Coal Is Not Only An Easily Stored and Reliable Fuel for Making Electricity: It Also Yields Rare Earth Minerals!

Guest Post from the Institute for Energy Research.

Ramaco, the developer of a new coal mine in Wyoming, plans to extract rare earth metals that are crucial for military hardware and tech products from coal. Rare earths consist of 17 metallic elements that are used in electric car batteries and wind turbines, as well as military systems.

The new Brook Mine in Wyoming will be the state’s first new coal mine in 50 years.

Ramaco received a $6.1 million grant from Wyoming to build a rare earth and critical minerals processing plant. Fully developing the mine and processing plant to extract rare earths is expected to cost $533 million, which may be recovered in five years if the elements in the coal are profitable. Ramaco would also sell the processed coal as fuel.

The only operating U.S. rare earths mine is at Mountain Pass in California. China supplies over 90% of the world’s refined rare earth elements, and the Trump administration wants more domestic production.

An analysis produced by the U.S. national laboratories found that the coal at the Brook mine contains quantities of the rare earths, neodymium, praseodymium, dysprosium, and terbium, as well as the critical minerals, gallium, scandium, and germanium. Neodymium and dysprosium are used in the magnets of wind turbines, lanthanum in electric and hybrid car batteries, and yttrium and terbium in military systems, including targeting devices.

Ramaco plans to mine and process the rare earths in Wyoming and sell them to domestic customers, including the government. The Brook Mine has been in the works for over a decade, stalled in part by landowners concerned about groundwater depletion.

Ramaco is a public company with metallurgical coal mines in Appalachia. The company has operations in West Virginia, Virginia, and Wyoming. Its executive offices are located in Lexington, Kentucky. In recent years, it has received grants from the Department of Energy to develop coal into carbon-based products such as carbon fiber. The company has not received federal funds for the Brook Mine project, outside of initial research, and is in talks to obtain federal funds.

An independent preliminary economic analysis report made by Fluor Corporation found that, based on the current mine plan to produce two million tons of coal per year, “1,242 annual short tons of oxide are projected to be produced, which include 456 tons of gallium, germanium, scandium, terbium, dysprosium, neodymium, and praseodymium.” The company’s exploration target shows that up to 1.7 million tons of critical mineral oxides exist in the currently permitted 4,500-acre area of the Brook Mine. About another 11,500 acres would remain for future exploration and development. The developer will start mining and selling samples within a year, but full commercial operation is a few years away.

Recently, the Trump administration announced it would be selling federal coal leases in the top U.S. coal-producing region in northeastern Wyoming and southeastern Montana. In 2022, 14 active coal mines in the region accounted for about 40% of total U.S. coal production.

The administration also announced a proposal in Utah that would be the first coal exploration project on U.S. Bureau of Land Management property since 2019. President Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill lowered royalty payments for companies mining coal on public lands from 12.5% to 7% and mandated 6,250 square miles — an area greater in size than Connecticut — be made available for leasing.

The Trump administration has signed deals with Ukraine and Saudi Arabia for rare earth elements, but it would like to develop a larger domestic industry. From 1940 to 1990, the United States produced and mined its rare earth minerals at the Mountain Pass mine in California. Until the 1980s, the United States was one of the world’s largest producers, but China usurped it due to its substantial deposits, cheap labor, and lax environmental standards.

The Mountain Pass mine closed in the fourth quarter of 2015 due to China’s competitive prices, opposition from environmentalists, and U.S. environmental regulations escalating the cost of production. It returned to production in 2018 during President Trump’s first term. In 2017, MP Materials bought the mine from Molycorp.

Conclusion

Ramaco is developing a small coal mine in Wyoming that will extract rare earth elements from the coal it produces. It has secured a $6.1 million grant from Wyoming for a $533 million facility to mine and refine rare earths for the domestic market. It is also looking to the federal government for additional funds.

The Brook Mine in Wyoming will supplement the rare earths produced from the Mountain Pass Mine in California, which is currently refining more than half of its production. China has been refining most rare earth ore due to its cheap coal power and lax environmental regulations, supplying over 90% of the world’s refined rare earth elements.

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