Guest post by David Middleton
Is coal the new gold? A Pennsylvania senate candidate thinks so
By John Moody | Fox News
“There’s coal in them thar hills.” If that sounds like a confused reference to the 1849 California gold rush, think again. Long-ignored coal deposits in eastern Pennsylvania have become a key part of President Trump’s pledge to revitalize American mining and to once again produce critical materials needed for our national defense.
Trump’s Department of Energy is working with Rep. Lou Barletta, a Republican representing the district where coal was once king. Barletta, who’s running for the U.S. Senate this year, is leading a new push to extract and process so-called rare earth elements (REEs), a collection of 17 metals and minerals essential to building jet engines, rocket launchers, GPS systems, high-power magnets, I-phones, and just about any other device that’s smarter than its user.
[…]
High concentrations of rare earths have been found in the anthracite coal deposits of Pennsylvania. If those can be extracted, separated – the 17 REEs are often found fused together – and processed, America will be poised to compete with China, while strengthening our own national security.
Barletta, who plans to challenge incumbent Democratic Sen. Bob Casey, has been criss-crossing the Keystone state with a simple message: yes, we can. “It’s hard to get people to listen,” he concedes. “They roll their eyes and say ‘Ugh, we’re not going back to those days.’ But then I explain that this is a new day for coal, especially anthracite, and how we can use it for manufacturing, and just as important, for our own national defense. And now, people are beginning to want to talk about it.”
The most encouraging development: the Energy Department survey of Barletta’s district found high levels of scandium, a particularly valuable rare earth that sells for more than $2,000 per kilo.
[…]
Rare Earth Elements (REE) aren’t actually “rare;” they are actually quite abundant in the Earth’s crust. REE just tend to occur in very low concentration deposits; making mining very labor intensive. However, it appears that many U.S. coal formations have relatively high concentrations of REE…
US DOE finds high concentrations of rare earth elements in American coal basins
EBR Staff Writer
Published 30 November 2017
The US Department of Energy’s (DOE) National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) has identified high concentrations of rare earth element (REE) in coal samples collected from several American coal basins.
Collected from the Illinois, Northern Appalachian, Central Appalachian, Rocky Mountain Coal Basins, and the Pennsylvania Anthracite regions, the samples were found to have high REE concentrations greater than 300 parts per million (ppm).
NETL said: “Concentrations of rare earths at 300ppm are integral to the commercial viability of extracting REEs from coal and coal by-products, making NETL’s finding particularly significant in the effort to develop economical domestic supplies of these elements.”
NETL has partnered with West Virginia University (WVU), the University of Kentucky (UK), Tetra Tech, and the XLight for the research project.
As part of the project, WVU explored acid mine drainage from bituminous coal mines in the Northern and Central Appalachian Coal Basins, while Tetra Tech assessed bituminous, subbituminous, and anthracite coal from the same basins.
[…]
Some coal-related sedimentary rocks have REE concentrations greater than 600 ppm.
Funny thing, the one of the project leaders is Dr. Evan Granite… You literally couldn’t make that up if you tried.
- Geology of Rare Earth Deposits by Tracy Bank, Elliot Roth, Bret Howard, Evan Granite
The U.S. Department of Energy’s National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) is researching the feasibility of extracting our “vast untouched” REE resource in coal and coal byproducts and funding pilot projects.
National Lab Works to Extract Rare Earth Elements From Coal
Tue, 09/19/2017
by Joe Golden, National Energy Technology Laboratory
For more than a century, coal has increased our nation’s prosperity and energy security. Now, researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) are investigating whether this abundant domestic resource could yield yet another potentially game-changing benefit—a domestic supply of rare earth elements.
[…]
Changing times and changing markets
Today, the United States imports nearly all its rare earth supply from China, but that hasn’t always been the case.
In the 1960s, color televisions became ubiquitous in American homes, and manufacturers required a reliable supply of the rare earth europium to make these new screens. Fortunately, bastnäsite ore, a source of many rare earths, had been discovered in the mountains of California a decade prior. Because of the increased need for rare earths, the small-scale mining operation quickly expanded into a booming industry and launched the United States as the leading global supplier of rare earths.
Near the turn of the 21st century, markets began to shift. Among other factors, competition from overseas rare earth mines eroded U.S. dominance in the rare earths market, and by 2009, China was exporting almost all the world’s supply of rare earths. While initially providing cheaper prices, reliance on a foreign supply of rare earths has made the United States vulnerable to disruptions in overseas markets, underscoring the need for a new domestic source.
