America's critical mineral shortage problem could be solved if new extraction method works

Electronic waste could provide needed minerals.
(Photo by Nathan Cima, Unsplash)

Despite rich geological stores and landfills piled with used tech equipment, the U.S. doesn't have the domestic supply of critical minerals it needs to build tech equipment. The country has lacked an economically viable way to "extract metals like copper, silver and rare-earth elements from the country’s abundant ores and heaps of old electronics," reports Ryan Dezember of The Wall Street Journal. But a new metallurgy company with innovative scientists says it has found a solution.

The company, Valor, is working "to commercialize a breakthrough in metallurgy called electrochemical liquid-liquid extraction," Dezember explains. According to scientists, the new process "can separate metals and rare earths from electronic waste and mined ores without the massive amounts of energy and chemicals" used by smelting or other refining methods.

The cutting-edge science starts with molecular magnets, called ligands, that scientists make to bind and release specific elements. Dezember explains. "To pluck the silver from a slurry of ground-up computer chips, the ligand made to bind to the precious metal is activated with a current of electricity and then turned off to release the silver for reuse."

Critical and rare-earth minerals are essential for producing the most advanced technologies, including defense systems, magnets, semiconductors, medical equipment and consumer electronics; however, China has always dominated the global sector. Unleashing a new way for the U.S. to harness its rare earth stores could change that dynamic.

For now, Valor will open its first plant in Houston, Texas. The company plans to "eventually build refineries of various sizes across the country, near lithium brine fields in Arkansas, Arizona’s copper mines and big cities where loads of recycled cellphones and computers can be gathered."

Federal audit: $1 billion in fines hasn't made mines safer

Fines of more than $1 billion over 18 years for unsafe conditions have not improved mine safety, according to a four-year long audit from the Labor Department's inspector general.

"The audit was prompted by a 2014 NPR investigation of thousands of mines and mining companies that did find such a connection. Specifically, NPR found that mines that persistently ignored their penalties had injury rates 50 percent higher than mines that paid their fines," Howard Berkes and Robert Benincasa report for NPR. "In total, NPR examined the safety records of mines that had failed to pay nearly $70 million in penalties, some with delinquent fines that were decades old.

The auditors took a different tack, though: They measured data for mining companies instead of individual mines, which the OIG said made sense because mine operators must pay penalties for unsafe conditions. They also assessed safety by comparing raw numbers and averages of serious accidents and violations. That differs from the Mine Safety and Health Administration's primary metric, which is usually the rate of incidents and injuries during hours worked, NPR reports.

"The audit doesn't say whether the measures of safety and violations applied only after mines or mining companies failed to pay safety fines or while they continued to be delinquent. NPR's analysis of delinquent fines and safety applied only to mines while they were delinquent."

Wes Addington, director of the Appalachian Citizens Law Center in Whitesburg, Ky;, told NPR the audit shows that "violations are just a cost of doing business." Addington, who once conducted an independent analysis of overdue mine safety penalties and their impacts on safety, also calls the audit "superficial" and "poorly designed" because it conflates coal mines with other kinds of mines. That skews the data, he said, because metal and nonmetal mines have lower injury and violation rates.

"The auditors did recommend that MSHA not permit mining companies to operate new mines if they have outstanding penalties at existing operations," NPR reports. But "MSHA says it does not have the legal authority to deny mine operators the ability to open new mines due to unpaid fines."

50 million gallons of polluted water flows from mines daily

U.S. mining sites discharging polluted water
(Associated Press map; click in image for a larger version)

Every day many millions of gallons of water loaded with arsenic, lead and other toxic metals flow from some of the most contaminated mining sites in the U.S. and into surrounding streams and ponds without being treated," Matthew Brown reports for The Associated Press. "That torrent is poisoning aquatic life and tainting water supplies in Montana, California, Colorado, Oklahoma and at least five other states."

For more than a century, companies that mine hardrock minerals such as silver or lead routinely failed to properly clean up mines once they closed, or forced taxpayers to pay for the cleanup. An AP examination of 34 federally regulated mining sites, which include hundreds of individual mines, shows that, on average, more than 50 million gallons of polluted wastewater flows daily from the sites. About 20 million gallons of that streams daily into groundwater, rivers and ponds and threatens communities' drinking water. "The remainder of the waste is captured or treated in a costly effort that will need to carry on indefinitely, for perhaps thousands of years, often with little hope for reimbursement," Brown reports.

