[House Hearing, 116 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
RESEARCH AND INNOVATION TO ADDRESS
THE CRITICAL MATERIALS CHALLENGE
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HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON ENERGY
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE,
AND TECHNOLOGY
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED SIXTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
December 10, 2019
__________
Serial No. 116-61
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Printed for the use of the Committee on Science, Space, and Technology
[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Available via the World Wide Web: http://science.house.gov
__________
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
38-519 PDF WASHINGTON : 2020
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COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE, AND TECHNOLOGY
HON. EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas, Chairwoman
ZOE LOFGREN, California FRANK D. LUCAS, Oklahoma,
DANIEL LIPINSKI, Illinois Ranking Member
SUZANNE BONAMICI, Oregon MO BROOKS, Alabama
AMI BERA, California, BILL POSEY, Florida
Vice Chair RANDY WEBER, Texas
CONOR LAMB, Pennsylvania BRIAN BABIN, Texas
LIZZIE FLETCHER, Texas ANDY BIGGS, Arizona
HALEY STEVENS, Michigan ROGER MARSHALL, Kansas
KENDRA HORN, Oklahoma RALPH NORMAN, South Carolina
MIKIE SHERRILL, New Jersey MICHAEL CLOUD, Texas
BRAD SHERMAN, California TROY BALDERSON, Ohio
STEVE COHEN, Tennessee PETE OLSON, Texas
JERRY McNERNEY, California ANTHONY GONZALEZ, Ohio
ED PERLMUTTER, Colorado MICHAEL WALTZ, Florida
PAUL TONKO, New York JIM BAIRD, Indiana
BILL FOSTER, Illinois JAIME HERRERA BEUTLER, Washington
DON BEYER, Virginia FRANCIS ROONEY, Florida
CHARLIE CRIST, Florida GREGORY F. MURPHY, North Carolina
SEAN CASTEN, Illinois
BEN McADAMS, Utah
JENNIFER WEXTON, Virginia
VACANCY
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Subcommittee on Energy
HON. CONOR LAMB, Pennsylvania, Chairman
DANIEL LIPINKSI, Illinois RANDY WEBER, Texas, Ranking Member
LIZZIE FLETCHER, Texas ANDY BIGGS, Arizona
HALEY STEVENS, Michigan RALPH NORMAN, South Carolina
KENDRA HORN, Oklahoma MICHAEL CLOUD, Texas
JERRY McNERNEY, California JIM BAIRD, Indiana
BILL FOSTER, Illinois
SEAN CASTEN, Illinois
C O N T E N T S
December 10, 2019
Page
Hearing Charter.................................................. 2
Opening Statements
Statement by Representative Conor Lamb, Chairman, Subcommittee on
Energy, Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, U.S. House
of Representatives............................................. 7
Written Statement............................................ 8
Statement by Representative Randy Weber, Ranking Member,
Subcommittee on Energy, Committee on Science, Space, and
Technology, U.S. House of Representatives...................... 8
Written Statement............................................ 10
Written statement by Representative Eddie Bernice Johnson,
Chairwoman, Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, U.S.
House of Representatives....................................... 10
Witnesses:
Dr. Adam Schwartz, Director, Ames Laboratory
Oral Statement............................................... 12
Written Statement............................................ 14
Dr. Sophia Hayes, Professor, Department of Chemistry, Washington
University in St. Louis
Oral Statement............................................... 25
Written Statement............................................ 27
Mr. David Weiss, Vice President, Engineering and Research and
Development, Eck Industries, Inc.
Oral Statement............................................... 33
Written Statement............................................ 35
Dr. Carol Handwerker, Reinhardt Schuhmann, Jr. Professor,
Materials Engineering & Environmental and Ecological
Engineering, Purdue University
Oral Statement............................................... 40
Written Statement............................................ 42
Discussion....................................................... 48
Appendix: Additional Material for the Record
Letter submitted by Representative Haley Stevens, Subcommittee on
Energy, Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, U.S. House
of Representatives............................................. 72
RESEARCH AND INNOVATION TO ADDRESS
THE CRITICAL MATERIALS CHALLENGE
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TUESDAY, DECEMBER 10, 2019
House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on Energy,
Committee on Science, Space, and Technology,
Washington, D.C.
The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:06 a.m., in
room 2318 of the Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Conor Lamb
[Chairman of the Subcommittee] presiding.
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chairman Lamb. The hearing will come to order. Without
objection, the Chair is authorized to declare recess at any
time.
Good morning. Welcome to today's hearing entitled
``Research and Innovation to Address the Critical Materials
Challenge.'' I know that we are the primary focus of everyone
on Capitol Hill today of all days, and I appreciate you all for
joining us.
Today, we will be holding a hearing on the importance of
rare or difficult-to-obtain materials, often called critical
materials, for a wide array of energy, defense, and research
applications. We'll examine a draft bill by my colleague Mr.
Swalwell that will support critical materials research to
improve their recycling and their ability to be replaced with
more commonly available materials.
Many of the energy technologies that we're all used to that
enable our modern life, including clean energy technologies,
are underpinned by a host of these critical materials that are
found in very limited quantities and in very few countries.
This includes important technologies like electrical vehicles,
solar panels, wind turbines, and other technologies used by our
military and our national infrastructure. So if we continue the
success of these technologies, we have to have an affordable
rare-earth supply chain of these critical materials.
Unfortunately, the U.S. now relies on the importation of
100 percent of 14 of these materials and importing a partial
supply of many more. The supply chain and technology
application for each material is different, but it is not wise
for us to rely on countries that may be adversarial to us.
To address this issue, DOE (Department of Energy) and the
Critical Materials Institute are working hard to develop new
sources of these materials. Experts at the National Energy
Technology Laboratory (NETL), including their great team
outside of Pittsburgh, are looking into ways to extract rare-
earth elements out of coal and coal byproducts. And on my
several visits there, they are always proud to show off a
beaker of graphite solution extracted from coal that is worth
about $20,000, just about this much of it. So it is possible to
do. We just have to find a way to make it more economically
viable. But this would provide a new resource for places like
western Pennsylvania and beyond.
Behind the scenes of the research, the scientific
community's work is the need for helium, which is sometimes
considered a critical material and one that we do produce here
in the United States. Due to its unique chemical properties,
helium is essential for maintaining equipment at hundreds of
labs across the country, and it's an important input into
industrial processes like rocket propulsion.
Recent helium price increases have hampered our labs' work
by postponing research, shifting research priorities, and at
times harming equipment, all of which strain labs' budgets and
slows innovation. We have to ensure that our researchers have
access to the helium they need, and Federal support can play an
important role here.
As with other critical materials, R&D (research and
development) can play a significant role in improving our
helium use efficiency, finding new sources, and developing
substitutes where possible. We've heard many times on this
Committee that our economic competitiveness is driven by our
support for innovation, which makes this one of our top
priorities. We are not guaranteed the materials to continue to
research, build, and deploy the next generation of clean energy
just because we have the knowledge to develop them.
Accordingly, we have to strengthen our supply chain and make
sure that we can safeguard our energy future, our national
security, and our economic growth. That's why I'm excited to
hear more about this topic, and I thank our panel of witnesses
for being here today.
[The prepared statement of Chairman Lamb follows:]
Good morning and thank you to this distinguished panel of
witnesses for joining us today. Today we'll be holding a
hearing on the importance of rare or difficult-to-obtain
materials, often called critical materials, for a wide range of
energy, defense, and research applications. This hearing will
also examine a draft bill introduced by my colleague, Mr.
Swalwell, that would support critical materials research to
improve their recycling and their ability to be replaced with
more commonly available materials, as well as establish more
sustainable sources of these materials.