A vast untouched resource
Researchers at NETL are moving from the mine to the laboratory and hope to usher in a new era of domestic rare earth supplies through innovation. Their research centers on extracting the valuable elements from coal and coal by-products—a unique solution to an important challenge.
“Coal and coal by-products represents a vast untouched resource,” said NETL Research Engineer Dr. Evan Granite.
Dr. Granite explained that the United States consumes around 16–17 thousand tons of rare earths each year, and this demand could be completely satisfied by extracting rare earths from domestic coal and coal by-products.
“For example, a typical coal contains 62 parts per million (ppm) of total rare earth elements on a whole sample basis.” Dr. Granite said. “With more than 275 billion tons of coal reserves in the United States, approximately 17 million tons of rare earth elements are present within the coal—that’s a 1,000-year supply at the current rate of consumption.”
Coal reserves are not the only potential sources of rare earths. Each year, the United States typically produces around 75-100 million tons of coal fly ash, which contains an even higher concentration of rare earths (more than 400 ppm). Furthermore, clays and shales located above and below coal seams could also serve as possible sources, because they contain approximately 200 ppm of rare earths. DOE-NETL initiated the Rare Earth Elements Program in 2014 to help secure a domestic supply of rare earths by addressing the feasibility of separating and extracting REEs from coal and coal by-products including fly ash, coal refuse, and acid mine drainage.
[…]
“For example, a typical coal contains 62 parts per million (ppm) of total rare earth elements on a whole sample basis. With more than 275 billion tons of coal reserves in the United States, approximately 17 million tons of rare earth elements are present within the coal—that’s a 1,000-year supply at the current rate of consumption.”
The resurgence of the American coal industry might return the US to energy and REE production DOMINANCE.
Who would have ever guessed that the Department of Energy was actually capable of doing something useful? MAGA!
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“You literally couldn’t make that up if you tried.”
I was watching a news cast of a large transformer fire with a lime green fire truck in the foreground and the fire persons watching.
The BPA spokesperson, Crystal Ball (I kid you not), was explaining that there were no BCBs. Fluff your blond hair one more time for the camera.
People who do not like stero types should not reinforce.
PCB like DDT are not very toxic or other wise hazardous was used because it was very effective.
I would like to thank those with chemophobia for making my workplace and children’s school. Mineral oil and electrical shorts make for great fires.
Sorry for the off topic pet peeve. Up next is DOE thinking the invasive species tumble weed need to be planted for environmental restoration. There seems to be an affinity to safety related transformers.
http://s2.quickmeme.com/img/92/9253c5b2e9520394d06ef32b9764c42b71939dc83beca8333814a4bbed6265ab.jpg
One of the keys to assessing the prognosis of coal mines in the US, or in fact in any developed nation is this.
Are new coal plant/ mines being built and commissioned?
Personally, coming from a mining village in South Wales, I was deeply saddened to see 500 miners laid off in Kentucky just before Christmas .We experienced this many times over under Margaret Thatcher’s administration. Communities were devastated, towns and villages turned into welfare camps. The decision to close the mines was not wrong in principle, but the failure to invest in those communities after the closures was a disaster. Thatcher was right in that you cannot keep mining a mineral that you cannot sell and is part of the past. Keeping the mines open in the face of bad economics is never going to be a real solution. But failing to establish alternate industries and skills for those communities is an even worse disaster.
It would be good to see Trump learn from the economic tragedies of coal mining communities in the UK, and invest in these miners, even if their mines are no longer viable. If they are led to believe there is a golden future for coal which does not materialise, their anger and despair will be so much the worse for having no alternative.
Trump made a campaign issue out reviving the coal industry, and whether that was motivated by anything other than a cynical ploy to get votes I do not know. But knowing Trump I would be surprised if there were any other motivation. I have heard that coal mining becomes economical if the price of natural gas rises much further, but I don’t know what that price would be. Then you get into the environmental/CO2 issues.
Coal is economic when natural gas is above $2.50/mmbtu.
The “Death of Coal” happened when natural gas prices dropped below $2/mmbtu in early 2016. Gas prices have recovered to ~$3/mmbtu and the coal industry has recovered from death.
Existing coal-fired plants are very competitive with natural gas.
Natural gas prices in the US are unlikely to drop very much in the future as several LNG lines are now in operation or starting up during 2018. This means that if the price drops exports will simply go up. The US became a net exporter of natural gas last year
“Trump made a campaign issue out reviving the coal industry, and whether that was motivated by anything other than a cynical ploy to get votes I do not know. But knowing Trump I would be surprised if there were any other motivation.”
