The Department of Energy has selected 16 projects to receive a total of $39 million in funding to boost the U.S. critical minerals supply chain to support the nation’s transition to clean sources of energy.
The awardees will work to ensure a sustainable domestic supply of minerals to reduce the U.S.’ reliance on foreign sources and provide more clean energy job opportunities to local communities, DOE said Thursday.
The selected projects will work under the Mining Innovations for Negative Emissions Resource Recovery program of DOE’s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy.
The MINER funds research and development efforts intended to increase the local production of rare-earth elements, including copper, cobalt, nickel and lithium, to support the clean energy transition.
“With these investments, DOE is helping to reinvigorate American manufacturing to reduce our overreliance on adversarial nations and position the nation as a global leader of research and innovation,” said Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm.