Pollution at many of the mines has continued for decades after they were given federal funding to clean up; the Superfund program that allocates such funds faces steep budget cuts from President Trump, Brown reports.

Some federal officials fear that at least six of the sites AP examined could unleash disasters like the one at Colorado's Gold King Mine. In 2015, "A U.S. Environmental Protection Agency cleanup crew inadvertently triggered the release of 3 million gallons (11.4 million liters) of mustard-colored mine sludge, fouling rivers in three states," Brown reports.

There are as many as 500,000 abandoned mines nationwide, and the Government Accountability Office estimates at least 33,000 have polluted the environment. But thousands of abandoned mines are discovered every year, and federal officials haven't been able to keep up with the backlog. "Officials have yet to complete work including basic risk analyses on about 80 percent of abandoned mining sites on federal lands," Brown reports. "Most are controlled by the Bureau of Land Management, which under Trump is seeking to consolidate mine cleanups with another program and cut their combined 2019 spending from $35 million to $13 million."

Rural companies that supply coal equipment feeling the crunch from loss of Appalachian coal jobs

The loss of Appalachian coal jobs is not only affecting coal-mining towns but also the rural towns that supply coal equipment, John Miller reports for The Wall Street Journal. "As big coal miners struggle, their equipment suppliers—thousands of firms sprinkled throughout Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Ohio and Kentucky—are scrambling to find new customers anywhere they can." (Journal photo by Jeff Swensen: Metalworkers at Brookville Equipment rebuild a streetcar)

"The modern coal industry is heavily mechanized, and miners depend on a broad web of equipment makers and tool shops," Miller writes. "The West Virginia Center on Budget and Policy estimates that four subsidiary jobs depend on every coal-mining job." Ted Boettner, the center’s executive director, told Miller, “Coal mining requires tons of machinery and equipment. And the problem is that coal companies tend to not be diversified. They’re not also into solar panels.”

Suppliers are feeling the crunch, Miller writes. Petra Industrial Services Inc., a Lochgelly, W.Va.-based machine shop, has had to reduce staff from 12 to 10 employees and is scrambling to find buyers, mainly because its big buyer, Arch Coal, has been downsizing. Princeton Machinery Services Inc., in Princeton, W.Va, once boasted 50 percent of its clientele as coal miners, but that number is now 10 percent. Jerry Fredericks, whose family owns Petra, told Miller, “It’s been catastrophic. And there’s nothing we can do about it; we’re just part of the supply chain.”

While companies trying to find other buyers, "nothing will replace the massive scale of the coal-mining sector, and as the generational coal crisis ripples throughout the hamlets and hollows of Appalachia, economists are debating the region’s most viable path for growth," Miller writes. "The plight of big coal is particularly bleak in Central Appalachia, where coal seams are thinner and costs have increased, and where the oil-price collapse has hurt natural-gas drilling and steelmaking. Alpha Natural Resources Inc., one of the nation’s biggest miners, declared bankruptcy on Aug. 3, and other filings are expected." (Read more)

Streams lowered by California drought become renewed sites for gold prospecting and mining

Miners collect dirt from a mud pit next to the Bear River.
(Photo by Randy Pentch, The Sacramento Bee)

"As California’s prolonged drought dries up irrigation supplies for agriculture and forces cutbacks in urban water deliveries, it also creates opportunities for prospectors and miners panning, sluicing, chiseling and diving for gold," reports Peter Hecht of The Sacramento Bee. "Gold seekers are wading into formerly deep waterways to harvest flecks from the pea gravel and sediment in long inaccessible crevices. Diminishing flows also have been leaving gold residues, like gilded bathtub rings, amid the cobbled banks of many rivers and streams."

The increased prospecting has driven up sales of supplies and equipment. Heather Willis, manager of Pioneer Mining Supplies in Auburn, turned miner, too, at "an untapped spot on the upper Bear River. . . . In a few hours of digging and panning, she got nine grams of gold, worth about $340."

Hecht writes, "As the drought continues, some miners say diminished waterways are getting picked clean of gold. They count on another extreme weather event – namely, reports of a coming El Niño storm system – to provide help for the hunt. The system would replenish gold supplies by washing down mountainsides, dumping new glistening deposits into creeks and streams and invigorating the search for gold anew."