Environment

Rare earth discoveries mean coal mines could have a key role to play in the energy transition

Published

1 year ago

November 24, 2023

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Coal plays a huge role in global electricity generation, but has a significant impact on the environment.

Boy_anupong | Moment | Getty Images

From Pennsylvania to the north of England, coal mines helped to power the Industrial Revolution, turbocharging the economic growth of countries around the world.

Today, however, the production and use of coal has become a thorny issue, with critics slamming the fossil fuel’s huge impact on the environment.

Organizations like Greenpeace describe coal as “the dirtiest, most polluting way of producing energy.” From the UN Secretary General to the International Energy Agency, talk of phasing out coal is becoming increasingly common.

But the global picture is a complex one. A multitude of factors are in play, not least the desire of some countries, especially those in emerging markets, to use coal as a tool for their own economic development.

As the debate surrounding coal continues, discussions about using it — and the infrastructure linked to it — in the shift to a more sustainable future have become one of the more paradoxical aspects of the energy transition.

In May, U.S. firm Ramaco Resources offered some insight into how coal may have a role to play in the years ahead.

Together with researchers from mining consultancy Weir International and the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Energy Technology Laboratory, it published an independent report containing a technical assessment of rare earth elements, or REE, found at one of its mines in Wyoming.

The findings appear to be significant. “Following eighteen months of extensive core drilling and independent chemical analysis, NETL researchers and Ramaco now believe that the Brook Mine property contains perhaps the largest unconventional deposit of REEs discovered in the United States,” Ramaco said.

Speaking to CNBC’s Kelly Evans on “The Exchange” earlier this month, Ramaco CEO Randall Atkins explained why his firm had bought the site in the first place, and how its plans had changed over time.

“It was a rather large reserve, extremely reasonably priced, and we thought we might make a go of it just as a thermal coal proposition but you know, the world changed rather quickly about 10 years ago,” he said.

“And the idea of deploying capital towards a thermal mine became very unattractive. So our approach was, basically, ‘what else can we do with this stuff?'”

This led the company to “a 10 year odyssey of discovering a variety of other alternative uses of coal.”

With China dominating the supply and refining of rare earths, discoveries like the one in Wyoming could be strategically pivotal as the race to roll out the technologies of tomorrow heats up.

“The majority of REE deposits outside of China are associated with ‘conventional’ mines and found in igneous hard rock deposits, which makes them both difficult and expensive to mine and process,” Ramaco said.

“In contrast, the REEs from the Brook Mine are characterized as “unconventional” because they are largely found in clay strata located above and below the coal seams themselves,” it added.

“It is expected they can be mined using normal surface mining techniques and processed in a more economic and environmental manner than conventional REE mines.”

A glimmer of hope?

Wyoming is not the only part of the U.S. where coal and rare earth extraction are being looked at. In April, for instance, West Virginia University said its researchers would receive an $8 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy.

The funding would allow them to carry on with the development and advancement of a “pioneering method to extract and separate rare earth elements and critical minerals from acid mine drainage and coal waste,” it added.

Elsewhere, researchers at Penn State have also been focusing on ways to source rare earths and critical minerals via waste from coal mines.

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Across the Atlantic, efforts to repurpose old coal mines so that they can be used for many more years to come have also been taking shape.

In Scotland, researchers have been looking at how the water that’s flooded old, disused mines can be used to provide decarbonized heating to buildings.

Away from coal, other sources of energy also hold potential when it comes to producing by-products crucial to sustainable technologies like EV batteries.

In the southwest of England, Geothermal Engineering Limited recently said lithium would be produced as a by-product of its projects focused on geothermal power generation.

According to the firm, it will be enough lithium to supply roughly 250,000 electric car batteries per year.

“GEL’s primary geothermal business of providing baseload geothermal electricity and heat produces a naturally hot geothermal brine from which lithium can be sustainably extracted onshore in the UK as a by-product,” it said.

Go West, young brand – GreenPower Motor Company sells 11 more BEAST buses

Published

4 hours ago

January 19, 2025

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GreenPower Announces Order of 11 BEAST All-Electric School Buses for Western U.S. Markets

GreenPower Motor Company says it’s received three orders for 11 of its BEAST electric Type D school buses for western state school districts in Arizona, California, and Oregon.

GreenPower hasn’t made the sort of headline-grabbing promises or big-money commitments that companies like Nikola and Lion Electric have, but while those companies are floundering GPM seems to be plugging away, taking orders where it can and actually delivering buses to schools. Late last year, the company scored 11 more orders for its flagship BEAST electric school bus.

As far as these latest orders go, the breakdown is:

seven to Los Banos Unified School District in Los Banos, California
two for the Hood River County School District in Hood River, Oregon
two for the Casa Grande Elementary School District in Casa Grande, Arizona

Those two BEAST electric school buses for Arizona will join another 90-passenger BEAST that was delivered to Phoenix Elementary School District #1, which operates 15 schools in the center of Phoenix, late last year.

