The most eye-popping rare earth claim in Wyoming, though, comes from Ramaco Resources.

In May, the Lexington, Kentucky-based company announced that chemical analysis of coring samples at its Brook coal mine outside Sheridan indicated a potential for more than half a million tons of rare earth oxides. Then in August, the company doubled its “exploration target” estimate to 1.2 million tons — a potential commercial play worth some $37 billion, according to the company.

Since the announcement, Ramaco CEO Randall Atkins has made the rounds on television shows and in business journals describing the potential at its Brook coal mine as a “10-year overnight sensation” that could, over several years, finally give the U.S. a competitive foothold in the global rare earth element market that China dominates.

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“Coal might be a solution to a number of problems including, obviously, the rare earth situation in the United States,” Atkins told CNBC in November.

There are skeptics and differing opinions, however, regarding the commercial viability of producing and processing rare earth elements from the coal and clays at Ramaco’s Brook mine, which is regarded as an “unconventional” rare earth element target.

Rare earth elements occupy a special 17 spots on the periodic chart. Not only are they rare — at least in concentrated deposits — they’re highly valuable. They’re vital components for high-tech uses — military lasers, industrial magnets and batteries, for example — and a lot of technology that’s commonplace in everyday lives, like televisions, cell phones and computer screens.

From Oil City News

These metallic, modern technology building blocks are in increasing demand, not only to meet needs in daily life, but for national security and the growing renewable energy sector, according to the Department of Energy.

Currently, China dominates the rare earth element market in both production and processing. In response, the Biden administration has directed the Department of Defense to support a $35 million effort to deploy rare earth processing for the nation’s only active rare earth mine at Mountain Pass, California, and another $700 million to launch a national processing chain for rare earth magnetics.

The Biden administration also wants to entice exploration of unconventional rare earth sources — specifically, coal. The bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act includes more than $17 million to support efforts to extract these elements from coal and coal byproducts such as coal ash. Though Wyoming was not among the three states initially targeted in the effort, state leaders say Wyoming — the nation’s largest coal producer — is primed to play a key role in the federal initiative.

Despite Wyoming’s proven and potential rare earth deposits, and federal and state interest in examining coal’s potential, there’s a lot more to consider at the onset. Specifically, the cost of permitting and building a mining operation from scratch. That’s where Ramaco intends to exploit its advantage at the Brook coal mine, which it purchased in 2011, despite its vastly lower concentrations of rare earth elements compared to the hard-rock targets at Bear Lodge, the Laramie Range and Bighorn Mountains.

So Bighorn mountains.. .right in the thick of things for these fires?

At Bear Lodge, geologists have identified 16.3 million tons of host rock with an average concentration of 30,500 ppm, or 3.05% per ton, according to Rare Element Resources and the State Geological Survey. There are another estimated 32 million tons of host rock with a concentration of 2.58%. Those are “very good” concentrations that should prove commercially viable, said geologist Patty Webber of the Geological Survey.

While lower than the commercially viable 1,000 ppm for hard-rock sources, 307 ppm is still considered marginally economic for a clay resource, because it’s likely cheaper to process the rare earth elements from clays, according to the Geological Survey. Ramaco’s advantage is in having an existing permit to mine coal and existing industrial infrastructure to earn revenue by co-producing coal and rare earth deposits.

There are also permitting challenges specific to mining and processing rare earth elements. Because they contain radioactive byproducts — uranium and thorium — an operator typically must obtain a permit from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

Well, that's helpful right?

The Wyoming Legislature, however, in 2022 passed a law allowing the Department of Environmental Quality to apply for primacy over federal permitting — a move that could speed up and lower the cost of permitting.