You know Trump, do you? It doesn’t sound like you know him to me. It sounds like you are believing the lies told by Trump’s enemies.
“We experienced this many times over under Margaret Thatcher’s administration.”
Disingenuous – mendacious, in fact.
My not so distant ancestry would be English dockers and Welsh miners, who worked in the valleys as well as southern Africa. Hence it would be assumed that I must vehemently despise the Tories, especially Thatcher. People may be rather confused to discover that I, a classical liberal, was disgusted by all those self-righteous passive aggressive people cheering the death of a frail old lady. On a tour of a mine in South Wales, I wasn’t the only person who looked rather bored and unimpressed when the tour guide diverged into a tired old rant on the evil witch who ruined the mining industry; he didn’t back up his statements with facts, but rather he had actually clearly ignored them.
Of all the mines shut, an incredible two-thirds were shut during the rule of left-wing hero Wilson; hence most had been shut before Thatcher even became Prime Minister. In 1964, 545 mines where open, but Labour governments shut down 326 of them, more than half. When Thatcher took over, the pace of closures actually slowed, with only 6 closing in her first year as Prime Minister. Overall she only shut 154 mines over 11 years, while in just 4 years more Labour had shut more than double that number down.
http://peoplescharter.org/pit-closures-were-a-labour-policy-wilson-shut-twice-as-many-as-thatcher/
http://www.welshcoalmines.co.uk/forum/read.php?14,51617
I was about to post something similar. I have had many a heated debate with Thatcher haters about coal mines and I am always shouted down when I say Wilson closed more mines than Thatcher ever did. But Gareth is right too, once the mines were closed there was nothing to back-fill.
You may be unsure of your history. Catweazle, it is you who are being mendacious, and in fact downright deceptive for political reasons.
You may vaguely recall the miners strike of the 80s which tried to keep mines open under the foolish leadership of both managers and union leaders. Why was this if so many mines had been closed before ? Did you think about that? I thought not. The reason is that mines that were previously closed were mines that had run out of coal to mine, had coal that was very difficult to extract or mines that were small or very uneconomic.
What your blessed Thatcher did was to close large modern mines that were in the main efficient, economic and in the main had large extractable reserves. So why did she do that? If Trump says this is a bad idea, why would she have thought is a good one?
It was because her government had been brought down by a previous miners strike and she was determined it would not happen again. Coal was also cheaper to import from Poland and other Eastern bloc countries.
The appalling effect on this action of the populations in those areas was seen as a worthwhile sacrifice which she was prepared to make to achieve her ends. The miners were dreadfully led by Scargill. and Nottinghamshire miners were fooled into supporting Thatcher, a mistake which they came to bitterly regret.
So your view of history is pretty dodgy. If you had written a submission on economic history as an undergraduate using your argument, you would have been lucky to get an F.
What you may like to consider, is why Thatcher, a traditional Conservative politician thought it an excellent idea to close coal mines as fast as possible, while Trump, as a another right wing politician, believes in re-opening them . You may then come to realise that it is not about coal, miners or employment. It is about politics, pure and simple.
Your stats sound somewhat dodgy Catweazle, so I’ve taken the opportunity to check your ‘facts’ As I mentioned, more mines were closed under Wilson than Thatcher, but does that tell the whole story? If one mine is closed that employs 50 people, and another is closed employing 2000, are those two closures comparable? So what does the evidence say.
Unsurprisingly, many people like yourself are being highly selective with the facts. The historical data shows that while 212,000 coal mining jobs were lost under the 1964-1970 Labour Government, under Mrs. Thatcher’s 1979-1990 government, the percentage decline in jobs was actually double that.
43 per cent of mining jobs went in the 1960s under Wilson while 80 per cent were lost under Thatcher. Also, as the trend rate of economic growth was lower under Thatcher than Wilson (just 2.8 per cent compared to 3.4 per cent) and unemployment was considerably higher throughout the 1980s than the 1960s, redundant miners had fewer alternative job options as a result of Mrs Thatcher’s stewardship of the industry. The effect of Thatchers closures was immeasurably worse than Wilson’s.
Still have the same beliefs Catweazle regarding the effect of mine closures on Communities?
