Twelve top-ranked US national laboratories in nine states are getting US$29.5 million of Mine of the Future Initiative funding from the US Department of Energy to accelerate development of technologies ranging from ground preconditioning and microwave comminution to laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS).
The DoE’s Office of Critical Minerals and Energy Innovation (CMEI) announced the funding for 17 mining and mineral processing technology projects.
“Today’s investment is about unleashing the full innovative power of our national laboratories,” assistant secretary of energy Audrey Robertson said. “These projects will advance president Trump’s effort to strengthen domestic mining, protect our supply chains and ensure the United States leads the world in critical mineral technologies.”
Funding top-ups are going to the Lawrence Berkeley and Lawrence Livermore national laboratories and the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory in Menlo Park, all in California, Ames in Iowa, Argonne in Illinois, Los Alamos and Sandia in New Mexico, Oak Ridge in Tennessee and Savannah River in South Carolina.
Idaho National Laboratory’s in-situ recovery (ISR) electric-hydraulic fracturing and geochemical optimisation work and Pacific Northwest’s in-situ mining project, Subsurface Engineered Chemistries for Unconventional Resource Extraction–Critical Minerals (SECURE-CM), in Washington state, are getting new federal funding.
As is sulphide ore processing chemical and comminution research at Colorado’s National Laboratory of the Rockies.
