Latest news with #PhoenixTailings
Boston Globe
9 hours ago
- Automotive
- Boston Globe
China has a lock on rare metals. Does this startup have a crowbar?
The US was once a major supplier of rare earths. But mining and refining the stuff is a deeply toxic business that fell afoul of environmental regulations. US companies abandoned the market to China, which was less concerned about the pollution problem. Now, Phoenix Tailings hopes to revive the industry by extracting the metals from 'tailings,' the rubble created by mining for other minerals, such as iron. It turns out this inexpensive waste matter is full of rare earths. Villalon says his company has developed a new way to capture and refine this metal, while generating virtually no toxic waste. Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up Indeed, Phoenix Tailings has already begun, according to chief executive Nick Myers. 'We ship on the tonnage scale globally today,' said Myers. 'The primary amount of our contracts are with the automotive sector.' Myers wouldn't identify specific customers, but said that the company's pilot plant in Burlington can put out a maximum of 40 tons of rare earth metals per year. Advertisement In addition, Phoenix Tailings just closed a $76 million funding round to pay for a factory in Exeter, NH capable of making between 200 and 400 tons of refined rare earths per year. Investors include the venture firm Escape Velocity, carmaker BMW and the venture arms of Japanese companies Sumitomo and Yamaha. Advertisement Phoenix Tailings has also begun preliminary planning on a still larger plant with an annual capacity of 2000 tons. Meyer estimates that such a plant could produce 30 percent of the rare earths needed by US civilian industries, and much of the military's needs as well, and could be in operation by 2027. Success isn't assured. Jonathan Hykawy, president of Only 390,000 tons of rare earth oxides were produced worldwide last year, compared to 2.5 billion metric tons of iron. Just 45,000 tons were mined in the US, but nearly all of it was shipped to China to be processed into usable metal. Neodymium and praseodymium are especially prized by carmakers because adding them to an electric motor's iron-based magnets produces a stronger magnetic field and a more powerful and energy-efficient motor. It takes only a little — about five pounds of rare earths in a typical electric car. But 17 million EVs were produced last year, so it adds up. Advertisement Then there are wind turbines. Adding neodymium to a windmill magnet can produce up to 25 percent more power than a regular iron magnet. These magnets weigh several tons, with rare earths making up around a quarter of their total weight. That's several hundred pounds of rare earths for every wind turbine, and 23,000 such turbines were installed worldwide last year, with thousands more on the way. Tomas Villalon is chief technology officer for Phoenix Tailings. David L. Ryan/ Boston Globe Staff In short, we're going to need a lot more rare earths. Villalon and Myers began working the problem in 2019, before most people had begun thinking about it. The two men met through prayer. Villalon, a Roman Catholic, got to know Myers during a Catholic religious retreat in Cambridge. Myers is Greek Orthodox, but he showed up anyway. 'It's close enough,' Meyer said Besides, he added, 'I like the people.' The two men shared a background in science and a shared interest in minerals and clean energy. Myers earned a physics degree at St. Michaels College in Vermont and an MBA from Northeastern University, while Villalon earned an undergraduate degree in materials science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a doctorate at Boston University. 'We started talking about, how do we make the metals that power the next 50 years of our civilization?' said Villalon. He and Myers targeted rare earth refining because it's particularly dirty. In 2019 Villalon, Myers, Michelle Chao, another MIT materials scientist, and chief commercial officer Anthony Balladon got to work, building an experimental refining system in Villalon's back yard. Instead of using traditional ores, they focused on tailings, which are cheap and plentiful. The challenge was figuring out how to extract the rare earths stored therein. Advertisement They hit upon a solution of water and solvents that would dissolve the rare earths. The liquid is mixed with molten salts, heated to about 1,300 degrees Fahrenheit, then pumped over electrified membranes that capture the rare earth metals in pure form. There's virtually no toxic waste. The solvents and salts are reused, and the leftover tailings can be buried. The resulting process can be fine-tuned for each of the 17 rare earth metals. Phoenix Tailings is producing four rare earths so far, and can begin offering others if market conditions make it worthwhile. The system works with tailings, but can also extract rare earths from old ground-up EV batteries. And Villalon said it can also be modified to extract lithium from vast underground brine deposits in the southern US. It's good news for the Pentagon, because rare earth-based magnets are vital to many military systems. The US is especially worried about samarium, a rare earth used in making magnets that can withstand extreme heat. At present, all the world's refined samarium comes from China. But Meyer said the New Hampshire plant will be able to produce samarium in small quantities, while completely satisfying military demand for neodymium, praseodymium and two other critical metals, dysprosium-ferroalloy and terbium. And Villalon said the company is in discussions with the US Defense Department about its rare earth needs. While most industry experts say it'll take a decade or more to rebuild US rare earths industry, Villalon and Myers say their system is relatively easy to build and easy to scale. Advertisement 'With traditional technologies you're looking at 15 to 20 years to be able to build and deploy these things,' said Meyer. 'We can scale up in a fraction of that time.' It might not help during the current trade spat with China. But in some future dispute, Phoenix Tailings might give the US a few more cards to play. Hiawatha Bray can be reached at
Mint
21-04-2025
- Business
- Mint
Sustainability investors eye defense stocks as geopolitical tensions rise
