“Within the pilot tests that were done, we developed a control philosophy where we’re able to make really discrete changes to our process at any individual step, and very efficiently optimize the process.” “We hope to see a lower cost process, which we’ll find out with this demonstration,” he said. Their proprietary process not only includes fewer steps, but produces less waste. “And so that’s why we’re really focused on this demonstration-scale plant.” “One of the things with rare earth elements mining and mineral processing is that the processing is much more challenging than perhaps other mineral commodities,” Berg said. That bet is being laid on top of $140 million in investment in Bear Lodge that’s already been spent. It was taken from an area in the deposit where we knew that it was a higher-grade area that we could extract quickly.”īuilding the demonstration project is a $44 million bet not only that the Bear Lodge deposit near Upton has long-term potential - 35-plus years according to current analyses - but also in a process that’s potentially a game-changer for U.S. “So, the sample we have is a higher concentration. “If you were to look at the whole Bear Lodge project, it’s a little over 3%,” Berg said. “And then, secondly, we want to see a range of 92 to 97% recovery from the bulk mineral sample from Bear Lodge.”īear Lodge is the company’s nearby rare earth mine. The 1-ton mineral sample taken from that mine has a rare earth content of around 10%. “We want to see a product that’s higher than 99-and-a-half-percent pure,” Berg said. The specs the demonstration plant has to meet are high, Berg added. It’s not being done like this anywhere else in the world.” And this is new, proprietary technology that we’re advancing here. “The challenge now is to step it up into a much larger demonstration scale and show that it works at that level. “We’ve tested and retested the technology and know it works at (the laboratory) scale,” he said. Rare Element Resources held an open house Monday to celebrate progress toward building a demonstration-scale plant in Upton that will test a new way of processing rare earths that CEO Brent Berg told Cowboy State Daily is both less costly and more efficient than anywhere else in the world. But Wyoming may soon be in a position to loosen that stranglehold thanks to a company that’s investing in a $44 million Wyoming rare earths project. UPTON - China has long had a stranglehold on the world’s supply of rare earths, which are used in a wide array of technological gadgets ranging from cellphones to electric vehicle car batteries.
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