Could Mining Waste Solve America’s Clean Energy Supply Chain Crisis?

Felicity Bradstock

Felicity Bradstock is a freelance writer specialising in Energy and Finance. She has a Master’s in International Development from the University of Birmingham, UK.

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• A Colorado School of Mines study finds that leftover ore in U.S. mines contains vast quantities of critical minerals needed for clean energy technologies.
• Extracting even small percentages of these minerals from mine waste could replace current U.S. imports of some key materials.
• Investing in new extraction methods could reduce reliance on China, cut environmental impacts, and strengthen domestic supply chains.

The United States is racing to develop its critical minerals industry to reduce reliance on China for metals and minerals, even through controversial actions such as deep-sea mining activities. However, a recent study suggests that it may be easier for the U.S. to access critical minerals than once thought, by developing new operations in existing mines.

An analysis of active U.S. mines, published in New Scientist in August, shows that accessing the leftover ore discarded in many U.S. mines is packed with a wide range of critical minerals. The minerals left behind from previous mining activities in already established mines could provide all the raw material required to build clean energy technologies, according to the study. Even if just a fraction of these minerals is recovered, it could help meet the growing U.S. demand for critical minerals without the need for imports or the development of new, environmentally damaging mines.

However, accessing these minerals could be challenging, according to the authors. This is because, at present, most mining activities focus on extracting specific types of minerals, such as copper and gold, rather than accessing the full array of metals and minerals that may be available. Mining for copper and gold requires excavating the ore, crushing it, and then separating the main product using a range of metallurgical processes. The excess rock and metal are typically discarded as mining waste. However, the study showed that this “waste” is often full of other useful materials, including dozens of critical minerals.

Critical minerals can be described as ‘critical’ if they are considered to have a role in a country’s strategically important economic sectors. This varies country to country depending on the most common applications. Many emerging critical mineral markets are closely linked to the expansion of the renewable energy sector, which relies heavily on various metals and minerals for equipment and operations.

Demand for critical minerals increased significantly in 2024, with lithium demand rising by 30 percent, while the demand for nickel, cobalt, graphite, and rare earths rose by between six and eight percent. Higher demand was largely driven by energy applications such as electric vehicles, battery storage, renewables, and grid networks, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA). While for battery metals such as lithium, nickel, cobalt, and graphite, the energy sector has contributed 85 percent of the total demand growth over the past two years. The IEA predicts that demand for critical minerals will need to triple by 2030 and quadruple by 2040 if we hope to achieve net-zero emissions.

To conduct the study, Elizabeth Holley and her colleagues at the Colorado School of Mines assessed thousands of ore samples and production data, representative of mines from across the U.S., to estimate the volume of other minerals present in 54 active hard rock metal mines, which could be extracted. The study showed that extracting just one percent of certain minerals from mining byproducts could replace all current U.S. imports. However, some minerals would need an extraction rate of between 10 and 90 percent to meet the U.S. demand, and others, such as gold, platinum, and palladium, would likely still need to be imported, even if they are recovered at 100 percent from mining byproducts.  

New mining operations focusing on enhanced mineral recovery from existing mines could significantly reduce the U.S. reliance on metal and mineral imports, a move that President Trump has supported since coming into office. Trump has stated plans for new mining activities, and even the controversial launch of deep-sea mining operations, to reduce the U.S. dependence on China for its minerals and strengthen the domestic supply chain.

In August, the U.S. Department of Energy announced almost a billion dollars in funding for unconventional mining efforts, with $250 million focused on recovering minerals from mining byproducts. U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright said, “For too long, the United States has relied on foreign actors to supply and process the critical materials that are essential to modern life and our national security.”

The study shows that investment in better extraction practices from active mines could reduce the financial and environmental burden of the domestic critical mineral industry while providing vast quantities of essential minerals. Brian McNulty at the University of British Columbia in Canada said the “opportunity is vast” and “Hopefully it energises people in government as well as industry to take a closer look at what we’re mining.”

While there is huge potential to improve mining extraction processes, significant investment needs to be made in research and development to make this possible. The expertise and equipment must be improved to use mines to their full potential, which could ultimately lead to huge long-term savings, as well as less damage to the environment.

By Felicity Bradstock for Oilprice.com

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