Could Enhanced Mineral Recovery Solve America’s Critical Minerals Bottleneck?

For decades, CO₂ has helped America produce reliable energy here at home, reducing reliance on foreign resources and transforming the United States into a global energy leader. 

You’ve probably heard of enhanced oil recovery, or “E-O-R”. E-O-R is a method used to produce more oil from mature reservoirs. The primary approach for E-O-R is injecting carbon dioxide, also known as CO₂, underground to unlock oil that would otherwise be left behind.

But what if CO₂ could also help us recover something else we need: critical minerals?

Critical minerals are essential to America’s economic, energy and national security. They are used in everything from energy infrastructure and data centers to advanced manufacturing and military technologies.

And demand for minerals is growing fast. By 2040, global demand for cobalt and rare earths could grow by 50 to 60 percent, graphite and nickel demand could double, and lithium demand could more than quadruple. At the same time, many of the world’s highest-grade mineral deposits are being depleted, increasing the need for new sources of supply.

Today, critical mineral supply chains are heavily concentrated overseas. China is the top producer of 20 critical minerals and commands a 70 percent market share of global refining capacity for strategic minerals that underpin modern energy technologies. 

That means finding new ways to reshore critical mineral supply chains is essential to America’s resource independence and global competitiveness.

Luckily, American innovators are up to the task. 

U.S. national labs, universities and private companies are developing new ways to use C-O-2 to recover critical minerals from unconventional domestic resources, including low-grade ores, industrial wastes, and other underutilized mineral bearing assets. These technologies are known as Enhanced Mineral Recovery, or “E-M-R”.

E-M-R can work in a few different ways; it can happen either below ground, “in-situ” (IN SEE-CHEW), or above ground, “ex-situ” (EX SEE-CHEW). 

For below-ground methods, CO₂ rich fluid is injected below the surface. The CO₂ reacts with the rock, freeing the minerals and bringing them above ground. Sub-surface E-M-R could help unlock underground resources that are currently stranded, inaccessible or too low in concentration to economically recover.

Above-ground E-M-R uses CO₂ to recover minerals from mined rocks or materials above the surface, like mine tailings, red mud or steel slag. These materials are often treated as waste, but actually still contain valuable minerals. In above-ground processes, a CO₂-based fluid reacts with the material, dissolves the targeted minerals and allows them to be separated and recovered while converting the CO₂ into a solid rock.

Enhanced Mineral Recovery can do for critical minerals what fracking and the U.S. Shale Revolution have done for oil and gas: unlock previously inaccessible resources and establish resource independence for the United States by strengthening critical mineral supply chains.

Think of it this way: The resources are here in America, the technologies are ready, and now we must unlock E-M-R at scale. 

Federal programs like the Department of Energy’s ARPA-E MINER program are supporting research into CO₂-based mineral recovery methods. Across the private sector, American companies are also advancing early-stage technologies that would expand access to critical minerals at home. One example is Travertine (TRA-VER-TEEN) Technologies out of Colorado, which is using CO₂ to turn industrial byproducts into valuable industrial materials.

Bringing these innovations to commercial scale will require continued federal support for research, development and demonstration. Expanded deployment of carbon capture and removal technologies could provide CO₂ at scale, while additional infrastructure, such as CO₂ pipelines, would enable that CO₂ to be transported to where it can be put to productive use.

Investment in American innovation can leverage CO₂ to recover more oil for energy production, extract critical minerals and materials needed for advanced manufacturing and defense, strengthen domestic supply chains and reduce reliance on foreign countries. CO₂ is a valuable resource, and with Enhanced Mineral Recovery, American innovators are showing how today’s untapped and overlooked resources can become tomorrow’s energy, manufacturing and national security strengths.