Rare Element Resources announced that the US Department of Energy’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) has issued the second and final Project Continuation Notice following its approval of the operations budget and confirmation of readiness for the operations phase of the company’s rare earth processing and separation demonstration plant.
The primary goal of the demonstration plant is to validate the company’s REEs extraction/separation process at a scale sufficient to provide design and performance data, as well as economic metrics for a potential follow-on, commercial-scale extraction/separation facility.
This notice allows operations to commence formally once the company receives the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) operations approval under the previously issued license, which is anticipated in the coming weeks.
These milestones will allow for the commencement of operations in the fourth quarter of 2024. The demonstration plant, which has been designed to advance the company’s proprietary processing and separation technology, is expected to generate the operational and economic data necessary for the design of a commercial-scale plant.
As part of the DOE’s operations approval, the DOE also approved an increase in the project’s cost-share budget to approximately $53.6 million, with federal cost-share increasing by 10% from approximately $21.8 million to approximately $24.2 million.
The company currently anticipates that the full project cost, once operations are complete, will exceed this DOE cost-share budget and that increase will be further defined as operations commence.
This higher cost is driven by post-pandemic supply chain issues and inflation, as well as necessary design refinements as the project has moved from concept through fabrication and construction, the company said.
The company has advised the DOE that it will use existing company funds to cover costs above the DOE approved cost-share budget; however, the company is continuing to pursue other funding to cover these increases.
Rare Element Resources Ltd. is a publicly traded, strategic materials company focused on delivering rare earth products for technology, energy, and defense applications by advancing the Bear Lodge Rare Earth Project in northeast Wyoming.
Bear Lodge is a significant mineralized district containing many of the less common, more valuable, critical rare earths that are essential for high-strength permanent magnets, electronics, fiber optics, laser systems for medical technology and defense, as well as technologies like electric vehicles, solar panels, and wind turbines.
In 2017, an affiliate of General Atomics (GA) took an equity position in Rare Element Resources. Extensive pilot-plant testing of the RES process was undertaken at Europe’s Umwelt-und-Ingenieurtechnik GmbH (UIT) labs in Germany. General Atomics Electromagnetic Systems (GA-EMS) and LNV, an Ardurra Group, Inc company, were integral members of the team. The RES process involves four steps:
- Step 1: Physical Upgrading – crushing and screening of the feed sample to 1mm sizing allowing for more surface area for the subsequent steps.
- Step 2: Primary Hydromet Processing – counter-current leaching and selective precipitation separates out the waste and a majority of the naturally occurring radioactive material normally associated with REEs.
- Step 3: Separation and Refining – chemical digestion and solvent extraction, removes the thorium and cerium (not currently a marketable REE). The process allows for a high recycling rate of process streams and a significant reduction in the production of waste material.
- Step 4: REE Separation/Refining – a multi-step process allows for removal of the Nd/Pr at a >99.5% purity (high demand magnet material), as well as SEG (samarium/europium/gadolinium), lanthanum and a heavy rare earth concentrate.