An Illinois State University scientist is part of a national effort to find materials crucial to grow a green economy and support a modern tech-dependent economy.
Geologist and distinguished professor Dave Malone is helping geological surveys in several states look for lithium, cobalt, and rare earths used to make batteries for electric vehicles and other high-tech products.
"Let's say we can wave our magic wand and make all our electric vehicles tomorrow. We'd only have a fraction of the commodities we would need to actually be able to do that," said Malone.
The U.S relies on other countries for lithium and rare earths, but the federal government has begun funding a systematic search for the resources.
“I think that it's going to take some time, but the federal government is really investing heavily in strategic minerals through grants to the state geological surveys. And that's things like your rare earths, your cobalt, your lithium, the things that we need. Some of that $2 trillion investment package that went through Congress a couple years ago, is filtering down to exploration,” said Malone.
There are deposits of strategic minerals in the U.S., Malone said, but commercial viability depends on the concentration.
“You have to be able to get at something. Is it cheap enough to be able to get out? For example, copper. There's a lot more $10 a pound copper around, and there is $2 copper. It all depends on what the extraction costs are,” said Malone.
There also can be environmental concerns. He noted certain states like Minnesota prefer not to have any mining.
“If you have the ‘boundary waters,’ who would want to see a copper mine in a place like that? In places like Nevada, or Arizona, where historical mines operated, they still operate. Some of these mines are more than 100 years old. We're getting lower grade, but big volume to make the economics worthwhile,” said Malone.
One historic rare earth mine is on the boundary between California and Nevada. It was put out of business because the Chinese could do it cheaper. Since it's a strategic issue, there are efforts to bring that one back online, said Malone. Another mine in the Bear Lodge mountains of the Black Hills is close to breaking ground.
“So, something's going to be better than nothing,” said Malone.
Sometimes you can find what you need in places humans already have touched. Malone is working with the Illinois State Geological Survey on one such opportunity.
"One is the ash from the combustion of coal, for rare earths. There's lots of fly ash pits next to power plants that might happen to be, for whatever reason, are enriched in some of the things that are useful," he said.
Another opportunity could be to process salt water from old oil wells to extract and concentrate small amounts of lithium.
“If you look at an oil well in Southern Illinois, 99% of that is salt water and 1% of it is oil, but they keep it circulating, and they can keep that small 1% production going essentially indefinitely," said Malone. "There's not a lot of oil coming out of the well. So that's the first place we're looking for some of these commodities — old mine spoils, places where we mined before that have already been disturbed. Can we go in there and look? Or is there something we're already doing that we can maybe take a little lithium along the way.”
Malone spends his summers with students doing basic research on what rocks are where in the U.S. and what their structures are. Malone said you'd think much of that would already be known, but really only about 20% of the U.S. has been surveyed at that level.
In Wyoming, he’s surveying certain kinds of granite. When granite is exposed to air, part of it will oxidize. Anything with feldspar in it will turn to clay. And water reacts with granite as well to dissolve away things in which humans do not have an interest.
“The minerals that hold the rare earths happen to be really durable in a weathering environment. They're in the sand that was left behind from that weathering event,” said Malone, adding the easiest place to look is where somebody else has found it. Once you run out of things like that, you have to be creative.
“I tell my students all mineral prospects or energy prospects are originally found in your mind. You have to think how mother nature can do these things,” he said.
From Malone's research, he said other people will better know where to look for materials the nation must have to move into a green energy future.
