Mondays at 4:00 p.m., 112 Walker Building
Critical minerals are vital to domestic economic growth and national security. These minerals are increasingly important to everyday life, including automobiles, wind turbines, electronics, batteries, and cellphones and are crucial to our Nation’s defense readiness. Yet our Nation is almost completely dependent upon foreign sources for these commodities. If we wish to maintain international economic leadership and a robust defense capability, we must endeavor to provide a secure, dependable, and affordable supply of these minerals. To address many of these important issues, Penn State has developed a Center for Critical Minerals. The Center seeks to gain an understanding of the occurrence of critical minerals in various geologic terranes and industry byproducts. The Center also strives to develop advanced technologies for the sustainable recovery of these resources from multiple materials. Penn State faculty are intimately involved in research that will impact these efforts.
This EarthTalk Series will focus on the imperative that our Nation faces to provide a reliable supply chain of critical minerals and on the research underway to locate these resources both domestically and in friendly nations. Seminar speakers will address the national importance of critical minerals, the status of a PSU pilot plant to recover these materials from acid mine drainage, current research to understand the occurrence of and to identify sources of critical minerals in PA and around the country, cooperative programs with industry, State, and Federal agencies to locate and characterize domestic and foreign sources of critical minerals, and the science that underpins the sustainable development of these resources.
The series is scheduled to take place in 112 Walker building from 4:00 – 5:15 p.m. and will feature the following speakers:
| Date | Speaker | Presentation |
|---|---|---|
| Sept. 8 | Ned Mamula PSU Geosciences Alumni & EMS Geosciences Board Member |
"America’s Mineral Wealth - An Embarrassment of Riches that Requires an Immediate Critical Minerals Policy Perspective" Watch the seminar |
| Sept. 15 | Sarma Pisupati Penn State - EME |
"Securing Domestic Critical Mineral Supply Chains: Penn State's Efforts from Lab to Pilot-Scale" Watch the seminar |
| Sept. 22 | Maureen Feineman Penn State - Geosc |
"A Critical Legacy: Rare Earth Elements in Waste Products from Historical Mining and Smelting in PA" Watch the seminar |
| Oct. 6 | Thandazile Moyo Penn State - EME |
"From Ore to Metal: Designing Efficient Extraction Pathways with Mineralogical and Geochemical Precision" Watch the seminar |
| Oct. 27 | Tim White, Nick Sullivan Penn State - EESI/GEOSC |
"Patterns and processes of lithium enrichment in coal measure strata from the Northern Appalachian Basin" Postponed to Dec. 15 |
| Nov. 3 | Rens Verburg WSP - USE |
"The Critical Minerals Rush – Not So Fast" Watch the seminar |
| Nov. 10 | Jesse Reimink Penn State - Geosc |
"Towards a Chrono-Chemical Framework for Understanding Critical Mineral Concentration Mechanisms in Complex Pegmatite Systems" Watch the seminar |
| Nov. 17 | Elisa Alonso USGS - NMIC |
"Ongoing efforts to assess U.S. requirements for mineral commodities and their criticality" Watch the seminar |
| Dec. 1 | Christina Lopano DOE/NETL |
"Characterizing the Critial: REE and CM Specification in Fossil Ennergy Waste Materials" Watch the seminar |
| Dec. 8 | Gale Blackmer PA Geol Survey |
"Critical Minerals Research at the Pennsylvania Geological Survey" Join the seminar |
| Dec. 15 | Tim White, Nick Sullivan Penn State - EESI/GEOSC |
"Diagnosing a potential critical mineral deposit in the coal regions of central PA" Join the seminar |
Organizing Committee Members:
Tim White and David Russ
Sponsored by EESI