“As school districts continue to make the change from NOx emitting diesel school buses to a cleaner, healthier means of transporting students, school district transportation departments are pursuing the gold standard of the industry – the GreenPower all-electric, purpose-built (BEAST) school buses,” said Paul Start, GreenPower’s Vice President of Sales, School Bus Group. “(The) GreenPower school bus order pipeline and production schedule are both at record levels with sales projections for (2025) set to eclipse the 2024 calendar year.”

GreenPower moved into an 80,000-square-foot production facility in South Charleston, West Virigina in August 2022, and delivered its first buses to that state the following year.

Electrek’s Take

GreenPower electric school buses — BEAST and NanoBEAST; via GreenPower Motor Company.

Since the first horseless carriage companies started operating 100 years ago (give or take), at least 1,900 different companies have been formed in the US, producing over 3,000 brands of American automobiles. By the mid 1980s, that had distilled down to “the big 3.”

All of which is to say: don’t let the recent round of bankruptcies fool you – startups in the car and truck industry is business as usual, but some of these companies will stick around. If you’re wondering which ones, look to the ones that are making units, not promises.

SOURCE | IMAGES: GreenPower Motors.

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Environment

Harbinger electric truck brand gets real with $100M Series B funding raise

Published

5 hours ago

January 19, 2025

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Medium-duty EV maker Harbinger raises $100 million in Series B funding

While some recent high-profile bankruptcies have cast doubt on the EV startup space recently, medium-duty electric truck maker Harbinger got a shot of credibility this week with a massive $100 million Series B funding round co-led by Capricorn’s Technology Impact Fund.

It’s been a rough couple of weeks for fledgling EV brands like Lion Electric and Canoo, but box van builder Harbinger is bucking the trend, fueling its latest funding round with an order book of 4,690 vehicles that’s valued at nearly $500 million. Some of the company’s more notable customers including Bimbo Bakeries (which owns brands like Sara Lee, Thomas’, and Entenmann’s) and THOR Industries (Airstream, Jayco, Thor), which is also one of the investors in the Series B.

Other prominent investors include Tiger Global, the Coca-Cola System Sustainability Fund, and ArcTern Ventures.

As for what makes Harbinger such an attractive investment prospect, Dipender Saluja, Managing Partner of Capricorn Investment Group’s Technology Impact Fund explains that, “Harbinger has demonstrated a remarkable ability to reach significant milestones far quicker than other EV companies … the market has been impressed by their ability to develop large portions of the vehicle in-house to drive down unit costs, while remaining capital efficient.”

The company plans to use the funds to ramp up to higher-volume production capacity and deliver on existing orders, as well as build-out of the company’s sales, customer support, and service operations.

“Harbinger is entering a rapid growth phase where we are focused on scaling production of our customer-ready platform,” said John Harris, co-founder and CEO. “These funds catalyze significant revenue generation. We’ve developed a vehicle for a segment that is ripe for electrification, and there is a strong product/market fit that will help fuel our upward trajectory through 2025 and beyond.”

The company has raised $200 million since its inception in 2021.

SOURCE | IMAGES: Harbinger.

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Environment

Michigan State Police deploy their first electric patrol vehicle

Published

8 hours ago

January 19, 2025

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Michigan State Police deploy their first electric patrol vehicle

State Police Pilots First Battery Electric Vehicle in Patrol Fleet

There is no state more associated with cars and car culture than Michigan – and the state that’s home to the Motor City has just taken a huge step into the future with the deployment of its first-ever all electric police vehicle.

The 2024 Ford Mustang Mach-E patrol vehicle is assigned to the Michigan State Police State Security Operations Section, and will be to be used by armed, uniformed members of the MSP specializing in general law enforcement and security services at state-owned facilities in the Lansing, MI area.

“This is an exciting opportunity for us to research, in real time, how a battery electric vehicle performs on patrol,” says Col. James F. Grady II, director of the MSP. “Our state properties security officers patrol a substantially smaller number of miles per day than our troopers and motor carrier officers, within city limits and at lower speeds, coupled with the availability of charging infrastructure in downtown Lansing, making this the ideal environment to test the capabilities of a police-package battery electric vehicle.”

The MSP’s Precision Driving Unit is nationally renowned for its annual Police Vehicle Evaluation, which our own Scooter Doll participated in last year, driving the then-new Chevy Blazer EV Police Pursuit Vehicles in a game of “cops and robbers.”

In those tests, the EVs have impressed – but the MSP has been hesitant to commit to a BEV until now. “We began testing battery electric vehicles in 2022, but up until now hybrids were the only alternative fuel vehicle in our fleet,” said Lt. Nicholas Darlington, commander of the Precision Driving Unit. “Adding this battery electric vehicle to our patrol fleet will allow us to study the vehicle’s performance long-term to determine if there is a potential for cost savings and broader applicability within our fleet.”

Michigan joins other states like Wisconsin and California in deploying electric patrol cars and saving big money on fuel and maintenance, with many more out there and many more to come.

SOURCE | IMAGES: Michigan State Police.

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