MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — A Trump administration official urged WVU students to choose a career in rare earth minerals during her visit to campus Tuesday.
U.S. Department of Energy Assistant Secretary Audrey Robertson was promoting the Providing Opportunities for Specialized Education in Critical Technologies (PROSPECT) program. Robertson said the country faces major workforce shortages across the entire critical minerals and materials supply chain.
During an appearance on MetroNews “Talkline” Tuesday, Robertson said since 2015 enrollment in college-level mining programs has dropped 45 percent, while federal officials estimate the need for more than 6,000 mining engineers over the next 10 years. PROSPECT has $100 million in incentives to attract to careers that will build the next-generation workforce to revitalize American mining.
“Designed and intended to drastically and quickly increase the number of graduates in the critical mineral mining, processing, and supply chain degree areas,” Robertson said.
The program presents clear career paths for processing, recovery, recycling, and supply chain management that are well-paying professions. The essential minerals power everything from your phone, computer, and television to the most sophisticated military applications.
“We’re trying to lay out those career pathways, and we’re trying to incentivize students and parents to give this opportunity to be in this supply chain sector a shot,” Robertson said. “This is an AI-prof and AI-enabled job.”
For decades, mining programs have gone away, and the domestic production has plummeted. Contraction in the industry began in the 1990s with the closure of the Mountain Pass Mine in California due to environmental reasons, Robertson said.
WVU will be one of only 14 institutions in the country that will be included in the PROSPECT program.
“We’ve spent 30 years not educating students, not having career pathways, and really not having an industry that involves mining, processing, metallurgy and smelting,” Robertson said. “We have sent that all overseas.”
From the mid-1960s to the 1990s, the Mountain Pass Mine and others produced 15,000 metric tons of rare earth minerals, about three times the amount produced by the rest of the world. Robertson said this program will rebuild the industry and its production capacity over time.
“Critical minerals are the missing ingredient, yet the essential component to our national security, economic security, and our energy security,” Robertson said. “Without the ability to produce energy, we do not have an energy-secure nation.”
The Mountain Pass Mine continues limited production of some rare earth minerals, and the other source is a site in southeast Georgia where rare earth minerals are extracted as a byproduct of heavy mineral sand mining. The program is intended to drastically increase the number of mining professionals across the country.
“It’s not the thing you see in the headlines, and it’s not what you see in the local store, so it’s hard for folks to get their arms around the fact of how desperately in the United States we need them,” Robertson said. “And how we spent 30 years sending them overseas to nations who are our adversaries.”