Many of the energy technologies that enable our modern
energy world, including clean energy technologies, are
underpinned by a host of critical materials that are found in
limited quantities and few countries. This includes important
technologies like electric vehicles, solar panels, wind
turbines, and other technologies utilized by our military and
our broader national infrastructure. So if we are to continue
the success of these and future technologies, we must ensure an
affordable, reliable supply chain of critical materials.
Unfortunately, due to the distribution of the supply chains for
these materials, the U.S. relies on the importation of 100% of
14 materials, and the partial import of many more. While the
supply chain and technology application for each material is
different, it is not wise for us to rely on countries with
adversarial, unstable, or unjust governments to provide
materials critical to our economy, national security, and clean
energy future.
To address this important issue, DOE and the Critical
Materials Institute are working hard to develop new sources of
these materials and improve their reuse and recycling. In fact,
our experts at the National Energy Technology Laboratory,
including their great team in Pittsburgh, are looking into ways
to extract rare earth elements out of coal and coal by-
products. Not only is this program exploring ways to secure
much needed rare earth elements, it could provide a valuable
new economic resource for the many people in western
Pennsylvania.
Behind the scenes of energy research and the scientific
community's work more broadly is the need for helium, which is
sometimes considered a critical material in its own right. Due
to its unique chemical properties, helium is essential for
maintaining equipment at hundreds of labs across the country,
like those at Carnegie Mellon, and is an important input to
industrial processes like rocket propulsion. Recent helium
price increases have hampered our labs' work by postponing
research, shifting research priorities, and at times harming
equipment, all of which strain labs' budgets and slows
innovation. We must ensure our researchers have access to the
helium they need, and federal support can play an important
role in that process. Like with other critical materials, R&D
can play a significant role in improving our helium-use
efficiency, finding new sources, and developing substitutes
where possible. As we've heard many times on this Committee,
U.S. economic competitiveness is driven by our support for
innovation, so it should be a top priority for us to ensure
reliable, affordable helium for our research community.
We aren't guaranteed the materials to continue to research,
build, and deploy the next generation of clean energy and other
technologies just because we have the knowledge to develop
them. Accordingly, we need to bolster and ensure these supply
chains to safeguard our energy future, our national security,
and our economic growth. That is why I am excited to hear more
about how we can harness U.S. ingenuity and federally supported
research to better address these issues. I thank our panel of
witnesses again for being here today and I look forward to
their input and feedback on these important topics and the
proposed legislation.
Chairman Lamb. With that, I will turn to the Ranking
Member, Mr. Weber, for an opening statement.
Mr. Weber. Thank you, Chairman Lamb, for holding today's
Subcommittee hearing. I'm looking forward to hearing from our
witnesses about the energy technologies and applications being
developed through critical materials research.
Critical materials, as you already pointed out, play an
important role in supporting the technology that will
ultimately help us change the United States' energy
consumption. Whether it's lithium used in advanced batteries or
helium--yes, helium is more than just party balloons in case
you were wondering--in rocket propulsion systems, our resources
are limited in quantity and can be challenging to develop.
And while demand is only increasing for these critical
materials, supply can also be and is often restricted by
geopolitical and market forces. As it currently stands,
Australia, Chile, China, and Argentina produce 97 percent of
the world's lithium supply, a mineral that is absolutely
essential for battery technology and will be key for the
expansion of electric vehicles.
So imagine if our adversaries controlled a critical
material used in building the next advanced military weapon. If
they were to slow down that supply or cut it off altogether, we
would be at a dangerous disadvantage. Energy is just as
important, and we cannot allow the advancement of technology to
be limited by political or geographic forces. In order to
understand our economic risk, it's vital that we assess our
resources here in the United States and better understand
exactly what elements and materials are vulnerable to global
supply disruptions, no matter what the source.
So that is one of the reasons President Trump issued
Executive Order 3817, and the Department of Interior took the
first step by leading an interagency coordination to publish a
list of 35 critical minerals to the American economy. But
understanding our natural resources is only part of the story.
Because many critical materials are very difficult to produce,
it is absolutely essential that we maximize our ability to not
only use and but to reuse these materials.
By extending the commercial lifecycle of these materials
and investing in research to improve the efficiency of
recycling and reuse, we can maximize our resources. Research
can also allow us to explore opportunities to extract critical
materials from new sources that were once considered, quite
frankly, only waste products. We actually talked a little bit
about that.
That is why DOE's National Energy Technology Laboratory, in
coordination with the Critical Materials Institute or CMI, is
currently conducting research on extracting materials from coal
and coal byproducts. This research can help improve the
economics of energy supply and production and reduce those very
environmental impacts we all want to reduce. And at Ames Lab,
which hosts CMI, researchers are working to improve reuse and
recycling, and to expand our supply by synthesizing new
materials or developing substitutes. By coordinating basic
research in materials science and chemistry with early stage
applied research in manufacturing, the CMI structure helps us
to get the best bang for our buck and takes a holistic approach
to this challenge. Our national security and our economic
growth cannot be left at the mercy of a global supply chain. It
just cannot happen.
I believe the Department of Energy has the capability to
conduct the research and development needed to get the United
States back on track as a global leader in critical materials.
Dare I say that the United States leading in critical materials
is our critical mission.
I look forward to hearing from our witnesses on how their
research is contributing to this goal and what steps we as
Congress will need to take to support those efforts.
Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Weber follows:]
Thank you Chairman Lamb for holding today's Subcommittee
hearing. I'm looking forward to hearing from our witnesses
about the energy technologies and applications being developed
through critical materials research.
Critical materials play an important role in supporting the
technologies that will change the United States' energy
consumption.
Whether it's lithium used in advanced batteries or helium -
yes, it's for more than just party balloons - in rocket
propulsions systems, our resources are limited in quantity and
can be challenging to develop.
And while demand is only increasing for these critical
materials, supply can also be restricted by geopolitical and
market forces. As it currently stands, Australia, Chile, China,
and Argentina produce 97% of the world's lithium supply, a
mineral that is essential for battery technology, and will be
key for the expansion of electric vehicles.
Imagine if our adversaries controlled a critical material
used in building the next advanced military weapon. If they
were to slow down supply or cut it off altogether, we would be
at a dangerous disadvantage. Energy is just as important, and
we can't allow the advancement of technology to be limited by
political or geographic forces.
In order to understand our economic risk, it's vital that
we assess our resources here in the U.S., and better understand
what elements and materials are vulnerable to global supply
disruptions.
That is one of the reasons President Trump issued Executive
Order 3817, and the Department of Interior took the first step
by leading an interagency coordination to publish a list of 35
critical minerals to the American economy.
But understanding our natural resources is only part of the
story. Because many critical materials are difficult to
produce, it is essential that we maximize our ability to use
and reuse these materials.
By extending the commercial lifecycle of these materials,
and investing in research to improve the efficiency of
recycling and reuse, we can maximize our resources. Research
can also allow us to explore opportunities to extract critical
materials from new sources that were once considered only waste
products.
That is why DOE's National Energy Technology Laboratory, in
coordination with the Critical Materials Institute or C-M-I, is
currently conducting research on extracting materials from coal
and coal byproducts. This research can help improve the
economics of energy supply and production, and reduce
environmental impacts.
And at Ames Lab, which hosts CMI, researchers are working
to improve reuse and recycling, and to expand our supply by
synthesizing new materials or developing substitutes. By
coordinating basic research in materials science and chemistry
with early-stage, applied research in manufacturing, the CMI
structure helps us get the best bang for our buck, and take a
holistic approach to this challenge.
Our national security and economic growth cannot be left at
the mercy of a global supply chain.
And I believe the Department of Energy has the capability
to conduct the research and development needed to get the
United States back on track as a global leader in critical
materials.
I look forward to hearing from our witnesses on how their
research is contributing to this goal, and what steps Congress
will need to take to support their efforts.
Chairman Lamb. If there are Members who wish to submit
additional opening statements, your statements will be added to
the record at this point.
