Eureka comes to mind when reading a New Yorker article discussing an innovative way to deal with coal waste as said entity, loaded with rare earth materials at grand scale, can, with luck, be converted into a valuable new resource able to help rebuild America in a good way.
To whit.
Acid mine drainage has long been a scourge in Appalachia. Recent research suggests that we may be able to simultaneously clean up the pollution and extract the minerals and elements needed to power green technologies.
West Virginia is the second-largest coal producer in the United States, and coal-patch communities have often been left paying the bill for cleaning up the contamination that companies leave behind. But recent research has indicated that coal waste also contains critical minerals and materials, including cobalt, manganese, and lithium, and rare-earth elements, such as neodymium. These are essential to a wide range of high-tech products, including the magnets used in wind turbines and the ultra-lightweight batteries used in computers, smartphones, and a variety of modern weaponry. Ziemkiewicz said, “These alloys make things lighter, faster, and allow for increased temperature.” Decarbonizing the economy, to mitigate the ravages of climate change, will also require producing many more highly efficient batteries, and this process will require supplying these materials in larger quantities.
In the past several years, however, American scientists have succeeded in extracting critical minerals and materials from coal waste. If this effort proves efficient and effective, we may be able to simultaneously clean up polluted places and secure access to rare resources. These resources could then be used to bring sensitive manufacturing back to the U.S., provide supplies used for military technologies, and help create more sustainable energy sources. “Fossil communities are solving something Silicon Valley can’t,” Jennifer Wilcox, the principal deputy assistant secretary of the Office of Fossil Energy and Carbon Management at the Department of Energy, told me. “This does more than restore the environment. It also restores these communities that have paid so much for America’s energy.”
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