How a former coal community is being revitalized thanks to a Department of Energy investment.
by Josephine Patterson
In October 2024, the Biden-Harris administration announced $428 million in grant funding for 14 projects to accelerate domestic clean energy manufacturing in former coal communities across the United States.
The projects, led by small- and medium-businesses in communities with decommissioned coal facilities, were selected by the Department of Energy’s Office of Manufacturing and Energy Supply Chains (MESC) to address critical energy supply chain vulnerabilities.
“By leveraging the know-how and skillset of the former coal workforce, we are strengthening our national security while helping advance forward-facing technologies and revitalize communities across the nation,” said former U.S. Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm.
One of the projects that was awarded funding was the Terra CO2 Technology production facility in Magna, Utah, which was home to a major coal-fired power plant that provided electricity to Rio Tinto’s Kennecott complex until 2019. The miner now powers the copper operation by renewable energy.
MESC will provide up to $56.2 million to establish the Terra CO2 facility that will produce its OPUS Supplementary Cementitious Material (SCM), a low-emission and cost-effective replacement for traditional ordinary portland cement. The project will use local, above-ground mine tailings from Kennecott as feedstock to produce 240,000 tons per year of SCM, according to the DOE.
The Terra CO2 project is set to create 61 new jobs with wages and benefits above the 75th percentile compared to national wages, noted the federal agency, and will train and upskill up to 144 people from underrepresented populations.
Terra CO2 mining solutions
In 2018, Golden, Colo.-based Terra CO2 Technology invented a low-CO2 process of stabilizing acid-generating (or potentially acid-generating) mine tailings by converting mine waste to OPUS cement reagents that are capable of physically and chemically stabilizing mine tailings.
Mines can leverage OPUS technology:
- To convert mine tailings into a supplementary cementitious material (SCM) for use in cemented backfill, stabilizing mine tailings impoundments, and structural cementing applications in active mines.
- During reclamation and remediation activities to convert unusable and potentially environmentally harmful mine tailings into usable and commercially viable SCMs.