[The prepared statement of Chairwoman Johnson follows:]
Good morning and thank you to all our witnesses for joining
us here today to discuss a topic that is of great importance to
many of our nation's industries: the supply of critical
materials. There are growing concerns regarding the potential
disruption of supply chains that use critical minerals for
various end uses, including clean energy generation and storage
technologies dependent on these raw materials. Today's hearing
will help us to identify strategies for addressing these risks
and provide information that will hopefully be helpful for
stakeholders working in these areas.
Rare minerals are now fundamental to the functioning of our
nation. They are found in alloys, magnets, batteries, and
catalysts, which in turn are integrated into countless products
such as aircraft, electric vehicles, lasers, naval vessels, and
various types of consumer electronics. However, some of the
minerals found in these applications are in limited supply and
the methods for their extraction incur high environmental and
financial costs. Given their necessity in so many applications,
there is growing concern over whether supply can meet our
societal demand in both the near- and far term.
Each mineral has its own unique story of supply and price
vulnerability. For example, in my home state of Texas, the city
of Amarillo justifiably calls itself the ``Helium Capital of
the World.'' Since the 1920s, the town has been home to the
Federal Helium Reserve, a massive underground geological
formation that acts as the U.S. strategic helium supply
repository. The U.S. has long been the world's largest helium
producer, but experts for years have warned of a forthcoming
shortage.
You may think of helium only in terms of party balloons and
perhaps the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade, but helium has a
wide array of practical uses, from crucial roles that it plays
inindustrial processes, to military and civilian aerospace
applications, to medical technologies and basic research, many
of these uses spanning the Science Committee's jurisdiction.
As Dr. Hayes will testify today, her research with
superconductors heavily depends on reliable supplies of
affordable helium. We will also hear from our panel of
witnesses about how there are no readily available substitutes
existing for many materials, and that without action the U.S.
could potentially face an annual shortfall of up to $3.2
billion worth of critical materials.
As our nation's demand for these materials rapidly
increases, in step with our advancements in various
technologies, I look forward to learning more from today's
witnesses about how we can better support our National Labs,
universities, and private companies in addressing this national
challenge.
Thank you and I yield back.
Chairman Lamb. Thank you. At this time I would like to
introduce our witnesses. Dr. Adam Schwartz is the Director of
Ames Laboratory, one of DOE's 17 national labs. Ames Lab
stewards the Critical Materials Institute, a DOE Energy
Innovation Hub dedicated to researching key critical materials.
Dr. Schwartz is also a Professor of materials science and
engineering at Iowa State University and previously spent 23
years working at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
researching topics such as physical metallurgy and condensed
matter physics. Welcome, Dr. Schwartz.
Dr. Sophia Hayes is a Professor in the Department of
Chemistry at Washington University in St. Louis covering
research topics in chemistry, materials science, and condensed
matter physics. She is also a co-author of the 2016 report,
``Responding to the U.S. Research Community's Liquid Helium
Crisis'' and uses helium extensively in her research to
maintain equipment and achieve very low cryogenic temperatures.
Welcome, Dr. Hayes.
Mr. David Weiss is the Vice President of Engineering and
Research and Development at Eck Industries, which is based in
Wisconsin and produces advanced metal castings. In his role, he
is responsible for the research and application of high-
performance alloys and casting concepts, also the subject of
over 80 papers that he has authored or co-authored. During his
time at Eck Industries, the company has worked closely with
DOE's Critical Materials Institute. Welcome, Mr. Weiss.
Dr. Carol Handwerker is the Reinhardt Schuhmann, Jr.
Professor of Materials Engineering and Environmental and
Ecological Engineering at Purdue University and leads the DOE
Critical Materials Institute's focus area in recycling and
reuse. Prior to joining Purdue, she served as the Chief of
NIST's (National Institute of Standards and Technology's)
Metallurgy Division. During her 21-year career at NIST she led
measurement R&D to improve the manufacture and performance of
electronic, magnetic, photonic, and structural materials.
Welcome, Dr. Handwerker.
As our witnesses should know, you will each have 5 minutes
for your spoken testimony. Your written testimony will be
included in the record for the hearing. And when you all have
completed your spoken testimony, we will begin with questions.
Each Member will have 5 minutes to question the panel. We will
start with Dr. Schwartz.
TESTIMONY OF DR. ADAM SCHWARTZ,
DIRECTOR, AMES LABORATORY
Dr. Schwartz. Chairman Lamb, Ranking Member Weber, and
Members of the Subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to
discuss the importance of research and innovation to address
the critical materials challenge. And thank you for your
continued strong support of physical sciences in energy
research. I'm Adam Schwartz, Director of Ames Laboratory, a
Department of Energy national laboratory managed by and co-
located on the campus of Iowa State University.
The United States is a world leader in physics, chemistry,
and materials research as a result of decades of Federal
investment. To remain a world leader, the United States must
continue to innovate with new materials, new products, new
energy options, and new defense applications. However, new
technologies in engineered materials create the potential for
rapid increases in demand for some elements, thus creating the
next critical material. The critical material provides
essential functionality to modern engineered material, has few
ready substitutes, and is subject to supply chain risk. As with
most things we don't have enough of, the choice is to make more
or use less.
There are two substantial DOE programs currently addressing
the criticality of rare-earth elements. DOE's Office of Fossil
Energy and the National Energy Technology Laboratory aim to
``make more'' by understanding the technical and economic
feasibility of extracting and recovering rare-earths from coal
and coal byproducts such as coal refuse, power generation ash,
clay and shale, and acid mine drainage. Projects range from
fundamental research to the design, construction, and operation
of small pilot-scale facilities producing salable, high-purity
rare-earth oxides.
The second major program to reduce criticality comes from
DOE's Advanced Manufacturing Office. The Critical Materials
Institute or CMI is conducting early stage research to
accelerate the development and application of solutions to
critical materials challenges, enabling innovation in U.S.
manufacturing and enhancing U.S. energy security. By closely
following the DOE's strategy to make more by diversifying
supply and improving reuse and recycling, or use less by
developing substitutes, the CMI team of national labs,
universities, and industrial partners is having an impact with
309 publications, 129 invention disclosures leading to 58 U.S.
patent applications, 12 awarded patents, and 9 licensed
technologies.
As examples, CMI research to diversify supply aims to
increase the supply of critical materials by creating more
cost-effective and energy-efficient methods for the extraction,
separation, and conversion of ore to metal. Momentum
Technologies, a U.S. startup company, licensed two of those CMI
technologies. To improve reuse and recycling, CMI developed an
innovative acid-free dissolution and separation process for
removing rare-earth ions from shredded hard disk drives. That
process won an R&D 100 award. And for developing substitutes
and newly discovered permanent magnet formulation replaces half
of the precious neodymium, effectively doubling magnet
production per ton of ore.
The CMI materials criticality framework is being extended
well beyond rare-earths to include materials for battery and
thin-film solar and LED panels. The push toward electric
mobility increases the demand for energy storage elements like
lithium, cobalt, and graphite. CMI research has developed
technologies that can allow domestic production of two novel
sources of lithium from geothermal brine and mining tailings.
In addition to all the successes and options that CMI has
generated, the most important of all is the enduring capability
that the team has created. It is the combination of criticality
assessments, techno-economic analyses, road-mapping, and early
input from industry that sets the stage for effective and
efficient research into solving critical materials challenges.
CMI's critical materials framework integrates expertise across
the supply chains to deliver industrial-relevant technologies
to diversify supply, improve reuse and recycling, and develop
substitutes that are all informed and enabled by foundational
science.
It is this enduring capability and collaboration that puts
the U.S. in the strongest position as new materials become
critical and is why CMI in particular is such an important
national resource for addressing these challenges that are only
going to grow more pronounced over time. Global factors, such
as growth in world population, will place an even greater
stress on diversification of mineral resources, the importance
of innovation and creating substitute materials and the
development of the science to improve the economics of reuse
and recycling.
