Posted on 05/31/2016 3:41:13 AM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
US scientists have found what it could be key for the future of the country’s ailing coal industry as they detected that ashes from local operations, particularly those around the Appalachian region, are very rich in rare earth elements.
Researchers from North Carolina-based Duke University analyzed coal ashes from coal-fired power plants throughout the US, including those in the largest coal-producing regions: the Appalachian Mountains; southern and western Illinois; and the Powder River Basin in Wyoming and Montana.
One of the team main conclusions was that coal waste generated by the Appalachian coal operations was the richest in rare earth elements, containing 591 milligrams of the coveted elements per kilogram of ashes.
"There are literally billions of dollars' worth of rare earth elements contained in our nation's coal ash," the researchers said in a statement.
"If a program were to move forward, they'd clearly want to pick the coal ash with the highest amount of extractable rare earth elements, and our work is the first comprehensive study to begin surveying the options," they noted.
Not only rare earths are crucial to the manufacture of high-tech devices, but also to military communication systems, which is partially why the US Department of Energy recently offered $20 million to companies to solve the economic puzzle.
Previous research has focused on methods that can make the extraction or rare earths from coal waste not only financially viable, but also environmentally friendly.
Thorium & coal...hmmm:
Combine 2 technologies that have been proven - thorium reactors and the Fischer-Tropsch process for coal liquification (remember that the Germans did this late in WW2 to fuel their Panzers and the Luftwaffe, as they lost or were about to lose oil fields), and you get the beginnings of complete energy independence. Read about it here: https://www.market-ticker.org/akcs-www?singlepost=2491667
Oh, and the REE found with the thorium and coal? That’s just a bonus.
I look for President Trump to take advantage of this - he is an innovative and out-of-the-box thinker, someone who will at least CONSIDER every option before making a decision. Given the facts - that we have about 400 years of coal reserves at present production rates, and that the 2 technologies mentioned above are PROVEN to work - I don’t see how we CAN’T make some substantial use of it to put a LOT of our people back to work (the usual coal miners, coal transporters, etc., but also a lot of engineers and construction people - ALL high-paying jobs), and to reduce our balance of payments deficit.
Yes, it will take decades for this to have a very significant impact upon our economy, but business and international markets look ahead. This cannot help but jump-start our economy. Between that, and Fracking 2.0 http://nextbigfuture.com/search?q=fracking+2.0 bringing the cost of fracked oil down to somewhere between $5 and $20/bbl., our economy is going to BOOM as the cost of a major economic input - energy - is tremendously reduced. It will be like a permanent and gigantic tax cut, and adding a few million good jobs for both ends of that massive project will only be cream on the cake.
The trouble is, this will come down from the leviathan feral government as a mandate regardless of whether or not it is a economically viable idea.
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