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DOE's Office of Fossil Energy and Carbon Management (FECM), administered through the National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL), issued two NOFOs on 14 November 2025 totaling USD 355 million:
1. Mines & Metals Capacity Expansion — Piloting By-Product Critical Minerals and Materials Recovery at Domestic Industrial Facilities (up to USD 275 million). Funds the design, construction, and operation of pilot-scale facilities that recover critical materials as by-products of coal-based feedstocks and of industrial/mining wastes generated across US industry more broadly — targeting materials that are currently discarded as tailings or waste streams rather than recovered. 2. Mine of the Future — Proving Ground Initiative (up to USD 80 million). Funds field-scale test sites where novel mining technologies — extraction, in-situ methods, beneficiation — can be demonstrated under real-world conditions before commercial deployment, plus associated workforce training for miners and engineers.
Both NOFOs required a 15 December 2025 application deadline. No specific awardees or company names were disclosed at announcement; the funding is open to "all US industry sectors" and framed around revitalizing fossil-energy-dependent communities alongside the critical-minerals objective.
industrial policy (DPA Title III awards, DOE loan guarantees, MP Materials/DoD equity stakes) that responds to China's rare-earth and gallium/germanium export-control escalations — this NOFO pair is smaller-scale and R&D/pilot-stage rather than production-scale financing.
waste) is a distinct policy lever from primary-mine permitting reform — it targets materials already extracted but currently discarded, which can shorten the path to first output relative to new mine permitting timelines.
critical-minerals mining technology signals DOE using FECM's existing coal-region institutional base as delivery infrastructure for the minerals-security agenda.
the 15 December 2025 application deadline?
processes achieve relative to primary mining — does this become a scalable share of US critical-minerals supply or remain a marginal contributor?
proving-ground results are in, similar to the LPO's progression from conditional commitments to financial close seen elsewhere in FY2025-26?