Thank you for the opportunity to testify, and again, thank
you for your consistent strong support of materials and energy
research. I'd be happy to address any questions or provide
additional information.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Schwartz follows:]
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Chairman Lamb. Thank you, Dr. Schwartz. Dr. Hayes.
TESTIMONY OF DR. SOPHIA HAYES,
PROFESSOR, DEPARTMENT OF CHEMISTRY,
WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY IN ST. LOUIS
Dr. Hayes. Chairman Lamb, Ranking Member Weber, and Members
of the Subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to discuss
the importance of research and innovation on these critical
materials. I'm Sophia Hayes, Professor of Chemistry at
Washington University in St. Louis. And, as eloquently put by
you both, I'm a researcher who uses liquid helium in my own
research program for cryogenic applications, as well as to
sustain instruments.
I'd like to highlight that my instruments are not all that
uncommon. These are used in every pharmaceutical company, every
R&D department of oil and gas companies, commodity and chemical
companies, and also at every university within the United
States that has a major science and engineering program.
So imagine a future time when helium is in short supply,
where access to such instruments may become more limited or
shut down. Medical diagnostic imaging could also become less
accessible and where the latest handheld electronic device also
slows in production, all for want of this commodity chemical.
So let me share my research community's experiences as a
reflection of the broader community's needs. Helium is an
element, as you pointed out, with many, many special
properties. It's lighter than air. It is inert or unreactive,
and it also can achieve low temperatures, lower than any other
substance we have on Earth. And instruments like mine require
helium to operate. They cannot function without it. But liquid
helium evaporates as it's being used, and therefore, it must be
replenished.
What we have faced in the past 2 decades are 2 problems.
One is steep price increases and the other is supply shocks
where helium could not be acquired in some cases at any price.
The origin of the price increases come from a market that's
highly volatile. At my institution the price for liquid helium
has increased more than 400 percent during my career, but the
grants that we receive remain flat, not accounting for such
massive inflation in the price of this line item in my budget.
For researchers like myself it means I have to choose between
paying for helium or paying the salary to support a graduate
student getting a Ph.D. In my case I've had to decommission
magnets, reducing my lab's research capacity.
Even more critical than price is supply insecurity. A
supply shock lasting weeks or even a month can be disastrous.
My magnets need to be filled every 4 weeks, so a delay of even
2 to 3 weeks is a crisis. And importantly, if my supply is cut,
it's likely that it's being felt regionally. We've had several
major supply shocks in my career, the most recent as a result
of the Qatar blockade, and multiple minor supply shocks.
Given these, forward-thinking civil servants and some of
our professional scientific societies have tried to come to our
community's rescue. For several years the Defense Logistics
Agency, in collaboration with the American Physical Society and
American Chemical Society, were able to provide program
participants a reliable source of helium at lower prices than
they could negotiate on their own, helping to protect smaller-
scale university users who receive Federal funding.
Unfortunately, we just learned this program will be
discontinued in January, in part due to the turbulent helium
market, showing how incredibly challenging this situation is.
This purchasing program helped researchers reduce helium
costs and mitigate pricing issues in the near-term, but our
irreplaceable helium resources continue to be depleted, and
reducing our long-term use of helium is essential.
With this in mind, we must enable as many academic
researchers as possible to reduce their helium consumption
without compromising their programs, their research programs.
National Science Foundation's (NSF's) Division of Materials
Research is helping a small number of researchers reduce their
helium use and save the government money over time by providing
funding for the purchase of helium recyclers. This program is
successful but far too modest to address the problems we are
facing.
In my opinion the NSF program should be looked at as a
model, and Congress should ask Federal agencies to support the
wide-range adoption of helium recycling equipment. This will
require agencies to invest in the capital equipment
infrastructure necessary to make helium recycling commonplace.
Unless funding is dedicated to help address this issue, the
U.S. risks losing the research capacity responsible for many
significant breakthroughs in areas such as medicine, national
security, and fundamental science.
Additionally, while outside the jurisdiction of this
Committee, it is important to recognize that the U.S. Strategic
Helium Reserve, which is scheduled for shutdown in fall 2021,
is a central component of the domestic helium supply. Storage
of an inventory of helium is critical for the health of our
helium supply infrastructure.
Thank you for this opportunity to testify. I and my
colleagues will work with the Committee at any time now or in
the future to help maintain the Nation's security and economic
competitiveness by ensuring this vital resource is preserved.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Hayes follows:]
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chairman Lamb. Thank you, Dr. Hayes. Mr. Weiss.
TESTIMONY OF MR. DAVID WEISS,
VICE PRESIDENT, ENGINEERING AND RESEARCH
AND DEVELOPMENT, ECK INDUSTRIES, INC.
Mr. Weiss. Chairman Lamb, Ranking Member Weber, and Members
of the Subcommittee, thank you for giving me the opportunity to
appear before you today. My name is David Weiss, and I'm Vice
President of Engineering and Research and Development for Eck
Industries, Incorporated, located in Manitowoc, Wisconsin.
We employ 260 people in the production of aluminum castings
and specialty aluminum alloys. We serve the commercial aviation
market and manufacture structural castings for the military, as
well as components for heavy-duty hybrid powertrains.
The need for improved aluminum alloys that can function at
elevated temperatures is important, and our company has been
involved in research on the topic since 2003. We considered the
use of cerium as an alloy in addition to aluminum since it is
the most-abundant and least-costly rare-earth element and
theoretically had the potential for high-temperature
strengthening. Cerium also offers a potential solution to the
rare-earth supply issue since cerium oxides and carbonates are
the primary minerals in many rare-earth deposits, particularly
those available in the United States, as in the Mountain Pass
mine in California.
However, much of it is returned to the ground as waste. The
development of a substantial use of cerium changes the
economics of rare-earth production by the beneficial uses of
byproduct, thereby lowering the cost of heavy rare-earths used
for magnets and electronics such as dysprosium and neodymium.
In discussion with Critical Materials Institute representatives
at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, it was determined that this
expanded use of cerium would serve a role in diversifying the
rare-earth supply base, one of the key tasks of the CMI
program.
CMI released seed research funding to determine casting
characteristics and mechanical properties of aluminum-cerium
alloy systems, and it was determined that these systems have
excellent castability and superb high-temperature properties,
higher even than the aluminum-scandium alloys that we had
previously developed. Our company continued to develop the
aluminum cerium system with internal funding and with the
assistance of national laboratory resources provided in part by
CMI. The results were published and presented. The casting
purchasing community took notice particularly after the alloy
system won an R&D 100 Award in 2017. Eck licensed the
technology and continued its development.
Materials development is always a complex enterprise.
Potential customers look at the data, request samples, do
initial evaluation, and look for attributes of the material
that had not been tested or had not been considered in the
original development. Commercialization requires ongoing
research to make a product in volume that meets all the
customer's requirements at a cost that they can afford.
We are working with 5 different Fortune 100 manufacturing
companies to deploy the alloy in key products for their
organizations. These efforts, industrial scale-up at our
company, extensive product testing by the original equipment
manufacturers, and continued research to meet product-specific
needs and reduce cost are enabling successful development of
aluminum-cerium alloys.
We have started on a new phase of research that bypasses
the need to produce metallic cerium to alloy with aluminum. We
have demonstrated that at laboratory scale. We can alloy
aluminum with cerium through direct reduction of the cerium
oxide or carbonate at a significant savings in energy and cost.
This would eliminate the foreign supply chain completely for
this element. As we scale this technology, we expect to be able
to produce aluminum-cerium alloys at the same cost as
conventional aluminum alloys. Good research can make unexpected
advances. We set out to produce and alloy resistant to elevated
temperatures, and we were able to do that. In addition, the
alloy is remarkably corrosion-resistant, saves energy, and can
easily be used in additive manufacturing.
