Critical U.S. minerals are already mined but discarded. Small-scale restoration may meet demand and reduce waste.
According to a new examine printed in Science, current U.S. mines already produce all of the important minerals wanted every year for vitality, protection, and know-how.
The drawback, defined Elizabeth Holley, affiliate professor of mining engineering on the Colorado School of Mines and lead writer of the examine, is that these sources are usually not being recovered. Instead, minerals comparable to cobalt, lithium, gallium, and uncommon earth parts, together with neodymium and yttriu,m are being discarded within the waste streams of different mining operations, comparable to these for gold and zinc.
“The challenge lies in recovery,” Holley mentioned. “It’s like getting salt out of bread dough – we need to do a lot more research, development, and policy to make the recovery of these critical minerals economically feasible.”
Data-driven evaluation of U.S. mines
To perform the examine, Holley and her colleagues created a database documenting annual output from federally permitted metallic mines throughout the United States. They then utilized a statistical resampling methodology to mix this manufacturing information with geochemical measurements of important minerals in ores, compiled by the U.S. Geological Survey, Geoscience Australia, and the Geological Survey of Canada.
Through this methodology, the researchers have been in a position to estimate how a lot of these important minerals is produced and processed at U.S. mines every year but finally not recovered. Instead, these priceless sources are being discarded as mine tailings, which should then be saved and managed to cut back the chance of environmental air pollution.
“This is a brand-new view of ‘low hanging fruit’ – we show where each critical mineral exists and the sites at which even 1 percent recovery of a particular critical mineral could make a huge difference, in many cases dramatically reducing or even eliminating the need to import that mineral,” Holley mentioned.
Recoverable parts and potential impacts
The evaluation in Science seems to be at a complete of 70 parts utilized in functions starting from shopper electronics like cell telephones to medical gadgets to satellites to renewable vitality to fighter jets and exhibits that unrecovered byproducts from different U.S. mines may meet the demand for all but two – platinum and palladium.
Among the weather included within the evaluation are:
- Cobalt (Co): This shiny bluish-gray metallic, important for manufacturing electrical car batteries, is produced as a secondary materials throughout nickel and copper mining. Recovering underneath 10 p.c of the cobalt that’s presently mined and processed but left unrecovered can be ample to produce all the U.S. battery business.
- Germanium (Ge): A brittle, silvery-white semi-metal utilized in electronics and infrared optics, together with sensors for missiles and protection satellites, is present in zinc and molybdenum deposits. By reclaiming lower than 1 p.c of the germanium already mined and processed but not recovered within the U.S., home demand might be totally met with out relying on imports.
Environmental and coverage alternatives
The advantages of enhanced restoration are usually not solely financial and geopolitical but additionally environmental, Holley mentioned – recovering these important minerals as an alternative of sending them to tailings piles would cut back the environmental impression of mine waste and open extra alternatives for reuse in building and different industries.
“Now that we know which sites are low-hanging fruit, we need to conduct detailed analyses of the minerals in which these chemical elements reside and then test the technologies suitable for recovery of those elements from those specific minerals,” Holley mentioned. “We also need policies that incentivize mine operators to incorporate additional processing infrastructure. Although these elements are needed, their market value may not be sufficient to motivate operators to invest in new equipment and processes without the right policies in place.”
Reference: “By-product recovery from US metal mines could reduce import reliance for critical minerals” by Elizabeth A. Holley, Karlie M. Hadden, Dorit Hammerling, Rod Eggert, D. Erik Spiller and Priscilla P. Nelson, 21 August 2025, Science.
DOI: 10.1126/science.adw8997
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