CLICK TO HEAR JACK HALL’S INTERVIEW WITH AUDREY ROBERTSON
The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Critical Minerals and Energy Innovation (CMEI) today awarded $117 million to 56 projects that will strengthen the competitiveness of key American industries through energy and cost-saving innovations.
One of the projects will send more than $1 million to the Upper Peninsula, where Michigan Tech University will try to use waste to make usable iron ore.
The selected projects will accelerate the development and adoption of technologies across critical industrial sectors. These investments will help American manufacturers produce essential commodities more efficiently and cost-effectively while strengthening the domestic supply chains that underpin the nation’s economic security. The selections advance President Trump’s agenda to restore American industrial strength.
“DOE is committed to funding innovation that positions American industry at the forefront of the global marketplace,” said Assistant Secretary of Energy Audrey Robertson, who visited Michigan Tech’s campus in Houghton this week and spoke with RRN News in a phone interview. “These projects will deliver affordable, market-ready solutions that strengthen America’s energy security and support job creation and economic growth nationwide.”
Advances in industrial technologies can deliver lasting benefits by lowering production costs, improving energy productivity, and bringing industrial innovation back to the United States. Selected projects will also help reduce the need for costly wastewater-treatment processes and high-temperature heating across a range of manufacturing processes.
Project highlights include one for the Upper Peninsula.
Project Title: Production of Improved DRI Feed from Diverse Iron Ore Sources by Reductive Bioleaching
Project Lead: Michigan Technological University
City/State: Hougton, MI
Federal Funding: $1,035,309
Project Description: Michigan Technological University will develop technology to convert low-cost, low-grade iron ore waste into valuable iron-using bioleaching, a process that uses microorganisms to concentrate and purify iron from dilute sources. The team will engineer microorganisms in constructed wetlands under controlled conditions. This project will work to enhance the natural ability of the microorganisms to leach iron from the low-grade ore, creating a valuable extraction loop for the creation of usable iron for ironmaking.
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