Our success to date has been based upon several factors:
The extraordinary team of researchers that have been assembled
by CMI, very strong industrial participation; and a willingness
to continue to support research that gets over the rough spots
as our commercialization proceeds.
Thank you for giving me the opportunity to address you
today and to show my support for additional critical materials
research funding. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Weiss follows:]
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chairman Lamb. Thank you, Mr. Weiss. Dr. Handwerker.
TESTIMONY OF DR. CAROL HANDWERKER,
REINHARDT SCHUHMANN, JR. PROFESSOR, MATERIALS
ENGINEERING AND ENVIRONMENTAL AND ECOLOGICAL
ENGINEERING, PURDUE UNIVERSITY
Dr. Handwerker. Chairman Lamb, Ranking Member Weber, and
Members of the Subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to
discuss the importance of research, development, and
demonstration to the critical materials challenge and how we
can create a workforce capable of ensuring the future supply of
critical materials for the Nation.
I'm Carol Handwerker, Schuhmann Professor of Materials
Engineering at Purdue University, and the program lead for
recycling and reuse in the DOE Critical Materials Institute.
Before joining Purdue, I was at NIST for 21 years, most
recently serving as Chief of the Metallurgy Division. Both at
NIST and Purdue, I've led industry-government-university
partnerships to deliver science to solve national problems that
industry could and did adopt.
The Critical Materials Institute is a model for how H.R.
4481 might succeed. Drawing on 4 government labs, 9
universities, and 15 companies, it's managed as a single
unified organization setting joint priorities to ensure
critical materials supplies by connecting basic science with
technology, while also developing new researchers and leaders
for the future.
CMI shares H.R. 4481's goal, ``to assure the long-term,
secure, and sustainable supply of energy-critical materials
sufficient to satisfy the national security, economic well-
being, and industrial production needs of the United States.''
In CMI we use four key strategies to deliver meaningful
impact from early stage research. The first is identifying the
most important challenges and the most effective solutions
across the full range of possibilities. The second is
collaborating closely with industry from concept stage onward
to build solutions that industries can use. The third is
delivering quantified economic, logistical, and environmental
analyses, and fourth is building teams of the world's foremost
researchers to overcome scientific barriers.
Every CMI research deliverable fits into a supply chain
with the necessary links to industry. One example is the
project for value recovery from hard disk drives, which are
data storage workhouses of the cloud and the second-largest use
of rare-earth magnets in the global economy. Billions of hard
disks are in use across the United States, and tens of millions
of them are shredded each year to destroy the sensitive
information that they contain. When that happens, the rare-
earth elements are lost.
CMI, Seagate, Purdue, and the International Electronics
Manufacturing Initiative, known as iNEMI, have forged a project
team from organizations that, together, can form a complete
supply chain to recover viable quantities of rare-earths from
the magnets in scrapped hard drives. The iNEMI consortium
membership provides industrial skills and expertise that are
complementary to CMI's research capabilities. The 15
organizations on the hard disk drive recovery team include
Seagate, Google, Microsoft, and Cisco, as well as a CMI
National labs, Purdue, Momentum Technologies, and Urban Mining
Company. The project has identified five key approaches to a
circular economy for our disk drives with multiple pathways
enabled by CMI's fundamental research.
There is a simple key to CMI's most successful projects. We
understand that a chain does not exist without all its links in
place, and we cannot sensibly build any single link if it is
not properly connected to its neighbors. Early career
researchers at CMI developed scientific skills and knowledge
like any of their peers, but they also see firsthand how
seamless collaboration allows great science to emerge from
industrial problems. This inspires them to carry forward in
this area, and it is one of the hallmarks of CMI.
CMI accelerates technology adoption and bridges the valley
of death. It's the place, the so-called, ``valley of death,''
where technologies too often die in the transition from early
stage R&D to commercialization. Operating with a sense of
urgency from the outset, CMI has developed a focused strategy
and applied it to a broadening set of energy-critical
materials, translating world-class science into commercialized
solutions in as little as 3 years.
Creating a robust supply of energy-critical elements and
products for the United States through H.R. 4481's program of
research, development, demonstration, and commercial
application will enable economic well-being and industrial
vitality for the country to continue. CMI has built great
capabilities, research teams, and expertise that are consistent
with this goal and are ready to be applied to this effort.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Handwerker follows:]
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chairman Lamb. Thank you, Dr. Handwerker.
We will begin with 5-minute rounds of questions. I
recognize myself for 5 minutes.
Dr. Schwartz, I'd like to start with you. Thank you for
giving so much attention to NETL and their program of rare-
earth research. You mentioned in your testimony the three
domestic pilot-scale operations that they have going on. Would
you mind just saying a little bit more about what those are and
where they operate and exactly kind of what they're producing
today?
Dr. Schwartz. I don't have all the details on that. I can
get them for you. We'd be happy to do that. Much of the work
has been done I believe in collaboration with universities,
particularly University of Kentucky, where that team is trying
to understand the chemistry and the science and the
technologies of extracting those rare-earth elements, which
essentially start with maybe 300 parts per million of
concentration, so in many ways trying to extract very low
abundant elements from whatever products.
In many cases, though, for example, the acid mine drainage,
those rare-earth elements are, relatively speaking, a
chemically easy way of extracting. So the development of the
science and the technology and ultimately the pilot-scale
project is aimed to extract those elements as efficiently as
possible. Again, I don't have all the details, but I'd be happy
to work with my NETL colleagues to provide that specific
answer.
Chairman Lamb. That's OK. Thank you. With the acid mine
drainage extraction, I noticed also in your written testimony
you characterize that as easy. How would you explain, then,
kind of what barriers remain for the actual commercial
application of that? You know, a comparison is in Pennsylvania
where there are companies that make a profit burning waste
coal. You know, they've figured out a way to convert that into
something that can still produce energy. If it's easy to
extract minerals from those same coal piles, what does the
future look like in terms of how we might actually get to
commercialization?
Dr. Schwartz. Well, I will say there are two issues. Both
of them deal with the economics. One is being able to develop
the large-scale processing plant, and the second would be how
do you move that processing plant to the location where the
acid mine drainage is located or other sources are located. So
that may be incompatible, so then the challenge would be how do
you develop somewhat mobile units that could move from one acid
mine drainage location to another to another to another. So the
bottom line I believe, as with most things, it's economics. How
do you do this economically, either to develop the chemistry
processing but then also to locate that chemical processing
facility or to be able to move it where it needs to be.
Chairman Lamb. Thank you. That's actually the same
challenge with people who burn waste coal is the transportation
cost is almost everything to them. Thank you.
Dr. Schwartz. As with recycling as well.
Chairman Lamb. Yes. Mr. Weiss, first of all, thank you for
being here and for sharing that story. It's such a clear
example of success. I was trying to just understand the
timeline. Did you first get the Department of Energy grant in
2004? Is that right?
Mr. Weiss. We began work with CMI approximately 5 years
ago.
Chairman Lamb. OK.
Mr. Weiss. So we had done some earlier work on scandium-
containing alloys for high-temperature applications before
that.
Chairman Lamb. I see. So that was kind of a different
project.
Mr. Weiss. It's a different project, correct.
Chairman Lamb. I was sort of just trying to understand the
length of time from when you started working on the aluminum-
cerium alloys, with DOE support, to sort of commercialization,
what that looked like.
Mr. Weiss. Well it's been about 4 years.
Chairman Lamb. Four years, OK.
Mr. Weiss. We had our earliest customer about 2 years in--
it was an early adopter customer who really was interested in
the performance of the material and weren't required to go
through a lot of extensive testing. Working with much larger
customers, Fortune 100 customers, the testing regime is much,
much longer, as you can imagine.
Chairman Lamb. And do you think you would have been able to
accomplish this without Federal support?
