National Energy Technology Laboratory Story Archives - West Virginia Public Broadcasting

Pilot Project Mines Coal Waste For Valuable Rare Earth Elements

A pilot-scale facility that extracts valuable rare earth elements from coal waste byproducts officially opened its doors this week at West Virginia University.

Advocates of the project are hopeful that environmental waste left by Appalachia’s coal mining legacy could one day fuel an economic boom in the region while also providing some national security.

“This could go a long way forward in creating new economic opportunity for West Virginia and this region and treat acid mine drainage, and turn it into a financial boon instead of a financial burden,” Brian Anderson, director of WVU’s Energy Institute told the crowd.

The Rare Earth Extraction Facility located at the National Research Center for Coal and Energy on WVU’s Evansdale campus in Morgantown is a collaboration between the university, the Department of Energy (DOE) and private partners.

The research facility extracts valuable rare earth elements from acid mine drainage (AMD), which is the most abundant pollutant in West Virginia waters. In just West Virginia and Pennsylvania, it’s estimated that about 10,000 miles of streams are polluted by AMD.

17 rare earth elements exist on the planet and they’re used in everything from cellphones to stealth bombers. While ubiquitous in the earth’s crust, they’re called “rare” because they don’t exist anywhere in concentrated amounts. Currently, China dominates the global rare earth elements market.

“Without those rare earth elements, we can’t have energy security, we can’t have financial security, we can’t have defense security,” said Steven Winberg, assistant secretary for fossil energy at the Department of Energy. “That’s how impactful this is.”

Developing a domestic source of rare earth elements is a research priority for the DOE. The agency kicked in much of the funding for the pilot facility and researchers from the National Energy Technology Laboratory have participated in the project.

Still More to Learn

At the pilot plant, sludge from the nearby Omega Mine in Grafton is treated with a series of acidic chemicals. Then, it’s filtered through up to 100 milk carton-sized mixers that quietly whir, no louder than your run-of-the-mill fan. At every stage, the rare earth elements separate out.

Two of the mixers at the Rare Earth Extraction Facility at WVU.

What remains is a concentrated amalgamation of a bunch of rare earth elements that will need to be further processed.

Paul Ziemkiewicz is director of the West Virginia Water Research Institute and the lead developer behind this project. He said it’s likely the elements will separate at some degree.

“But we won’t really know until we run this thing,” he said.

The pilot plant aims to iron out the kinks before this process can be scaled up, but if it can be done, Ziemkiewicz believes it could mean an economic windfall for the region. His team estimates Appalachia’s coal sludge could produce up to 800 tons of these elements each year, worth more than $190 million.

He said they hope to be able to scale up the project for commercial use within five years.

FirstEnergy Asks Feds for Emergency Relief to Keep Coal, Nuclear Power Online

Electric utility FirstEnergy Solutions is asking the federal government for an emergency order to keep coal and nuclear plants operating across the Ohio Valley.

In a letter to the U.S. Department of Energy sent Thursday, the utility said the power grid faces grave threats if coal and nuclear plants are allowed to close.

“The time for talk is over,” the letter states. “We find ourselves at a crisis point where significant baseload generation will cease to exist in [regional transmission organization] markets without quick and decisive intervention.”

Ohio-based FirstEnergy, serves 6 million customers across Ohio, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Maryland and New Jersey. The company is asking DOE to immediately grant an emergency order under a little-used section of the sweeping Federal Power Act. Under the law, the Energy Department’s authority to issue emergency orders is tied to situations including war or natural disasters, but the agency can also issue them if it more broadly serves the public’s interest.

If granted, the regional grid operator, PJM Interconnection, would negotiate a contract to provide compensation to coal and nuclear plants across the 13-state region it manages.

The company cited a recent federal report that found the East Coast would have experienced widespread power outages from the recent “Bomb Cyclone” without electricity generated by coal-fired power plants. The report, published this week by DOE’s National Energy Technology Laboratory, found that coal was the most resilient form of power generation during the 12-day storm. It also said removing coal from the energy mix could worsen threats to the electrical grid’s dependability during future severe weather events.

PJM sharply rebuked FirstEnergy’s claims stating there was “no immediate emergency.” In a statement, the grid operator defended the reliability of its systems and said it had both enough power supplies and that they are from a diverse mix of fuel sources.

“The potential for the retirements has been discussed publicly for some time,” the grid operator said. “In anticipation, PJM took a preliminary look at the effect of the retirements on the system. We found that the system would remain reliable. We have adequate amounts of generation available.”

FirstEnergy has announced a spate of plant closures over the next few years. The company plans to shut down the 1,300-megawatt coal-fired Pleasants Power Station in West Virginia early next year. FirstEnergy announced Wednesday it would also close three nuclear plants in Pennsylvania and Ohio, which together provide more than 4,000 MW to the grid.

DOE Spokesperson Shaylyn Hynes said in a statement that the agency has received the request and will go through the “standard review process.”

