Demand for rare elements used in clean energy could help clean up abandoned coal mines in Appalachia – by Marc Levy (Associated Press/Arizona Daily Star – July 15, 2024)

https://tucson.com/

MOUNT STORM, W.Va. — Down a long gravel road, tucked into the hills in West Virginia, is a low-slung building where researchers are extracting essential elements from an old coal mine that they hope will strengthen the nation’s energy future. They aren’t mining the coal that powered the steel mills and locomotives that helped industrialize America — and that is blamed for contributing to global warming.

Rather, researchers are finding that groundwater pouring out of this and other abandoned coal mines contains the rare earth elements and other valuable metals that are vital to making everything from electric vehicle motors to rechargeable batteries to fighter jets smaller, lighter or more powerful.

The pilot project run by West Virginia University is now part of an intensifying worldwide race to develop a secure supply of the valuable metals and, with more federal funding, it could grow to a commercial scale enterprise.

“The ultimate irony is that the stuff that has created climate change is now a solution, if we’re smart about it,” said John Quigley, a senior fellow at the Kleinman Center for Energy Policy at the University of Pennsylvania.

For the rest of this article:https://tucson.com/news/nation-world/science/west-virginia-mount-storm-abandoned-coal-mines-rare-minerals-metals-elements/article_ef35e46a-a31e-5cce-a76b-23513e6dff99.html