Mr. Weiss. Absolutely not. We can make the castings. We
know how to make the castings. We know how to alloy material,
but understanding what you have, doing the microstructural
analysis, understanding the mechanisms in play in order to
understand the strengthening of the alloy, we don't have those
capabilities at all. And the national labs have them in
abundance.
Chairman Lamb. Thank you. Mr. Weber, you're recognized for
5 minutes.
Mr. Weber. Thank you. I don't know where to start. This is
great.
Dr. Hayes, I owned an air-conditioning company for 35
years, so all this stuff about energy transfer and freon and so
on and so forth is really interesting to me. You said that you
used helium, and of course your budget was flat. That didn't
escape me, and helium has gone up 400 percent in your
testimony. And then you also said you had to decommission
magnets and that they have to be filled every three to four
weeks.
Dr. Hayes. Yes, that's correct.
Mr. Weber. So magnets use helium?
Dr. Hayes. Indeed. So they're using helium to achieve
what's called a superconducting state to create the magnetic
field.
Mr. Weber. OK. Is that very low cryogenic temperatures?
Dr. Hayes. Yes, it's 4 Kelvin, a very low temperature,
about the temperature of outer space as an equivalent.
Mr. Weber. Put that in Fahrenheit for me, will you.
Dr. Hayes. In my written testimony I believe I have it.
It's minus 450, minus 460. I can get you the exact number.
Mr. Weber. I keep talking about inches and yards, and my
keep kids keep telling me have to get into the metric system.
They said get in the metric system, Dad. I said I'll get there
inch by inch. Just don't push it.
Dr. Hayes. Minus 452 is the exact.
Mr. Weber. Minus 452. OK. Well, freon freezes and minus
four something. I took that class 30-something years ago. You
said helium will get the coldest that we have. What's the
second-coldest?
Dr. Hayes. Good question. I believe hydrogen, perhaps
hydrogen.
Mr. Weber. Is it hydrogen?
Dr. Hayes. Yes.
Mr. Weber. OK.
Dr. Hayes. The molecule hydrogen.
Mr. Weber. OK. And I thought you said that helium
evaporates as we use it.
Dr. Hayes. It does.
Mr. Weber. OK. But then you also said we want to try to
collect it.
Dr. Hayes. Yes.
Mr. Weber. Did I misunderstand that?
Dr. Hayes. No. So what I meant is two things. One is
because it's inert, as it evaporates, it escapes the
atmosphere. It is, if I'm not mistaken, one of the only
elements to do so. So whatever we have here on the Earth that
we release is gone. So by----
Mr. Weber. It escapes the atmosphere----
Dr. Hayes. Yes.
Mr. Weber [continuing]. As it goes into outer space?
Dr. Hayes. It goes into outer space.
Mr. Weber. And now you know why outer space is so cold.
Dr. Hayes. That's very funny.
Mr. Weber. Yes.
Dr. Hayes. So by recycling it and keeping it contained,
then we can continue to reuse it. Let me give you a quick
analogy.
Mr. Weber. But how do you recycle it, Doctor, if, when you
use it, you use it up?
Dr. Hayes. So imagine the radiator of your car. It's like a
cooling fluid that can be circulated around and around. Sure, a
little bit leaks out and it must be topped off, but----
Mr. Weber. OK.
Dr. Hayes [continuing]. That kind of recycling.
Mr. Weber. But you want a closed loop. Is that helium
pressurized? If it's at low pressure, it's a liquid, right?
Dr. Hayes. It's a closed loop----
Mr. Weber. It's a closed loop.
Dr. Hayes [continuing]. And all we have to do is recapture
the gas, compress it again into a liquid, and then reuse it
around and around.
Mr. Weber. So how do you recapture that gas?
Dr. Hayes. Through piping generally and through large bags
that can have space to hold all that gas.
Mr. Weber. OK. But you wouldn't literally expect for that
to be in the radiator of your car because it's too cost-
prohibitive and too expensive?
Dr. Hayes. Indeed, but if we could co-locate helium using
equipment and several users----
Mr. Weber. OK.
Dr. Hayes [continuing]. Could all use of such a system.
Mr. Weber. You keep calling helium inert. For the audience,
inert, i-n-e-r-t, not a nerd. Yes, I'm the nerd here because
all this stuff fascinates me. So thank you for that.
Mr. Weiss, I'm going to jump over to you. You said the need
for elevated temperature for aluminum alloys--again, I was in
the air-conditioning business. We get a lot of welding, copper,
and there's a lot of braising and stuff that goes on. And you
said you are considering cerium and dysprosium. Was that the
other one?
Mr. Weiss. Well, cerium is the element that we are using.
Mr. Weber. OK.
Mr. Weiss. Dysprosium is too expensive to use.
Mr. Weber. Oh, I got you.
Mr. Weiss. Right.
Mr. Weber. So the need for elevated temps, so when you do a
high-temp alloy aluminum casting, what kind of temperature can
you expect to encounter? Is it 200 degrees? Is it 1,200
degrees? Again, I'm Fahrenheit.
Mr. Weiss. So in Fahrenheit most aluminum alloys lose all
of their strength around 300 degrees Fahrenheit. And so what we
are doing and what we've indeed demonstrated on these alloys is
reasonable mechanical properties all the way up to 600 degrees
Fahrenheit.
Mr. Weber. What application would that apply to? Who would
use that?
Mr. Weiss. There's a couple things. The turbochargers,
which are getting hotter and hotter as you try to improve
engine efficiencies; things like cylinder heads, as you
increase the power density, the temperature goes up. Those
would be two of the major potential manufacturers.
Mr. Weber. Do you sell to the automotive market for like
engine blocks for example?
Mr. Weiss. We do right now, not in aluminum-cerium alloys
yet, but they are being tested by them.
Mr. Weber. So is there a higher--and again, I'm just the
technical nerd that I am, is that for diesel engines? Is that
higher than gasoline engines?
Mr. Weiss. Yes, it is. And most of the work that we're
doing is for diesel engines currently.
Mr. Weber. OK. Well, I've got other questions and, Mr.
Chairman, I'm going to yield back.
Chairman Lamb. I recognize Chairwoman Johnson for 5
minutes.
Chairwoman Johnson. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and
thanks to all of our witnesses who have come.
I'm a little concerned about some of the reactions. Dr.
Schwartz, in your testimony you discuss both the short-term and
the long-term risks of critical materials supply chains. Could
you discuss the differences between the two, and the possible
short- and long-term solutions available, or their approaches?
Dr. Schwartz. Short-term, most of those supply risks are
political or geopolitical in nature, meaning--and we can use
the example from 2010 of the rare-earth crisis where over the
previous 30-some years where in the 1960s the U.S. used to be
the number-one producer of rare-earth oxides in the world at
the Mountain Pass mine. Over that subsequent 30 years, most of
the world's mining, processing, and fabrication of rare-earth
elements came out of China. Then there was a price spike, which
led to increases in prices up to maybe 50 times for certain
elements. That is the type of short-term geopolitical risk that
could occur in rare-earths, as it did previously, or in other
materials. Currently lithium is not produced in significant
quantities here in the U.S.
Long-term, that geopolitical risk remains. If we become, as
a country, more reliant on importing materials like lithium for
batteries or whatever that next critical material could be,
that is one source of the long-term risk. The other source of
long-term risk is if we, as a community, discover the next
great functional material, whether it is for quantum computing
or caloric cooling, could be any of that. If that demand for
that new technology outweighs current production either in the
United States or in the world, that also sets up for long-term
critical materials risk.
Chairwoman Johnson. Well, how do you think that the
research community has responded to this reaction from China,
especially in alleviating some of these risks?
