Submitted Photo A dragline operator works in a North Dakota lignite mine. A recent study attributed 13,000 jobs in the state with being directly or indirectly associated with the lignite industry.

New opportunities in rare earth minerals and carbon capture have the potential to add value to North Dakota’s lignite coal reserves, according to the North Dakota Lignite Energy Council.

Over the past couple of years, lignite has started to gain access to emerging markets, such as critical minerals and rare earth elements, due to the need for domestic inputs into technology markets, said Jason Bohrer, president and CEO for the council.

“We think it opens doors for the coal industry that have not been opened before. We think it provides opportunities for the state of North Dakota to have industries that are not just regionally impactful, but globally impactful, because these will provide new sources of elements and materials that can be fed into this multi-trillion-dollar industry,” Bohrer said at a media event hosted by the council this past winter.

Researchers also are interested in germanium for lenses and fiber optics, gallium for electronic circuits, semiconductors and medicine, graphene and graphite for batteries and carbon in structural materials or tires, said Mike Holmes, Lignite Research Council’s executive vice president of Research and Development.

The forecast is for critical elements to be a $14 billion-plus opportunity, he said.

“We need a secure domestic resource for this because, right now, we are import-reliant on these chemical ingredients that are needed for all those different industries,” Holmes said. “North Dakota lignite shows that we have many of the important rare earth elements and critical minerals needed and it’s fairly easily removed with just a light solvent.”

Studies are being pursued to show the economics, identify where the richest coal seams are and discover the most profitable elements, he said. At the same time, the coal industry continues to investigate carbon capture opportunities.

“Carbon capture is one of our most important projects that we’ve been working on for the past 20 years,” Bohrer said. “We’re very close to beginning to put steel on the ground on some of these billion-dollar projects that are going to completely change the trajectory of coal-fired electricity in the world. We’ve got, in the planning phases, what will become the number one and number two largest carbon capture projects in the world at the Milton R. Young Station and the Coal Creek Station.”

The Young station is near Center and Coal Creek is between Underwood and Washburn.

Rainbow Energy, the Energy & Environmental Research Center in Grand Forks and others involved in the Coal Creek project have wrapped up initial engineering and design work and are working on a more detailed analysis under the Clean Sustainable Energy Authority, Holmes said.

He noted the state has the potential to store 76 billion to 252 billion metric tonnes of CO2 in its geology. One tonne equals 2,204.6 pounds.

An option to sequestration is using the carbon dioxide to enhance oil recovery.

“The data is showing that we could use up to 358 million tons of CO2 – way more than is available from our sources – to produce over a billion barrels of additional oil,” Holmes said. “If we crack the code on the Bakken, it has the potential beneficial use of 1 to 3 billion tons of CO2 to produce an additional 3 to 7 billion barrels of additional oil.”

A study by North Dakota State University showed more than 13,000 jobs directly and indirectly associated with the lignite industry. Using the CO2 from just one plant for enhanced oil recovery while storing other CO2 would create up to 8,000 jobs, according to the council’s data. If CO2 from all five of North Dakota’s plants are used for oil recovery, the impact would be up to another 14,000 jobs and $5 billion in annual economic activity.

Bohrer said subsidized renewables and vast quantities of natural gas flooding the market have pinched the coal industry, which fell out of its place as the largest single source of electricity in the United States, now ranking behind natural gas.

To maintain a place in the market, the coal industry is emphasizing its reliability, resilience and affordability as it works to attract capital investment into new ventures.

“We think we do the best job of just about any natural resource industry in the world of being environmentally sustainable and undertaking those best practices. And we’re trying to make sure that capital markets recognize that,” Bohrer said.

UND receives funds to study rare earth minerals

GRAND FORKS – The U.S. Department of Energy announced April 4 that $16 million has been granted from the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act to support projects in North Dakota and Kentucky that could lead to a first-of-its-kind rare earth element and critical minerals extraction and separation refinery.

The DOE awarded the University of North Dakota in Grand Forks $8 million to complete a study to recover and refine rare earth elements and critical minerals from North Dakota’s lignite mine wastes. The project aims to advance technologies that can enable a cost-competitive, environmentally sensitive process to produce rare earth metals and critical minerals from domestic coal waste.

“Along with their industry partners and the U.S. Department of Energy, the University of North Dakota is on the cutting edge of our energy future,” Sen. Kevin Cramer, R-ND, said. “This award builds on the group’s efforts to research, find, and affordably extract rare earth elements and minerals in North Dakota. The significance of developing this domestic supply chain for national and energy security cannot be overstated.”

West Virginia University in Morgantown received $8 million to complete a study for producing rare earth elements and critical minerals using acid mine drainage and mineral tailings feedstocks with at-source pollution treatment. Intermediate products will be processed to high-purity oxides, salts, or metals depending on specific market needs.

Over about 15 months, these two detailed engineering and cost studies will identify risks and costs and will solidify plans for developing economically viable processes to extract, separate and produce rare earth elements and critical minerals. Following completion of the studies and a period of technical review, these projects will have the opportunity to apply for Phase II funding for construction and operation of the demonstration-scale facility.

The United States imports more than 80% of its rare earth elements and critical minerals to produce clean energy technologies and other indispensable products, such as smart phones, computers and medical equipment.

Across the country, there are billions of tons of coal waste and ash, mine tailings, acid mine drainage and discharged water. These waste streams from mining, energy production and related activities contain a wide variety of valuable rare earth elements and other critical minerals that can be produced and used to build clean energy technologies, according to the DOE.