Murray Energy Corporation, which is a large coal supplier to FirstEnergy, praised the utility’s efforts to get an emergency order. In a statement, the company said emergency relief could have been avoided if the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) had granted DOE’s proposed rule that would have required coal and nuclear plants to keep three months of fuels onsite. The agency said the change was necessary in order to ensure the grid could handle future disruptions.

“As a result of FERC’s failure, critical power plants will close, thousands of American jobs will be lost, and the reliability, resiliency, and security of our electric power grids will be forever compromised,” Murray Energy said in a statement.

In a rare moment of unity, both environmental groups and fossil fuel industry group, the American Petroleum Institute, characterized FirstEnergy’s attempt to get emergency aid for its coal and nuclear plants as attempt to bolster the company’s bottom line.

“For FirstEnergy to cry wolf on the issue of grid reliability is irresponsible and is the company’s latest attempt to force consumers to pay for a bailout,” API Market Development Group Director Todd Snitchler said in a statement. “PJM is responsible for the reliability of the grid and if there is an emergency, PJM already has the tools to respond.”

Federal Study Touts Coal's Importance During Bomb Cyclone

As temperatures plunged during the 12-day cold snap that hit just after Christmas, many people across the East Coast reached for their thermostats, which increased demand for electricity.

A new federal report finds that without coal-fired electricity, the eastern United States would have experienced blackouts during the so-called “Bomb Cyclone” winter storm earlier this year.

The Department of Energy’s National Energy Technology Laboratory said fossil fuels — coal, natural gas or oil — accounted for most of the energy burned during the the Bomb Cyclone.

But coal really stepped up, providing 55 percent of capacity. The report, which examined how six grid operators fared during the storm, found fuel oil was also crucial for meeting surging energy demand, especially in the northeast.

While natural gas plants met some of the additional energy needs, the analysis found the surge in demand drove prices up, in some cases nearly 700 percent.

Peter Balash, one of the report’s authors, said in a press release that coal was the most resilient form of power generation during the event and, “removing coal from the energy mix would worsen threats to the electrical grid’s dependability during future severe weather events.”

While it’s important to focus on coal plant closures and the impact the loss of that capacity may have on the grid in the case of a major storm, NETL’s new study skirts the bigger picture, said Eric Hittinger, an associate professor at the Rochester Institute of Technology who specializes in grid research.

He said the report shows the amount of electricity that can be guaranteed within the system, also called firm generation, is really crucial for keeping the lights on when there is a big storm. Power produced by coal plants is one example of firm generation, but so is nuclear power, and electricity produced by natural gas and hydroelectric. NETL’s report, he said, really only focuses on coal.

“It’s the electricity system as a whole that keeps the lights on,” Hittinger said. “We can do without any single plant on the system, but we can’t do without a lot of them. To hang your hat on any one of them as the critical component is maybe a little bit distracting from the general issue of having enough capacity.”

He added that coal-fired plants are currently facing challenging economic and market conditions forcing them to close, so it makes sense to examine that loss closely. However, additional natural gas capacity and battery storage, when it drops in price, could replace the capacity currently tied up with coal plants.

Ken Caldeira, a climate scientist at the Carnegie Institution for Science, said if the world is going to transition away from fossil fuels, as it must to keep the most drastic impacts of climate change at bay, the energy sector must transition away from fossil fuels. He said the study highlights the technology gap that currently exists to be able to make that transition while ensuring the light’s don’t go out during severe weather events.

“Some people, perhaps people in the Trump administration, might conclude how important coal, oil and gas is and we really need to develop our fossil fuel capabilities and increase fossil fuel capacity,” Caldeira said. “When I see these numbers I say ‘oh man, we really need to work hard on our energy technology research and development efforts to come up with technologies that can follow the variation in electricity demand without dumping waste carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.’”

The Department of Energy previously expressed concerns about the grid’s resilience as electric utility companies retire more coal plants in favor of cleaner natural gas. The agency last year proposed a rule that would have required coal and nuclear plants to keep three months of fuels onsite. The agency said the change was necessary in order to ensure the grid could handle future disruptions.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission in January rejected the proposal.

Federal Suit in West Virginia Cites Subcontractor Kickbacks

Federal officials have filed a civil complaint against 15 people and 12 companies, alleging they participated in a kickback scheme while working on two federally-funded laboratory projects in West Virginia.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office alleges that a former special investigator for the National Energy Technology Laboratory projects received thousands of dollars in kickbacks and approved subcontracts to companies where his sons were employed. The work was not completed.

Authorities say the investigator was terminated in 2010 from contractor Arizona Public Service Company, an electricity provider that also explored renewable energy alternatives and was working for the federal government on the West Virginia projects.

The laboratory projects, administered from Morgantown, involved more than $85 million of federal spending for developing natural gas co-production and carbon dioxide uses.

The government is seeking civil penalties.