Nearly $500 million granted by US government to clean energy projects on mine land
“President Biden believes that the communities that have powered our nation for the past 100 years should power our nation for the next 100 years,” Jennifer M. Granholm, the US Secretary of Energy, said in a statement.
“Thanks to the President’s Investing in America agenda, DOE is helping deploy clean energy solutions on current and former mine land across the country—supporting jobs and economic development in the areas hit hardest by our evolving energy landscape.”
Three projects are on former Appalachian coal mines, thus supporting economic revitalization and workforce development on land that is no longer viable for industrial purposes. In the West, two projects seek to displace fossil-fuel use by ramping up net-zero mining operations and providing the critical materials needed for a clean domestic energy supply chain. These projects are also expected to create more than 3,000 construction and operations jobs.
From geothermal to PV
In Graham and Greenlee Counties, Arizona, a project led by Freeport seeks to deploy direct-use, geothermal, clean heat combined with a battery energy storage system at two active copper mines, helping decrease the mines’ reliance on onsite thermal backup generators while supporting the annual extraction of 25 million pounds of copper.
In Bell