Why Are WY Republicans So Excited About New Rare Earth Mine? Because Until Further Notice, It's Actually A Coal Mine
At the foot of Wyoming’s Big Horn Mountains sits a mine potentially full of minerals crucial for renewable energy, yet capable of drawing praise from some of the United States’ most ardent supporters of fossil fuels. On July 11, the U.S. secretary of energy Chris Wright, the former CEO of a hydraulic fracturing company, joined former West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin and Wyoming’s congressional delegation and governor, Mark Gordon, at the ribbon cutting ceremony for Ramaco Resources’ Brook Mine, which could one day become just the second source of rare earth minerals in the U.S.
But the minerals, including but not limited to scandium, gallium, germanium, praseodymium, neodymium, terbium and dysprosium, are locked up in coal, according to Ramaco—and it is that coal that has driven Republican enthusiasm for the mine. Rare earth minerals are critical components in a long list of technologies, including solar cells, wind turbine rotors, batteries, magnets, missiles, motors, semiconductors and smartphones. A vast majority of the world’s known critical mineral deposits lie in Asia, particularly in China.
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Ramaco intends to sell some of the coal present in the mine, a costly form of energy and a major contributor to the climate crisis, but it should amount to less than one percent of all the coal exported from Wyoming, Jeremy Sussman, Ramaco’s chief financial officer, said in an email. That small portion of coal didn’t stop Wright from touting the mineral as the mine’s major achievement. In a video posted on X, formerly Twitter, the secretary of energy said, “You’re going to see a lot more of big, beautiful, clean coal!” and noted that he was celebrating not only the opening of a mine for rare earth minerals, but also the first coal mine to open in Wyoming in 50 years.
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With only a third of the mine mapped and rare earth prices subject to change—Ramaco’s price estimate for scandium, a crucial component of fuels cells used in hydrogen-powered machines, was over 200 percent higher than the U.S. Geological Survey’s (USGS) estimate of $1.2 million per metric ton—(E. - Former Interior official Steve )Feldgus said it was too soon to say for sure what the mine’s future holds. “It’s still going to be a little bit longer before they can say that ‘this is actually what we’re going to mine,’” he said.
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https://insideclimatenews.org/news/23072025/wyoming-rare-earth-mining-contradicts-republican-renewables-disdain/