How the Department of Energy pays companies to recover critical minerals from industrial waste
On August 18, 2026, the Department of Energy Office of Critical Minerals and Energy Innovation selected 9 companies for a total of 162 million dollars in potential funding, an amount that could still change before contracts are signed. The funding pays companies to pull critical minerals, the metals used in batteries, magnets and defense equipment that the United States mostly imports today, out of industrial waste already sitting at operating industrial sites, feedstocks, mine tailings and existing concentrates, instead of digging a new mine. Mine tailings are the leftover rock and residue a mine discards after taking out the ore it wanted the first time, and this round pays companies to take a second cut of that same industrial waste. The announcement names scandium, copper, antimony and rare earth elements as the minerals this round targets.
This site counted the city and state listed for each of the 9 selected companies in the announcement, since that count was not published on its own. 3 projects sit in Pennsylvania, Anactisis Inc. in Pittsburgh, Thompson Creek Metals Company USA in Langeloth and Alcoa USA Corp. in Pittsburgh. 2 sit in New Jersey, Still Bright Inc. in Newark and Trigg Minerals in Jersey City. 1 each sits in Utah, Massachusetts, Wyoming and Alaska.
This site counted each project location from the list of 9 companies in the announcement. The department did not publish this count on its own.
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| Pennsylvania | 3 |
| New Jersey | 2 |
| Utah | 1 |
| Massachusetts | 1 |
| Wyoming | 1 |
| Alaska | 1 |
Assistant Secretary of Energy Audrey Robertson said the approach puts existing facilities to work rather than waiting for new ones to be built.
Leveraging existing bench-scale and pilot-scale facilities is a vital opportunity to produce critical materials necessary for our energy, defense, and economic security.
Audrey Robertson, Assistant Secretary of Energy. Source 1.
The critical minerals program moved from 75 million dollars to 162 million dollars in 48 days
This is not the first round the office has run this way. On July 1, 2026, the same office selected 5 organizations for 75 million dollars to recover critical minerals from coal based industrial sources. Both rounds trace back to a notice issued on August 13, 2025, offering nearly 1 billion dollars in funding opportunities to secure the critical minerals and materials supply chain in the United States, a ceiling on what was opened for proposals, not money already awarded. The move from the July round to the August round took 48 days and more than doubled the amount selected.
The 75 million dollar figure is from source 2, the July 1, 2026 announcement. The 162 million dollar figure is from source 1, the August 18, 2026 announcement. The 2 rounds are 48 days apart, counted by this site from the 2 announcement dates.
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| July 2026 round | 75 |
| August 2026 round | 162 |
A selection is not the same as a signed contract. The office states plainly that the amounts remain subject to change until award negotiations finish with each company, and it has not disclosed how much of the 162 million dollars would go to any single project.
In a separate account of the same announcement, Robertson said the goal is to let private companies reach the same minerals through new methods.
The focus of this funding opportunity was to use government dollars to enable the private sector to extract those critical minerals in new and innovative ways.
Audrey Robertson, Assistant Secretary of Energy. Source 4.