Unexpectedly, this story centers on coal and in this case, coal ash. A September 12, 2024 Canadian Light Source news release (also received via email)) by Brian Owens explains how coal ash is a source for rare earth elements (RRE), Note: A link has been removed,
As the world transitions away from fossil fuels, the demand for rare earth elements (REEs) is only going to increase. These elements are vital to the production of technologies that will make the transition to green energy possible. While REEs are not technically rare, large deposits are found in only a few locations around the world – mostly in China – and they are difficult to extract.
“If we want to switch to electric vehicles by 2035 and be net-zero by 2050 we’re going to need new sources of these metals,” says Brendan Bishop, a PhD candidate studying REEs at the University of Regina.
Bishop and his colleagues have been studying one potential new source of these valuable elements: the ash that is produced as waste from coal-fired power plants. Researchers have looked into REEs in coal waste in the United States and China, but there has been little work done on ash from Canadian coal.
The team analyzed samples of ash from coal plants in Alberta and Saskatchewan to determine how much REEs the ashes contained, and how they could be extracted. While the concentration of REEs in Canadian coal ash is on par with that found in ash from other parts of the world, questions remained about whether the REEs are dispersed evenly throughout the ash particles or concentrated in certain minerals found within the ashes.
Using the powerful X-ray beamlines at the Canadian Light Source (CLS) at the University of Saskatchewan (USask), Bishop probed the ash, in search of a rare earth element called yttrium. They found it was distributed in specific mineral phases within the ash particles, most often in the form of silicates or phosphates such as xenotime which remain unchanged when the coal is burned. The work was published in Environmental Science and Technology.
Bishop says this data can help inform development of an efficient and environmentally friendly process for recovering REEs from the ash. “This will be important when we develop a recovery process because extracting rare earth elements is technologically challenging,” he says. “In this case, since it’s in xenotime which is an ore mineral, maybe we can use an existing process and modify it for coal ash.”
The amount of REEs that could be extracted from coal ash will depend on the recovery process, says Bishop. But he thinks it could be a good short-to-medium-term source of the metals. The concentration is not particularly high, but that is offset by the fact that waste coal ash is plentiful. The concentration throughout the ash is also fairly homogenous, so no complicated grading is required as with mined ores. Once the extraction process is perfected, it will also be much faster than opening new mines, which often have gaps of up to 17 years between exploration and production.
Recovering REEs from the ash is also an important step toward a circular economy. Some ash is used in making concrete, but most just sits in landfills or tailings ponds near power plants. “It not only gets rid of an environmental liability, but it also gives us the metals we need for clean energy technologies,” says Bishop.
Years ago I came across a newspaper article where the writer had interviewed some Chiefs. I can’t remember what occasioned the article but the quotes about land rights could have been taken from one of today’s newspapers. The article was written in 1925.
In hearing the stories of what Indigenous Peoples in Canada have had to endure such as the loss of their land and rights, horrific living conditions on the reserves, the Residential schools, and more, our failure to act is impossible to understand.
First Nations University of Canada seeks to have an ongoing transformative impact through education based on a foundation of Indigenous Knowledge. The Regina campus is situated on the atim kâ-mihkosit (Red Dog) Urban Reserve, Star Blanket Cree Nation and Treaty 4 Territory. Star Blanket is the first First Nation in Canada to create an urban reserve specifically dedicated to the advancement of education.
They offer undergraduate and graduate programmes and appear to have some sort of partnership with the University of Regina (Saskatchewan). Their Indigenous Knowledge & Science undergraduate programme description can be found here.
Indigenous science, technology, and society (Indigenous STS)
Indigenous Science, Technology, and Society (Indigenous STS) is an international research and teaching hub, housed at the University of Alberta, for the burgeoning sub-field of Indigenous STS.
Our mission is two-fold: 1) To build Indigenous scientific literacy by training graduate students, postdoctoral, and community fellows to grapple expertly with techno-scientific projects and topics that affect their territories, peoples, economies, and institutions; and 2) To produce research and public intellectual outputs with the goal to inform national, global, and Indigenous thought and policymaking related to science and technology. Indigenous STS is committed to building and supporting techno-scientific projects and ways of thinking that promote Indigenous self-determination.
Kim TallBear is an Associate Professor, Faculty of Native Studies, Canada Research Chair in Indigenous Peoples, Technoscience & Environment, University of Alberta, and a 2018 Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation Fellow. She is a graduate of the University of California, Santa Cruz and of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Professor TallBear is the author of one monograph, Native American DNA: Tribal Belonging and the False Promise of Genetic Science (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2013), which won the Native American and Indigenous Studies Association First Book Prize. She is the co-editor of a collection of essays published by the Oak Lake Writers, a Dakota and Lakota tribal writers’ society in the USA. Professor TallBear has written nearly two-dozen academic articles and chapters published in the United States, Canada, Australia, and Sweden. She also writes for the popular press and has published in venues such as BuzzFeed, Indian Country Today, and GeneWatch. She is a frequent blogger on issues related to Indigenous peoples, science, and technology. Professor TallBear is a frequent commentator in the media on issues related to Indigenous peoples and genomics including interviews in New Scientist, New York Times, Native America Calling, National Geographic, Scientific American, The Atlantic, and on NPR, CBC News and BBC World Service. Professor TallBear has advised science museums across the United States on issues related to race and science. She also advised the former President of the American Society for Human Genetics on issues related to genetic research ethics with Indigenous populations. She is a founding ethics faculty member in the Summer internship for Indigenous Peoples in Genomics (SING), and has served as an advisor to programs at genome ethics centres at Duke University and Stanford University. She is also an advisory board member of the Science & Justice Research Centre at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Professor TallBear was an elected council member of the Native American and Indigenous Studies Association (NAISA) from 2010-2013. She is co-producer of an Edmonton sexy storytelling show, Tipi Confessions, which serves as a research-creation laboratory at the University of Alberta on issues related to decolonization and Indigenous sexualities. She is a citizen of the Sisseton-Wahpeton Oyate in South Dakota and is also descended from the Cheyenne & Arapaho Tribes of Oklahoma.
The Summer internship for INdigenous peoples in Genomics Canada (SING Canada) is an initiative associated with the Indigenous Science, Technology, and Society Research and Training Program (Indigenous STS) at the University of Alberta, Faculty of Native Studies. Building on the success of SING US and SING Aotearoa, SING Canada is an annual one-week intensive workshop designed to build Indigenous capacity and scientific literacy by training undergraduate and graduate students, postdoctoral, and community fellows in the basic of genomics, bioinformatics, and Indigenous and decolonial bioethics. This week-long, all expenses paid residential program invites Indigenous participants to engage in hands-on classroom, lab, and field training in genomic sciences and Indigenous knowledge. The curriculum includes an introduction to leading advances in and Indigenous approaches to genomics and its the ethical, environmental, economic, legal, and social (GE3LS) implications. Participants gain an awareness of the uses, misuses, opportunities, and limitations of genomics as a tool for Indigenous peoples’ governance. SING Canada is distinguished by its dedication to critical Indigenous theory and an emphasis on discussing the local contexts (i.e. political, legal, biological, and Indigenous) where the workshops take place, including the human and other-than-human relations that have implications variously for human and non-human health, environments, and societies. This is not your average summer science training program!
SING Canada seems to have originated in 2018 and one was planned for 2021. I imagine they’ll update the information when they prepare for the 2022 edition.
