DOE Investing $39M in Tech to Grow the Domestic Critical Minerals Supply Chain

WASHINGTON — The Energy Department has awarded $39 million in funding for 16 projects across 12 states to develop market-ready technologies that will increase domestic supplies of critical elements required for the clean energy transition. 

The selected projects, led by universities, national laboratories and the private sector aim to develop commercially scalable technologies that will enable greater domestic supplies of copper, nickel, lithium, cobalt, rare earth elements and other critical elements. 

“A reliable, sustainable domestic supply chain of critical materials that power longer-lasting batteries and other next-generation energy technologies is crucial to reaching our clean energy future,” said Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm in a written statement. 

“With these investments, DOE is helping to reinvigorate American manufacturing to reduce our overreliance on adversarial nations and position the nation as a global leader of research and innovation,” she added.

Global demand for critical minerals needed to decarbonize the nation’s economy is expected to increase by 400-600% over the next several decades and the U.S. is increasingly dependent on foreign sources, some adversarial, for many of the processed versions of these minerals. 

Selected projects will be funded and managed through DOE’s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy Mining Innovations for Negative Emissions Resource Recovery program. 

The MINER program funds technology research that increases the mineral yield while decreasing the required energy, and subsequent emissions, to mine and extract energy-relevant minerals. Specifically, the program investigates the potential CO2-reactive ores to unlock net-zero or net-negative emission technologies. 

More information on the selected projects can be found here.

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