The Department of Energy put out a request Monday for input on designing and building a commercial-scale facility capable of extracting rare earth elements and critical minerals from the billions of tons of waste produced by coal mining and power plants, with $140 million in federal funding.
Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm said the facility would be the, “first of its kind,” making use of what is currently an untapped resource for critical minerals.
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“Applying next-generation technology to convert legacy fossil fuel waste into a domestic source of critical minerals needed to strengthen our supply chains is a win-win,” she said in a statement.
The federal subsidy for the refinery stems from last year’s $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill,…