Office: Resource Sustainability
FOA number: DE-FOA-0002854
Download the full FOA: FedConnect
FOA Amount: $32 million

Background Information

On July 13, 2023, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced $32 million for projects that will help build facilities that produce rare earth elements and other critical minerals and materials from domestic coal-based resources. The funding provided by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law will strengthen domestic supply chains, helping meet the growing demand for critical minerals and reduce reliance on foreign sources. Rare earth elements and other critical minerals are key to manufacturing clean energy technologies here in America—such as solar panels, wind turbines, electric vehicles, and hydrogen fuel cells. Coal and coal production waste contain a wide variety of valuable rare earth elements that can be converted into clean energy technology components, creating high-quality jobs in energy communities and helping advance President Biden’s historic climate agenda and Bidenomics strategy for growing the economy from the middle out and bottom-up.   

The United States currently imports greater than 80% of its rare earth elements from non-domestic suppliers. But rare earth elements naturally occur all around us, including in our domestic coal and coal wastes. The funding opportunity announcement seeks to tap this unconventional resource to help build a domestic supply chain critical to the U.S. economy, clean energy, and national security. The program funds research, development, and demonstration projects that support the development of intermediate- and/or demonstration-scale facilities for domestic production and refining of rare earth elements and other critical minerals across the country.

The FEED studies will establish and define technical requirements focused on project scope, schedule, and costs, and reduce risk during the construction and operation of the future facilities. These facilities will also help to create healthier environments for our local communities by using our abundant national sources of coal and coal by-products to extract, separate, and produce rare earth elements and other critical minerals and materials. These include more than 250 billion tons of coal reserves, over 4 billion tons of waste coal, and about 2 billion tons of coal ash at various sites across the country.

This funding is provided from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law Section 41003(b).

The deadline to submit applications for this funding opportunity has closed.

Eligibility

Eligible applicants include individuals, institutions of higher education, for-profit entities, non-profit entities, state and local government entities, and tribal nations.

Topic Areas

This funding opportunity announcement (FOA) has two topic areas:

1. FEED Study Based on AACE Class 3 Cost Estimate Targeting an Intermediate[1]Scale Facility (on the order of 30-100 t MREO/MRES per year)
2. FEED Study Based on AACE Class 3 Cost Estimate Targeting a Demonstration[1]Scale Facility (1-3 t MREO/MRES per day)”

Funding

DOE expects to make up to 6 awards for between $4M-8M each with a minimum of a 20% cost-sharing from the awardees.

Key Dates

Additional Information

• Download the full funding opportunity on FedConnect.
• All applicants must register and apply on Grants.gov and submit questions through FedConnect

Last Updated: September 13, 2023