Levi Moxness is a geologist with the North Dakota Geological Survey. He says researchers are looking for ways to extract valuable mineral resources from the existing energy infrastructure in the state.
Moxness says one element is lithium, which is used in the manufacturing process for batteries. He says North Dakota's lithium is being detected in the wastewater produced in the oil extraction process.
“All the salt water they're getting out when they drill a new oil and gas well has potentially economic concentrations of lithium. They're actually producing, or very close, right on the Canadian side of the border, out of the Dupre formation, that's a company called Prairie Lithium. And so, there are companies and efforts to sort of understand more about what lithium concentrations we have here on the U.S. side of the border in North Dakota.”
Moxness says the potential for added value products can also be found in North Dakota's coal mines. He says the lignite coal could also be a source for rare earth minerals.
“…We know that coals in North Dakota have a pretty significant amount, in some cases, potentially economic concentrations of rare earth elements, and then these two other critical minerals, gallium and germanium, which are important for AI chips. You can think of them all as tech metals.”
Moxness says the importance of the rare earth potential is highlighted by the fact the University of North Dakota has been given federal grant funding to help discover ways of extracting those minerals from the coal.
“…But again, another resource where just no one has ever extracted them from lignite before, so you have entirely new technologies that need to be developed, and that's what they're working on. And the coal mines in the state are also a potential source for uranium.”
Moxness says developing technology to extract that uranium could help supply the energy industry if nuclear power begins to see new development.
For Prairie Public, I'm Todd McDonald.