Feds eye New England universities in push to reshore rare earth metal refining

U.S. Department of Energy officials came to the New Hampshire Seacoast on Friday to announce plans to distribute $70 million to universities across the U.S., a move they said was intended to boost training of mining engineers and other professionals of the domestic “critical minerals” workforce. 

But no university in New Hampshire, or in New England more broadly, has a mining program that would make them eligible for the awards, the officials said — so why make the announcement in Exeter?

“This is where the workforce is needed,” said Audrey Robertson, assistant secretary of the U.S. Department of Energy, in a conference room at the mineral refinery operated in the Seacoast town by rare earth startup Phoenix Tailings. “It’s actually indicative of the problem.”

The set of 17 elements known as rare earth metals are considered critical to manufacture a range of technologies, from electric vehicles to missiles, MRI machines, computer chips, and more. They are relatively common in the Earth’s crust but difficult to isolate. Globally, the mining and refinement of rare earth metals is linked to environmental destruction and the generation of toxic waste.

Phoenix Tailings, which is based in Massachusetts with locations in Burlington and Woburn in addition to Exeter, New Hampshire, is one of a limited number of domestic rare earth refining companies. The U.S. Department of Energy has used grant funding to try to incentivize domestic production; Phoenix Tailings received one such award totaling about $66 million dollars this summer.

But the U.S. industry is still comparatively small. Globally, the People’s Republic of China holds a disproportionate share of the rare earth refining industry. More than 90% of the rare earth metals refined globally are produced in China, according to the International Energy Agency. President Donald Trump has called for domestic production to increase.

On Friday, Robertson said the current state of the supply chain made the U.S. “100% reliant on foreign adversaries.” She credited Phoenix Tailings with playing an important role in strengthening the industry in the U.S.

The company’s Exeter facility can process 200 metric tons of rare earth metals annually, with plans for an expansion that could more than double that output, Head of Communications Max Fresen said Friday. But like the broader mining industry as a whole, they face a labor shortage.

Robertson said the funding announced on Friday would help address that by supporting efforts to train the mining workforce. The funds will be available to schools with accredited mining engineering programs, she said. An earlier phase of the funding announced on Monday went to 16 universities, including Pennsylvania State University and Columbia University in New York City.

Describing the jobs as well-paid and resistant to disruption from artificial intelligence, Robertson called on New England universities to bolster degree offerings in the field.

“We need to innovate, quickly, across the supply chain,” she said, “and then we need to have students who are educated in the way that those companies need, to continue to grow — and we don’t have enough of either.”

SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX.