US DoE to provide US$1B in mineral funding
The US Department of Energy has announced its intent to issue notices of funding opportunities totaling almost US$1 billion to advance and scale mining, processing and manufacturing technologies across key stages of the critical minerals and materials supply chains.
The funding announcements, issued in accordance with president Trump’s Unleashing American Energy executive order aims to help ensure a more secure, predictable and affordable supply of critical minerals and materials for American energy dominance, national security and industrial competitiveness.
“For too long, the US has relied on foreign actors to supply and process the critical materials that are essential to modern life and our national security. Thanks to president Trump’s leadership, the Energy Department will play a leading role in reshoring the processing of critical materials and expanding our domestic supply of these indispensable resources,” said US Secretary of Energy Chris Wright.
The Advanced Materials and Manufacturing Technologies Office expects to release a funding notice of up to $50 million in the coming weeks through the Critical Minerals and Materials (CMM) Accelerator programme to address several areas of interest. These include 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.
A funding notice of about $250 million is to be issued by the Office of Fossil Energy and Carbon Management for American industrial facilities that have the potential to produce mineral byproducts from existing industrial processes. Funding aims to derisk the technical uncertainty and financial risk for commercial deployment, as many technologies must be piloted at an industrial scale in an industrial facility where material feedstocks can be processed.
The Office of Manufacturing and Energy Supply Chains (MESC) aims to provide up to $135 million to enhance domestic supply chains for rare earth elements (REEs) to reduce America’s dependence on foreign sources 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 requires a cost-share of at least 50% by the recipient.
MESC also announced funding of up to $500 million to expand US critical mineral and materials processing and derivative battery manufacturing and recycling to support the 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.
The Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) plans to announce project selections for a $40 million programme to develop technologies to recover critical minerals from industrial wastewater in the coming weeks.
Paul Harris
Paul has more than twenty years’ experience in the mining sector in investor relations, communications, research and news reporting roles. Paul has 16 years’ experience in the Colombia gold sector including investor relations roles with Continental Gold, Gran Colombia Gold and Mineros.
Paul founded the successful Colombia Gold Symposium in 2016 and has written for industry leading publication Mining Journal since 2015. Previously, Paul spent five years in Chile reporting and researching the copper sector for CRU and Metal Bulletin. Paul received a BA in Business Administration from the University of the West of England, UK; and a MA in International Relations from the University of Chile, Santiago Chile. He is fluent in English and Spanish.
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