Dr. Schwartz. So the United States, Japan, European Union
have a yearly get together, the Trilateral Meeting to discuss
critical materials and the response to those critical materials
needs. Japan has its approach. The European Union has its
approach. The United States has focused its resources on the
Office of Fossil Energy, National Energy Technology Laboratory
program to extract rare-earths from a known resource we have
here in the U.S., and that is coal and coal byproducts. And
that team is making excellent progress. They are now to the
point where they believe they can make salable, low-cost, high-
purity rare-earth oxides.
The second major program, Critical Materials Institute has
made significant progress across all of the supply chains from
diversifying the supply, improving reuse and recycling, and in
developing substitutes. An example that I put in the written
testimony is about replacing some of the more rare rare-earth
phosphors in fluorescent lamps. Fluorescent lamps use a tri
phosphor red, green, and blue. The red and the blue--and the
green in particular use those more expensive heavy rare-earth
elements. The CMI team created options for that lighting
industry that required no rare-earths as a replacement for or a
substitute for the red phosphor and only 10 percent of the
rare-earths required for the green phosphor. So short-term the
team is making significant progress in all three of those
areas. Use less or make more.
Going forward, it is that combination, it is that teaming
of all the expertise. It's not just doing science. It's not
just creating the next material, but it's understanding how
that research could potentially improve the supply chains going
all the way back to the techno-economic analysis, doing the
road-mapping, talking to U.S. industries. What is most
important now and then in the future? And a coordinated effort
like I think is being done--there's a lot more to do, but that
coordinated effort moves us along that path toward addressing
those critical materials challenges. It's really that critical
material framework that has been put in place over the last 5
years that is now positioned to accelerate the development of
options for the supply chain risks.
Chairwoman Johnson. Thank you very much. My time is
expired.
Chairman Lamb. I recognize Dr. Baird for 5 minutes.
Mr. Baird. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you,
witnesses, for being here. We do appreciate all the information
you bring us in terms of the latest technology regarding these
rare-earth elements and Dr. Handwerker, I'm going to start with
you. I must tell you that I'm always pleased to see my alma
mater involved in the cutting-edge technologies, so thank you
for being here.
My question deals with the comments you made in your
prepared testimony. You state that while government-funded R&D
usually takes at least 20 years to move from discovery in the
lab to success in the marketplace, then DOE's Critical
Materials Institute or CMI inventions have been adopted by
industry in as little as, say, three years. In your opinion
what unique role do CMI's academic partners like Purdue
University play in this success? And then what recommendations
do you have for other academic institutions who may want to
partner with the DOE energy innovation program?
Dr. Handwerker. Thank you. First of all, boiler up.
Mr. Baird. Boiler up.
Dr. Handwerker. So at Purdue University one of our
hallmarks is advanced manufacturing, and so much of what we do
in critical materials is really focused in advanced
manufacturing. Advanced mining is really part of the
manufacturing infrastructure of the Nation.
So at Purdue one of our key contributions to the Critical
Materials Institute has been developing tools to do those
economic analyses you were talking about, the logistics
analyses that are so important in determining whether a
technology, whether it be mining or recycling or reuse, are
going to be profitable.
We've created these tools that we have taught all across
the Critical Materials Institute, we've taught the different
project leads all the way down to even undergraduates how to do
these economic analyses as they're developing these key
technologies because if you look at the scientific literature
and you want to find, OK, how do you get rare-earth materials
out of magnets, there are many papers associated with that.
There are many papers on the topic. The issue, though, is it
can't be done economically with low environmental impact and in
a way that actually gets the material, for example, in
collection.
So one of the things that we've been able to contribute are
these economic analyses, lifecycle assessments, and also
scenario analyses, which are also called out in H.R. 4481. It
is so important to see, all right, how do we mitigate the risks
for our critical materials?
Mr. Baird. Thank you. Do any of the other witnesses have an
opinion about what areas of fundamental research would provide
the highest return on investment? So, Dr. Schwartz, start with
you.
Dr. Schwartz. One of the biggest bottlenecks right now is
being able to separate the rare-earths from one another and
then to take those separated rare-earth oxides and create metal
out of it. That is not the environmentally cleanest process out
there. So although the world, although Critical Materials
Institute and researchers around the country are making
progress understanding that separation process, being able to
take one rare-earth oxide out of the collection of rare-earth
oxides, as Dr. Handwerker pointed out, it's not yet economical.
So fundamental and early stage research into those separation
processes are I still think one of the keys. Critical Materials
Institute is doing some but really not enough work in taking
those rare-earth oxides and converting into metal because
that's really in most cases the starting point for making
materials to be put into systems, to be put into products that
are needed for U.S. energy security, national security, and
other things.
So I think continued focus on that processing required to
separate the rare-earth oxides from each other, make the metal,
and then there are huge opportunities not only for critical
materials but in the areas of recycling, recycling of the hard
disk drives, which Carol pointed out, the recycling of lithium
in batteries, in cobalt, in magnets from the first generation
of hybrid electric vehicles, for example. Recycling science has
been lagging behind for lots of reasons, including economics,
but the science needs to be done to do that to develop
processes to extract those materials economically.
Mr. Baird. Thank you. And, Mr. Chairman, could we have the
other two? I'm over my limit.
Chairman Lamb. Sure. I think they can speak quickly.
Mr. Baird. Thank you. Go ahead.
Dr. Hayes. I'll be brief just to say that within the areas
of magnet technology, we heard about neodymium from a couple of
speakers. This is not part of my written testimony, but there
are efforts at the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory to
develop superconducting magnets that are based on high-
temperature superconductors. They would use different elements,
they would have different designs, and we might be able to
escape even the use of liquid helium. So that's a new direction
that could be pursued but is not maybe heavily funded at the
moment. But those designs exist.
Mr. Weiss. So in response to, you know, how students play a
role and how academic institutions play a role, it is
interesting to me that having had demonstrated some success in
the use of cerium, for example, in materials, there's probably
four or five masters students now outside of the CMI envelope
that have looked at that and are looking at various things that
we have not looked at in CMI as far as particular mechanical
properties or whatever. And so research gains a certain
momentum after a certain point and more and more people get
involved, and that's going to be good for everybody all the way
around.
Mr. Baird. Thank all of you, and I yield back.
Chairman Lamb. Thank you. And I recognize Mr. Foster 5
minutes.
Mr. Foster. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and to our witnesses.
Let's see. I guess I'll start with Dr. Schwartz. How do you
deal with the fact that you don't really know 10 or 20 years
from now which elements will end up being strategic? You know,
we're worrying about lithium, and there's an excellent chance
that we'll succeed at battery R&D that looks at divalent
chemistries, and it's magnesium which I don't think will ever
be strategic--will be the key element in batteries. You know,
there are alternative technologies like switched-reluctance
motors that may make rare-earth motors irrelevant for many
applications.
You know, I think someone mentioned phosphorus for
fluorescent bulbs, OK. They're being replaced by LEDs. I'm not
sure whether white LEDs--I know they have some kind of wave
shifter but I'm not sure that that's a rare-earth wave shifter
where they get a blue LED and then use a full spectrum. So how
do you deal with that, you know, both in the U.S. and in these
international meetings?
Dr. Schwartz. Dr. Foster, that is a great, great question.
Like so many things, we have good visibility out to the
horizon. We know what is coming up. We know that electric
mobility is going to be very significant in this country and
across the world. We suspect that quantum information sciences,
quantum computing is going to be significant at some point. But
we don't have visibility across the horizon, and that's why the
development of the framework, the processes, the critical
materials framework that allows us to take a look at the
problem as early as we can, do that criticality assessment
where we are trying to look out at new industries of the future
to say this could create a demand for manganese. Manganese
could be a great element. Magnesium could be a great element.
But until there is a science and technology base, until there
are applications beginning to show up, can we say, ah, that
could be large. So I think from my perspective it's developing
that enduring capability, that critical materials framework
that we'll be in a position to address the next critical
material as quickly as possible when that material becomes
critical.
