How coal mine waste could help build your

next phone
By Christian Science Monitor, adapted by Newsela staff on 04.17.20
Word Count 921
Level 1240L

Image 1. Wes Edge (left), an environmental engineer, and Chris Vass, a research engineer, stand in the laboratory of the mineral extraction
project at the Water Research Institute at West Virginia University on January 22, 2020. The project is researching how to extract rare-earth
minerals from acid mine drainage. Photo: Melanie Stetson Freeman/Christian Science Monitor

Near Mt. Storm, West Virginia, a pilot plant under construction will soon test a potential win-win for
industry and the environment.

The project aims to turn a major pollutant of streams and ponds, acid mine drainage, into badly
needed minerals. Rare earth metals are key for the manufacturing of smartphones, electric cars,
ceramics, jet fighters and satellites.

If it works at a price that can earn companies a profit, the process would incentivize companies to
clean up waters and streams and cut costs for the mining industry. It would also fill a strategic gap for
the United States, which currently imports most of those minerals from China.

"We think it's going to be much more competitive than opening a brand new hard rock mine," says
Paul Ziemkiewicz. He is the West Virginia University researcher who discovered the link between

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acid mine drainage and rare-earth metals. "There really isn't a domestic supply chain for rare
earths."

Reliance On China For Key Minerals

For years, U.S. companies and the military have worried about their reliance on China for key
minerals. These 17 minerals, called rare-earth elements, sit at the bottom of the periodic table with
strange names like scandium and yttrium. They are used in everything from smartphones and electric
cars to satellites. About 80 percent of U.S. imports come from China.

China has sometimes used its dominant position to sharply reduce its supply to nations. The country
did that to Japan, temporarily, in a 2010 dispute. China threatened indirectly last year to do so
again, this time against the United States in the middle of disagreements about trade.

In 2014, the U.S., Japan and the European Union won a World Trade Organization case against
China. The country had sent the average price of rare earths soaring nearly 25-fold. China also may
have restricted foreign manufacturers' access to rare earths unless the companies produced their
goods in China and shared their technology with a domestic partner, according to a 2019 report by
the Congressional Research Service.

"China's domination of the rare earth element market illustrates the potentially dangerous
interaction between Chinese economic aggression guided by its strategic industrial policies and
vulnerabilities and gaps in America's manufacturing and defense industrial base," said a 2018
report by the U.S. Defense Department and other federal agencies.

Changing Strategic Balance

Now, Ziemkiewicz and his team in West Virginia are trying to change that strategic balance. In a
cavernous laboratory, dozens of glass containers with miniature mixers in each one filter the acid
mine drainage to create a greater and greater concentration of rare-earth metals. For such an
impressive system, the end result is a handful of tan powder, like cocoa.

To test if the process can deliver commercial-sized

quantities of the metals, the team has won a $5
million award from the U.S. Department of Energy to
build the pilot plant near Mt. Storm in partnership
with the West Virginia Department of Environmental
Protection and two companies.

If it works, Ziemkiewicz estimates the acid mine

drainage in West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Maryland
and Ohio alone could yield annually up to 2,200 tons
of rare-earth elements, more than three times what
the U.S. produced last year. The nation has up to 500,000 abandoned mines.

"This is a green, green solution," says Tom Stephens, commercial director of TenCate
Geosynthetics Americas, one of the partner companies in the project.

Mining operations or any large disturbance of land, such as a construction project, often create
deposits of rock and waste. The deposits can leak an acidic runoff that kills fish and plant life in

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ponds and streams. The continued ingestion of water or fish contaminated by that runoff has been
linked to health problems for humans.

Incentive To Clean Up Acid Mine Drainage

Since the late 1970s, coal mines have been responsible for cleaning up that water. If mine companies
can make money from that process by selling concentrates of rare earths, then it would at a minimum
reduce their cleanup costs. It could even possibly eliminate costs, giving companies an incentive to
clean up acid mine drainage.

When West Virginia mines are abandoned, the state picks up the job, using a fund paid for by the
mining companies. "If we can recoup some of the money that we are using it would be a huge benefit,"
says Mike Sheehan. He is deputy director for reclamation programs at the state Department of
Environmental Protection. The state is currently spending some $3.5 million a year to treat 254
contaminated sites.

Even if the pilot project shows promise, there is one more hurdle. The researchers still have to
figure out a way to separate out the individual rare-earth minerals from the powder.

"We have a piece of it, but we haven't connected the dots," says Paul McRoberts, industry manager for
North America for Rockwell Automation, the project's other partner. "The current government seems
to be very interested in figuring out that missing link."

Ziemkiewicz is not the only one working on making rare earths from mining operations. Two
Colorado companies plan to open their own pilot plants this year.

"Our advantage with AMD [acid mine drainage] is that 45 to 50 percent of the rare earths present
are heavy rare earths," says Ziemkiewicz. Heavy rare earths are typically the most valuable.

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