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(12) stories found containing 'south dakota mines'


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  • Aerial view of a college campus near South Dakota’s Black Hills and Badlands.

    South Dakota Mines adds critical minors

    Shane Lasley, Metal Tech News|Updated Jul 23, 2024

    Mining school adds a two-part program to prepare students to tackle domestic critical mineral challenges and help fill the nation's massive mining workforce shortage. Looking to help bolster the domestic production of minerals and metals essential to clean energy, high-tech, and everyday living, South Dakota Mines is offering two new minors that will prepare students to tackle critical mineral challenges. "We have a need in the United States for these materials. If it can't...

  • African woman mine worker wearing a hard hat smiles as she takes a rest.

    Solving the mining industry's PR problem

    K. Warner, For Metal Tech News|Updated Sep 19, 2023

    A mining company can never fully integrate a culture of sustainability motivated by compliance alone –satisfying laws, norms, and investors rather than taking risks and creating lasting, generational value. This message, delivered by Professor David Wheeler during the 2018 Prospectors & Developers Association of Canada Convention, continues to resonate with an industry that is now being championed as a key enabler of a clean energy future. To be seen in a better light, the m...

  • Blue-colored lithium brine fills square holes cut into white salt flats.

    The 'white gold' rush for lithium

    K. Warner, For Data Mine North|Updated Sep 11, 2023

    Lithium is an indispensable element in the clean energy transition for several key reasons; like all alkaline metals on the periodic table, it has one more electron than it strictly needs, and this tendency to shed electrons makes it well-suited for passing them back and forth between cathode and anode, charging and discharging thousands of times without degradation. Pure lithium does not occur in nature, but traces are found throughout nearly all igneous rocks, mineral...

  • Young female worker with hard hat and PPE in a warehouse setting.

    U.S. critical minerals workforce needed

    K. Warner, For Metal Tech News|Updated Aug 22, 2023

    Alongside critical minerals demand, there's another shortage in the U.S. that has the mining industry just as worried – fresh faces in the labor pool. The global economy is in the midst of a mineral-intensive green energy transition that involves more electric vehicles powered by better batteries, and 2030 is the first self-imposed deadline in many countries for phasing out internal combustion engines. At the start of the new decade, more than half the current mining i...

  • A mining haul truck used to carry thousands of tons a day.

    Mines researcher champions clean mining

    A.J. Roan, Metal Tech News|Updated Aug 9, 2023
    1

    Seeking ways to mitigate and reduce carbon emissions, a doctoral postgraduate of mining engineering and management from South Dakota School of Mines and Technology has taken it upon herself to explore a next-generation clean energy strategy at what may seem to many as an unlikely place – a Wyoming coal mine. Recently completing her doctorate at South Dakota Mines, Amy McBrayer held a background in natural resources and management before pursuing the much-esteemed degree. McBra...

  • Graphic of potential geothermal uses for power generation, heating, and cooling.

    Geothermal promises increased potential

    K. Warner, For Metal Tech News|Updated Mar 13, 2023

    Geothermal power has generally represented region-specific and niche clean energy in the public consciousness for over a century. Today, thanks to a profusion of social outreach and government incentives, investors and leaders across both public and private sectors are exploring lesser-known applications and exciting advancements in the field. Just a few feet below the surface, the earth maintains a near-constant temperature that belies the seasonal extremes of aboveground...

  • Video intro to NASA's Break the Ice Lunar Challenge.

    NASA's Break the Ice Challenge semi-finals

    A.J. Roan, Metal Tech Newsw|Updated Dec 20, 2022

    With 2022 coming to a close, NASA has announced the 15 teams moving forward to the semi-finals in the $3.5 million Break the Ice Lunar Challenge, an ongoing competition that puts research groups, robotics teams, and private companies in head-to-head trials to design future-tech rovers to harvest the most valuable commodity of all in outer space, water. "We're putting humanity back on the Moon with the Artemis missions, and this is a team effort on a global scale," said Amy...

  • Redwire Space NASA Break the Ice Challenge winner rover space mining Moon

    NASA Break the Ice Challenge winners

    A.J. Roan, Metal Tech News|Updated Jul 12, 2022

    The National Aeronautics and Space Administration Aug. 18 announced the winners of its Break the Ice Lunar Challenge, which is incentivizing new approaches for excavating resources on the Moon and beyond. As NASA prepares to go to the Moon with the Artemis program, in-situ resource utilization is of paramount importance, as current methods of rocketing Earth resources into space are too costly. As one of the barest of commodities for human survival, water is the goal for 13...

  • coal mines United States repurposed critical minerals DOE Jennifer Granholm

    From coal basins to critical mineral mines

    Shane Lasley, Metal Tech News|Updated Jul 10, 2022

    Looking to transform old coal mining regions into new domestic sources for rare earths and critical minerals vital to electric vehicles, renewable energy, and other technologies, the U.S. Department of Energy has awarded $19 million for 13 projects in traditionally fossil fuel-producing communities from Appalachia to Alaska. "The very same fossil fuel communities that have powered our nation for decades can be at the forefront of the clean energy economy by producing the...

  • South Dakota School of Mines and Technology Kristi Noem David Johnson

    $19M for new SD School of Mines building

    A.J. Roan, Metal Tech News|Updated Jul 10, 2022

    South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem recently approved $19 million in funding toward the construction of a new state-of-the-art Mineral Industries Building for the South Dakota School of Mines. "Thanks to state leaders, we have an exciting opportunity in this new facility to produce a large return on investment for both the public and private sector," said South Dakota Mines President Jim Rankin. "This facility will yield new research and spin-off companies alongside a new crop...

  • South Dakota mining engineering school CAT Labs MineStar

    Cat sponsors SD mining school initiatives

    A.J. Roan, Metal Tech News|Updated Jul 10, 2022

    Caterpillar Inc. is sponsoring a partnership with South Dakota School of Mines & Technology to explore new technologies aimed at promoting a new paradigm of environmentally sound mining. Easily a household name, CAT has opted to invest in the historic South Dakota Mines to explore leading technologies such as autonomous robotic mining, cutting edge software used in management of mining and construction operations, and new equipment that can increase efficiency and safety. The...

  • Missouri University of Science and Technology online workshop critical minerals

    Missouri S&T hosts critical minerals event

    Shane Lasley, Metal Tech News|Updated Jul 27, 2021

    What are critical minerals, where do we find them, and why are they considered critical? These are among the questions that will be addressed by experts during a two-day virtual workshop hosted by Missouri University of Science and Technology on August 2-3. This "Resilient Supply of Critical Minerals" workshop will provide insight and answers to issues surrounding materials such as cobalt for lithium-ion batteries in electric vehicles, germanium for transistors, tellurium for...