to "Putinium"??
So start processing the tailings if profitable... (Score:3)
Re: So start processing the tailings if profitable (Score:2)
Will the environmental side-effects make AI look shiny clean by comparison?
Re: (Score:2)
Probaby better than digging another open pit mine to get fresh ore.
Re: (Score:2)
That depends on the methods used. Apparently there are new processes being developed that can extract higher percentages out of lower percentage ores using less energy with effectively 100% recycling, leading to less pollution.
Basically, very careful electrolysis, use of electroplating techniques to pull the desired metallic elements out.
But it requires very specific chemicals, temperature, and electrical to work, so a lot of development work and it is still fussy.
Re: (Score:3)
Interesting anecdote:
A couple of guys took a broom and dustpan and swept a few hundred yards along the shoulder of a road. They took the debris back to their lab and extracted the platinum which had been ejected from catalytic converters. When finished, they had a tiny blob of (relatively) pure platinum. They pointed out that they had a better yield than excavating and processing raw ore. There's a YouTube video they made about their experiment.
Profitable? I don't know. But the unprofitability of their pr
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
A couple of people with a bucket can't beat truckloads. But our town runs street sweepers along all the roads a couple of times a month. I wonder where they dump it all?
Re: (Score:2)
What the sweepers pick up goes to the city dump... where it probably gets burned or buried in lime, and the heat from decomp smolders it to nothing after a bit.
Re:So start processing the tailingslike F-35s .. (Score:1)