I joined the National Coal Board in London as a Clerk Grade ii (the lowest level of entry) on 1st Jan. 1962 as a callow youth of 19. I left at 23 with two City & Guilds qualifications in “Solid Fuel: Production, Distribution & Utilisation” by going to evening school. To my knowledge, most of the pits were closed due to geological conditions or they were worked out. In the Durham pits (N E England) many coal seams were only 2 feet tall & were worked by hand in the dark with pick & shovel, by men lying on their sides. The work could not be mechanised to any meaningful degree. The pit at Craghead in County Durham closed in 1969. & my now deceased father in law then lost his livelihood. He had gone down the pit at 13 & came up at 43, when the pit was closed. I met him in 1983. I was 40 & he was 57. He had had to work for 10 years mending roads in all weathers, but then was doing odd jobs in at Phillips Electronics in Durham, (closed in 2005).
He barely survived a massive heart attack in 1987 & lingered 3 more years. By chance I found this video & I think it’s him at 1.06, arriving for work. His story was repeated all over the UK.
“Still have the same beliefs Catweazle regarding the effect of mine closures on Communities?”
Actually, as I spent most of the 1970s working in the Yorkshire coal mining areas, I know a great deal about effects of mine closures on the mining communities.
And I KNOW who caused the majority of the mine closures and the subsequent depopulation of the Pennine villages, so you can stick your hate-filled Commie mythological BS where the sun don’t shine.
There were more coal mining areas in Great Britain than the Welsh vallies, you [snip] Thatcher-hater.
Joke is, if you talked to a miner about his children’s prospects in the late 1960s, he’s say something like “our lad’s going to get an education, no way he’s going down t’pit” and ten years later, the same people were saying “where are our kids going to get jobs now t’pits have shut”.
[Let’s keep it civil please…and that means no name calling. -mod]
“What your blessed Thatcher did was to close large modern mines that were in the main efficient, economic and in the main had large extractable reserves”
The reason those surviving, efficient pits had to be closed was your great hero Crazy Arthur Scargill and his prevention of the maintenance crews accessing the pits, so the pumps failed, the pits filled with water and the machinery was all rendered unserviceable beyond recovery.
But you’re too blinded by your hatred of all things not Hard Left ever to admit something like that.
“It is about politics, pure and simple.”
To you as a Hard Lefty that may be the case.
But to almost everyone else it’s about economics – something about which you have no idea whatsoever.
we experiencd it even more during Harold Wilson’s reign, but no one wrote it up.
I joined the National Coal Board in London as a Clerk Grade ii (the lowest level of entry) on 1st Jan. 1962 as a callow youth of 19. I left at 23 with two City & Guilds qualifications in “Solid Fuel: Production, Distribution & Utilisation” by going to evening school. To my knowledge, most of the pits were closed due to geological conditions or they were worked out. In the Durham pits (N E England) many coal seams were only 2 feet tall & were worked by hand in the dark with pick & shovel, by men lying on their sides. The work could not be mechanised to any meaningful degree. The pit at Craghead in County Durham closed in 1969. & my now deceased father in law then lost his livelihood. He had gone down the pit at 13 & came up at 43, when the pit was closed. I met him in 1983. I was 40 & he was 57. He had had to work for 10 years mending roads in all weathers, but then was doing odd jobs in at Phillips Electronics in Durham, (closed in 2005).
He barely survived a massive heart attack in 1987 & lingered 3 more years. By chance I found this video & I think it’s him at 1.06, arriving for work. His story was repeated all over the UK.
Ironically, the Minister of Energy (or whatever it was called) who presided over the closure of the majority of the mines was no less than the great Left wing hero Comrade Viscount Sir Anthony “call me Tony” Wedgwood-Benn Bart. who was simultaneously licensing a large increase in nuclear generation.
Inconvenient for the Left, that.
Coal mines are NOT being developed in Europe – except some opencast ones…
The last deep mined coal in UK I believe has closed; last deep mined coal in Germany closes this year.
(visiting the S Wales towns where my grandparents lived is very sad: compared to the bustling places they were in the 1960s. On the other hand, mining was a horrible job… my great uncle was killed in a mine explosion; another great uncle started work at 14…)
It was indeed a dreadful job Griff. When people tell me how much they hate wind turbines, I always point out that I have never seen them lead to the early deaths of tens of thousands of men, or having slid down their mountains to kill hundreds of children at school. You can only really love the coal mining industry , coal tips and polluted rivers if you don’t actually live in the areas where it happens.
There is this odd cognitive dissonance regarding Conservative attitudes to coal mining and miners. Traditional right wing Tories in the UK hated miners and the mining industry due to it’s long history of left wing activity and social initiatives. But they now support Trump and his efforts to re-open coal mines and re-employ miners. They are between a rock and a hard place. What’s a traditional Tory to do these days in the face of such conflicting loyalties? As usual, it is the poor miners who will suffer as pawns in a political game.
“Traditional right wing Tories in the UK hated miners and the mining industry…”
You haven’t a clue.