Can a weapons manufacturer be considered sustainable? On both sides of the Atlantic, companies and governments are recalibrating arguments for investing in renewables, minerals and clean technologies. Traditionally, the reason has been to decarbonize and reduce the effects of climate change, but now some are putting the focus on ensuring a supply of minerals to support weapons manufacturing and critical infrastructure in ways that can hopefully boost national security and deter global conflicts. Consider rare-earth miners. Companies that once pitched themselves as suppliers of metals and minerals for wind turbines and electric vehicles are now seen as vital for the defense sector, providing material used in F35 jet fighters and missile technology. Phoenix Tailings, a rare-earth mining and processing startup based in Woburn, Mass., said it is seeing demand from the defense industry as well as the electric-vehicle market. 'Whether it's electric vehicles, wind turbines or next-generation defense systems, rare-earth elements are fundamental to the technologies that power our economy and national security," said Nicholas Myers, the company's chief executive. China's latest restrictions on rare-earth exports, coupled with intensifying geopolitical tensions, reinforce the risk exposure facing manufacturers, investors, and policymakers, Myers said. 'Supply-chain resilience is no longer optional—it's a prerequisite for industrial competitiveness in the 21st century," he said. In the past, the sustainability and defense industries were considered incompatible. But in a fast – changing geopolitical environment characterized by the onset of tariffs and a pushback against green initiatives, the two markets are developing mutual ambitions. The issue has come to the fore in recent weeks, with the Trump administration pushing to secure mineral deals in Ukraine and parts of Africa, and looking to buy Greenland for the same reason. Europe has signaled moves to rearm and the stocks of European defense companies have soared, with the likes of Thales up 82% and Rheinmetall 136% this year, despite the effects of Trump's trade war on global markets. 'Our security depends as much on tanks and nuclear deterrents as it does on energy stability and an affordable supply of energy," said Laurie Laybourn, executive director of the Strategic Climate Risks Initiative, a climate think tank based in the U.K. 'Whether or not you think the world is a more dangerous place, you can still improve the security of your society through renewables." There is a longstanding argument that investing in defense can't fit with strong socially responsible corporate values. However, in recent months, market participants in both sectors say that having a strong supply of energy, minerals and technologies reduces reliance on external sources and in turn creates more resilient supply chains able to play down new threats. That means more solar, wind and batteries being made and deployed inside state borders. 'There are some great yet beneficial ironies in having defense actors in the room right now," said Olivia Lazard, a researcher on geopolitics and the energy transition at Carnegie Europe. Lazard explained that the war in Ukraine exposed many of Europe's vulnerabilities when it came to energy and minerals. Following the invasion, energy prices across the continent skyrocketed over worries that Russia would cut off gas exports to Europe. The European Commission recently released a list of 47 mineral sites within the EU's borders that it considers strategically important, part of a new assessment of the bloc's mineral resources. When it first started the initiative in 2023, the messaging focused on minerals such as lithium and copper needed for the energy transition. Now, it includes minerals for defense purposes, such as magnesium and tungsten. 'The case for minerals in Europe has become even stronger with a new call for rearming," said Isabelle Dupraz, deputy director at the think tank European Initiative for Energy Security. Dupraz said that despite the fast changes in the geopolitical environment, those shifts could benefit the energy transition. 'The need to end oil and gas dependency on national security imperative and economic security imperative." For investors, returns are already starting to show. Actively managed European ESG funds that included defense stocks outperformed those that didn't, according to data from Morningstar Sustainalytics. Most funds that include defense saw at least 10% returns at the end of March, while those that didn't were likely seeing negative returns, according to Morningstar. Startups have already taken note. Flight-tracking startup Wingbits said that when it first started operating, most of its customers were looking for ways to reduce the amount of fuel they used when flying in an effort to lower their emissions. Now, the Sweden-based company's data is increasingly being sought by military actors, who want to see when the GPS signals of airplanes or drones have been jammed in an effort to hide the aircraft. 'That is a major use case if you fly into this area you need to know this is happening so you can combat this," said Robin Wingårdh, co-founder of Wingbits. 'Different companies use the same solutions for different things." Tom Middendorp, a general serving in the Dutch Army and a former chief of defense with the country's government, said he had seen first hand during tours of Afghanistan how the effects of climate change could lead to tension and conflict. 'It took a while before we found out it was all about water scarcity. The farmers needed water and couldn't agree on how to divide the little that was there. So that gave further tensions and the Taliban jumped into that," Middendorp said. Middendorp added that as climate change takes hold, conflict on the ground is likely to worsen. 'Looking at defense more strategically, if it already affects our security environments at this moment, that will only further increase looking at the future of how climate is changing," he said. Swedish green steel startup Stegra, formerly H2 Green Steel, said it originally positioned itself as a low-carbon source of the metal. But, increasingly, demand for its steel is coming from customers concerned about security of supply. 'We have a unique value proposition as well as a secure supply [of steel]," Stegra CEO Henrik Henriksson said. 'Even if someone cuts off the supply chain of gas or coal or shipping routes are damaged, the only thing we need is a plug point to the grid, then we can go." Henriksson added that the environment was now a mid- to long-term priority. 'In the short term the name of the game is more security for society," he said. General Middendorp said that linking the two sectors could be a way to bridge the climate finance gap also. 'If you connect energy security, resource security, economics, with the security itself, then it becomes a more comprehensive topic," he said. 'If you look at climate only from a climate perspective, you will lose ground." Write to Yusuf Khan at
