alt Hacker NewsNice. Here's MP Minerals' plant for doing that, in Alliance, TX.[1] It's a modest sized plant in an industrial park. It's fed by a huge mine in California, which has an onsite beneficiation plant. Beneficiation is the first step of separation - sorting the good stuff out from the unwanted dirt, with rock crushers, screens, and flotation. This being "rare" earth mining, the amount of good stuff is tiny relative to the unwanted dirt. This new technology works on the separated good stuff.
Although these separation plants aren't big compared to mines, US mines had been sending rare earth ores to China for processing. That's gradually moving back to the US as more separating plants are built.
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What's the general process for the initial separation of unwanted dirt? I've worked in a zinc smelter a long time ago, the initial stage was roasting, heating the ore to 900C to burn off unwanted components (such as sulfur, which went on to become sulfuric acid), and to melt other components.
I guess I'm surprised at the absence of flue stacks and cooling towers at the facility shown in the video.
Perhaps the facility in the video only shows "cleaner" downstream processing for marketing appeal, or separation processes are fundamentally different?
That's one of those corporate videos that's totally useless. Lot's of "pretty" pictures with drone footage, but there's no there there. Who do videos like this work on?
Is that mine in California the one powered by burning sulfur? If I recall correctly, they need sulfuric acid to extract the minerals, and they need power, and burning sulfur to make sulfuric acid produces steam, and sulfur is easier to ship than the acid, so...