Carpenter and Greenberg reported in early April, 2021 that the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) sought new methods to engage regional stakeholders in the area of Critical Minerals Sustainability that included facilitated listening sessions at four regional workshops and one workshop for the National Laboratories. The facilitated listening sessions provided an opportunity for USEA to gather insights from a variety of stakeholders and to look across listening sessions to identify critical factors of interest to DOE.
This report summarizes the results and stakeholder feedback from the four DOE Regional Workshops on Critical Minerals Sustainability that were hosted by USEA in the West, Appalachia & East, Gulf Coast, and Midwest & Plains Regions. Some data extracted from the National Laboratories workshop is also included. The Regional workshops focused on the areas of Assessment of Available Resources, Industrial Activity Across the Entire Critical Minerals (CM) Supply Chain, Regional Policy Context, and Regional Needs and Opportunities for Research & Development (R&D) followed by facilitated breakout listening sessions.
A summary of the data that include participant demographics, major themes, observations, and analysis is as follows:
• Total Registered (all 5 workshops): 272
• Total Participants (all 5 workshops, DOE, USEA, & facilitators): 300+
• Organizations represented: 160
The major themes identified through analysis of participant discussions fall into 62 discrete themes that have been further refined into three tiers; Tier 1 represents the top 10 themes by frequency and relative importance, Tier 2 represents those topics that were used with double digit frequency (e.g., >9), and Tier 3 represents those topics that were used with single digit frequency (e.g., <10).
The Tier 1 themes provide major insights into areas of focus for program planning and resource development that include mining, which was by far the most discussed topic, and virtually all in the context of re-use of existing mines and mine waste with little to no discussion of new mines; data was the second most discussed theme and seen as mission critical, especially the need for shared and open-source data, digitization of paper data; sustainability was discussed in several ways that included a need to understand the circular economy, sustainable business models, recycling, and utilization of waste streams; waste & technology themes were often connected with sustainability, including recycling, waste processing, resources, separation, and
extraction; education is a broad topic discussed by participants primarily in the policy context including K-12 STEM to workforce needs, need for increased undergraduate and graduate programs, and engagement with the general public; federal government was listed by participants as to what, how, and why the federal government should engage and interact with the CM/RE industry; and economic themes including bonding, property rights for waste
streams, and concern over China’s role and control in the market.
The participants expressed a desire for the federal government to bring clarity to the what, where, when, and why of R&D programs, cross-regional collaborations, and educational opportunities in the Critical Mineral/Rare Earth Elements arena. Data from the workshops provides greater understanding and some guidance/suggestions:
“We don't have a framework for this discussion. And what I mean by that is, we have to think about what our objectives are and what are the timeframes in which we're trying to achieve them…but the timeframes for realizing that in terms of anything tangible about making the United States minerals independent is decades…if we want to make the United States minerals independent in the next year, then we have to look at what we've just done in the last nine months in terms of trying to find a vaccine for, for the COVID virus…we need a framework that says, what are we going to have trying to
accomplish, by when?”
In response to overwhelming support by stakeholders, as well as questions asked to better understand and inform their support moving forward, these high-level observations could provide implementation insights for DOEs Division of Minerals Sustainability Strategic Planning efforts. The observations include:
1. Address the identified themes in a tiered approach, prioritize the Tier 1 themes.
2. Continue and expand regional mineral district concept with respect to materials and waste streams which vary across regions.
3. Facilitate knowledge sharing, encourage development of networks, and working groups among regions.
4. Correlate the regional findings so that cross-cutting ideas generated through National Laboratories and other collaborations can be applied to the regional context.
5. Understand and highlight regional differences by introducing flexibility in the FOA approach taking into consideration that not all regions will share the same continuum of resource characterization, development of processing, and access to waste materials.
6. Assess policy needs and barriers relative to supply chain, economics, and level the international playing field.
7. Encourage participation in international standards development.
8. Further consider cross-agency and extramural National Laboratory activities and ways to support, coordinate, and expand CM/RE networks, projects, and programs.
9. Facilitate an ongoing collaborations with National Laboratories and stakeholders to develop a CM/RE implementation road map.
10. Create ways to bring together National Laboratories and stakeholders to engage the strong desire for future collaborations.
Managed & Built by I2M Consulting, LLC | © 2010-
