North Dakota could lead in rare earth minerals

The North Dakota Monitor reported yesterday on a bill intended to “keep North Dakota at the forefront of developing rare earth minerals.” It’s an important step toward meeting the many demands of a modern world, including policy mandates spurring demand for electric vehicles, solar panels, and wind turbines.

The bill, House Bill 1459, establishes that the policy of North Dakota is to “encourage, accelerate, and promote the development, production, and utilization of critical minerals and rare earth minerals,” while preventing waste and protecting the rights of owners. The bill also defines critical minerals in North Dakota, aligning with federal definitions.

The bill would also provide for a study of the “feasibility and desirability” of critical minerals production, including technical and legal barriers to extraction, current state laws on ownership, and a regulatory framework for unitized and pooled critical minerals.

The North Dakota Monitor also states that the bill “clarifies that rare earth minerals are part of the mineral estate, as opposed to part of the surface land.”

The North Dakota Monitor reports:

Several entities have been researching where rare earth mineral can be found in the state and the potential for development, including the Lignite Research Council, the Energy and Environmental Resource Center in Grand Forks, the North Dakota Geological Survey and UND.  

Jonathan Fortner, interim president of the North Dakota Lignite Energy Council, said one of the goals of his group was to avoid spending a lot of time in court battling over leases. 

“This is probably one of the more complicated things we’ve tried to work on,” he said of potentially valuable mineral intermingled, but very sporadically within a coal vein. 

But he said it is a great opportunity for the coal industry to diversify away from just producing electricity. 

There are 17 rare earth minerals that could be separated from the coal and sent to other facilities for further refining and manufacturing, Laudal said. 

Laudal said Thursday a $100 million facility extracting rare earth minerals from about 200,000 tons of coal per year could be done profitably. That’s about 50 times the size of a UND pilot project. 

Rare earth minerals are found in their highest concentration at the top and bottom of coal seams, he said. A facility could extract and concentrate a mixture of rare earth minerals. 

Rare earth minerals are of potentially high value and shipping just a truckload a week could make the investment pay, he said. 

However, because China dominates the mining and processing of many critical minerals, it may be difficult to attract investment. Given the stated policies of the federal government to promote domestic critical minerals production and bolster national security, there is the possibility that the industry in North Dakota will receive support.