Researchers at the University of Alaska Fairbanks say work is already underway on a project to reduce the nation’s dependence on imported critical minerals. That’s after the U.S. National Science Foundation awarded the university $15 million this summer to lead a regional collaboration the foundation calls a critical mineral accelerator engine.
Christi Bell, the project’s chief operating officer, said the first phase has mostly involved talking to industry experts to better understand what’s in the way of getting to those critical minerals.
“It’s building that pipeline of relationships,” Bell said, “And figuring out how to connect the dots, and then starting to build that investor community.”
Searching for critical minerals in the leftovers
Bell said phase two will involve workforce development and testing out new technologies and methods for extraction in the field.
Alaska has nearly every mineral that the federal government considers essential to the economy and national security. But many promising deposits are in remote areas with limited infrastructure, making new projects difficult to develop.
So another part of the program is to revisit old ground.
UAF geosciences professor Lee Ann Munk leads the program in Alaska. She said a big focus of their work is to recover critical minerals from waste material, like mine tailings. They’re already trying to do that at the Red Dog zinc mine in northwestern Alaska, and at the Pogo gold mine in the Interior.
“One thing to understand is that most critical minerals are byproducts of major metal mines,” Munk said. “We like to refer to it as turning waste into wealth.”
The National Science Foundation grant will support the project for the next two years. If all goes well, Munk says the program could receive an additional $160 million in NSF funding over the next decade.