Canonsburg, Pa.-based CONSOL Innovations, LLC announced it has been selected for a multi-million dollar grant from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Critical Minerals and Energy Innovation.
The grant, part of the DOE’s “Mines & Metals Capacity Expansion – Piloting Byproduct Critical Minerals and Materials Recovery at Domestic Industrial Facilities” would allow the CONSOL, a subsidiary of Core Natural Resources, to develop a pilot-scale facility for the extraction of rare earth elements and critical materials from coal waste tailings sourced from Core’s Pennsylvania Mining Complex. Officials said the award is contingent upon the company and the DOE negotiation process, and that the official amount of the grant will be known after negotiations are completed.
“We applaud the Trump Administration for its great leadership and support in seeking to unlock the full potential of America’s coal resources, and we look forward to partnering with the Department of Energy as we take the next steps in exploring rare earth element and critical mineral extraction at our operations,” Jimmy Brock, Core’s chairman and CEO, said. “We hope our efforts will show that coal continues to be a necessary material for our daily lives now and into the future.”
The company said the award highlights Core’s ability to continuously develop new and advanced ways of unlocking more of the coal value chain, while supporting areas of national strategic importance. The announcement follows another from earlier this year, where Northrop Grumman identified Core’s Touchstone Advanced Composites group as a key tooling and component supplier for its YFQ-48A Talon Blue Collaborative Combat Aircraft.
“Our Innovations team is excited to take another important step toward understanding the opportunities for critical materials recovery from our mining byproducts, and we look forward to further increasing coal’s value proposition through this project,” Dan Connell, president of Core’s Innovations business unit, said.