The Right wing didn’t hate the miners or even the Left, the Left had – still have, come to that – more than enough hatred to go round.
Which is why when Margaret Thatcher died there was an enormous hatefest involving street parties and all the usual Lefty activities such as breaking things and setting fire to cars, whereas when the great Lefty icon Benn – who observed that the day the USSR collapsed was the worst day of his life – died, even the Right wing treated his demise with the respect due to a man of his stature, despite the fact he had effectively damaged the mining industry far more than Margaret Thatcher ever did.
“Griff January 16, 2018 at 3:35 am”
Griff, a product of coal mining and a coal mining family, living the benefits that industry brought, now wants to deprive the poor of the world the same. That’s not nice Griff.
Aren’t there much higher concentrations in association with radioactives like uranium and thorium? I had gathered that China’s advantage, such as it was, was that they had fairly generous deposits that were not associated with radioactive metals.
Also, looks like we never had rare earth metal !!!!DOMINANCE!!!!. Weird.
The process is pretty straight forward for recovering REE. Its not only in Pennsylvania but you should see what were putting together in Utah around the same and revitalizing the coal industry!!!
Another nail in the reputation coffin of Paul Ehrlich, the misanthrope.
Is there room for any more nails in that coffin?
Yet, like Dracula, he keeps getting out.
Potentially good news. Interesting to see how that pans out.
Tasty pun on the title. It took a bit to soak in, I tend towards Aspergers.
I always thought coal would be the next diamonds instead of gold (nyuk-nyuk), but you can make diamonds. You have to find gold.
“One man’s trash is another man’s treasure.” 😎
Burn the coal, mine the ash.
(I thought the Enviros liked recycling?)
Perhaps with fluidised-bed technology we can also burn trash and mine the ash.
All we have to do is realize that increasing trace CO2 in the air is more beneficial than it is harmful, and we are doing ourselves a favor, despite the politically-correct consensus view of a Venusian future wrought by the greed of Humanity.
Analysing for metals both base and precious and REE’s in host materials with high organic backgrounds is notoriously difficult. Results are often considered unreliable to say the least. In 2004 the Indiana Geological Survey produced a report (Open-File Study 04-02) showing gold content in the Illinois Basin coal beds ranging from 1.28 ppm gold (Colchester) to 0.37 ppm (Staunton) for an average of all coal beds of 0.74 ppm gold. However, the highest average was from the Illinois Basin coals from Illinois of 1.2 ppm of gold (USGS-Coal Qual database). Now these are serious grades with serious open cuttable tonnages. The average grade is well above the 0.4 ppm gold that is common in billion tonne mines these days. No gold industry in the Illinois Basin. Nor none planned. With that amount of gold going through the power stations each year one would think the insides of the chimney stacks would be dripping with gold and pulled down on a regular basis. Having been on the wrong end of carbon enhanced assays in my time I would take all coal based analytical reports with a grain of carbon(salt).
More badness for Australian coal seam gas work.
http://www.news.com.au/national/breaking-news/csg-emissions-may-be-behind-hospital-spike/news-story/1d3b8156076b1b1411e346945d412bda
“Dr McCarron said it was not possible to break down hospital admissions by age, gender and dates.
“Factors for which data are unavailable are the change, if any, in the population rates of cigarette smoking and obesity, and the prior health status of residents who may have moved into (and out of) the area between 2007 and 2014,” she wrote.”
So the cause has to be coal seam gas extraction.
“Factors for which data are unavailable are the change”… means they don’t have a fracking clue.
Exactly! Politically motivated anti-coal-anything in Queensland BECAUSE Queensland is about to be the biggest coal exporter to India. Abbots Point.
I don’t think the Indians are going to want/need it in future…
“Griff January 16, 2018 at 3:36 am”
The Indians have invested in the biggest coal mine operation in Australia, it ain’t going anywhere soon no matter what you think.
ah REEs. Nice. I did my PhD on that topic. As many commenters have pointed out, it’s just not going to happen any time soon. The person going around and trying to get peoples hopes up that coal mines will make additional revenue from REEs is at best wasting everyone’s time and at worst a scam.
Cheers,
Ben
and power stations and mines are still closing in the US
e.g. https://www.kallanishenergy.com/2018/01/16/montana-coal-burning-power-plants-could-drop-from-50-to-14-in-less-than-20-years/
which threatens also coal mine in the state
The REEs from the environmentalists will be very loud – and entertaining for those into that kind of thing.
Love coal or hate coal, the US has the largest coal reserves on earth. We just cannot ignore coal.