Mr. Foster. And in these international meetings is there
some understanding that the countries of the free world are not
going to do what the Chinese did to the Japanese not so long
ago and, you know, grab them by the neck and try to get
concessions on something? Do you think there's a need for some
sort of understanding along those lines at least among the free
world?
Dr. Schwartz. That's really outside my area of scientific
expertise, but I would say yes. Just a few weeks ago Energy
Efficiency and Renewable Energy Office, Advanced Manufacturing
Office, and the Office of Fossil Energy organized a roundtable
and workshop on rare-earths. We had representatives from Canada
and from Australia talking about those partnerships that will
help protect against a single country dominating a material,
dominating a market. So I say yes, there is room for
significant discussions to make sure that those partnerships
are in place.
Mr. Foster. And, Dr. Hayes, I guess as a Member of--
probably the Member of Congress that's responsible for venting
more helium--I don't think I could count the number of 500-
liter helium dewars that experiments I've set up have vented to
the atmosphere.
You know, there are a number of approaches you can take
here. You mentioned sort of local, like somewhere in the
building multiple researchers would have a shared helium
recycling facility. There are other approaches, for example,
just using closed cryocoolers for these research magnets,
which, you know, there are a number of different approaches
here.
And in addition, there's a class of helium applications
where it's simply used as a nonreactive purge. And that's I
think, particularly in a research environment, I think is going
to be very hard to figure out how to sensibly, you know,
recycle that. In addition, if it gets diluted enormously, then
you have to cryogenically separate. I mean, there's a range of
applications here. And why is it not best just to let a market
price do this to try to figure out which ones of these
applications make sense and which don't?
Dr. Hayes. So the types of things that you're talking about
require a capital equipment investment that is not necessarily
part of the framework for most of us that have equipment from a
decade ago, let's say, or further back. So that's the first of
the answers. And then why not let a market price account for
that? That's outside my area of expertise, too, you know,
resource economics. But truly in this era where we have had
cheap and abundant helium, we're now in a completely different
world and how do researchers respond agiley to that new
reality? That's what you're asking. And we need extra money for
research for those of us who are subject to those price
fluctuations.
Mr. Foster. Yes. And also I think you're a little
pessimistic on YBCO (yttrium barium copper oxide) and the other
high-temperature superconductors. I think a lot of research
magnets could be made today with high-temperature
superconductors.
Dr. Hayes. I completely agree. All I meant by the statement
was just that it is not widely adopted yet. It's not
commercially available as a magnet, and it's only in these very
specialized centers of excellence that we have in the United
States that have really capitalized on that.
Mr. Foster. Thank you.
Dr. Hayes. Thank you.
Mr. Foster. And, Mr. Chair, if there's an opportunity for a
second round of questioning, I'd appreciate it.
Chairman Lamb. Sure thing. Mr. Biggs is recognized for 5
minutes.
Mr. Biggs. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Ranking Member
Weber. This has been an interesting hearing. Thank you for your
presentations, all of you coming today.
Dr. Hayes, I want to just kind of dovetail if I can a
little bit on the discussion that was going on because you
mentioned the price has gone up I think 450 percent during your
career of helium, which indicates to me that either the demand
has exceeded the supply or you've had an increasing scarcity.
And I'm assuming that it's the latter that's an increasing--
maybe it's both, a combination of both. So can you kind of
define that for me why the price has gone up?
Dr. Hayes. The price is related to scarcity, as you say
indeed.
And again, this is outside my special expertise, so I
wouldn't want to attribute it to any one cause, but certainly
we have seen increasing demand for helium worldwide. It's used
heavily in the electronics industry, for example.
Mr. Biggs. OK.
Dr. Hayes. So I think that it's both factors.
Mr. Biggs. OK. And one of the ways to resolve it is both
the way Dr. Foster said is finding alternatives to helium and
what you've also said is reuse, recovery, and recycling.
Dr. Hayes. Yes.
Mr. Biggs. So there's a third alternative, and this is the
part I know nothing about because I don't know where we find
helium. If we we're talking copper and molybdenum, I could tell
you about that, but I can't tell you about helium. Are there
other markers, I mean, people are exploring, developing, we're
talking oil and gas we would know that there's a field, we
would be looking at geologic formation. We could kind of
accurately--as we explore, we could see how much we're going to
have. Tell me about helium. How do we find helium? What are our
other markers that go with it? Is it coming with nitrogen? Do
we find it with other gases? How does that work?
Dr. Hayes. Currently, we extract helium through the process
of extracting natural gas.
Mr. Biggs. OK.
Dr. Hayes. So it comes along for the ride. It is not in all
natural gas deposits. And for it to be economically viable, I
understand from others who are in this industry that you need
roughly 1 percent of the makeup of that natural gas deposit.
Mr. Biggs. I see.
Dr. Hayes. And it's because the natural gas is trapped
underground by rock formations, and luckily for us, the helium
is there as well.
If I may, let me put something into context for you.
Mr. Biggs. Yes.
Dr. Hayes. A single balloon of helium, a party balloon, if
I do a back-of-the-envelope calculation on a pad of paper, the
number of gas molecules that are there are coming about because
of radioactive decay of uranium and thorium underground. That
balloon takes an amount of half a pound of uranium that I could
hold in the palm of my hand. It takes it 1 billion years to
decay on that order.
Mr. Biggs. Wow.
Dr. Hayes. So we are constantly making more underground,
but it's an atom at a time. So I favor recycling for that
reason because we just don't want to let it escape the
atmosphere.
Mr. Biggs. Right. Very good. Thank you. That's very
informative. And I'm glad you mentioned uranium because I come
from Arizona. And in Arizona we have significant reserves of
copper and uranium. And the President and his Administration
has protected our national economic security from reliance on
foreign supplies of critical minerals, ostensibly including
uranium. But we're having a terrible time developing uranium.
We're fighting that right now.
The U.S. Geological Survey's list of 35 critical minerals
encompasses materials, as you know, for clean energy
production, nuclear deterrence, and enabling smartphones, et
cetera, around the world. But instead of buying from the
domestic uranium mining companies, we are looking to China for
uranium right now and other countries. We import almost 99
percent of our uranium. And that makes it really, really a
security risk for us, and that's something we should be aware
of. And so I think we should be exploring all those options.
And so I'm going to ask each one of you in the brief time I
have left, as we've talked about these things, if you can kind
of expand and advance the idea of what you use with industry
partners, specifically those who might be in the academic
world, what do industry partners do with you, and how do they
support your efforts and if you can expand on that for me.
Dr. Handwerker, let's start with you and we'll----
Dr. Handwerker. Yes. I'll start. I'll start here.
Mr. Biggs [continuing]. Go this way. OK. Great.
Dr. Handwerker. So one of the important parts of working
with industry to see whether something could be economical is
we delve into the economics in great gory detail to see what it
would take to actually be competitive. And without doing that,
then, you know, if we fall short, then it's not like
horseshoes. You know, it really matters that we have gotten the
economics right. And with it the economics challenges come the
scientific challenges because it doesn't come for free. It's
not like we can just marginally change the science to have
these breakthroughs.
So by working with industry really from the very earliest
possible steps, then we can see what science that has already
been developed that we can't use because it falls short of the
economic, the environmental concerns as well. And so that's
key. And also knowing in the end that we've done everything we
could at the point of handoff at early stage but late enough
stage that we've mitigated the risks for the companies because
without the companies having those risks mitigated, they're not
going to be able to get the capital needed to move forward.
Chairman Lamb. And I'm going to recognize Ms. Stevens now
for 5 minutes. We can come back in a second round if there's
more to be said on that topic. Thank you.
Ms. Stevens. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for this very
important hearing on a critical topic with such great expertise
here.
I'd like to submit a letter for the record from Umicore.
It's a company with operations in my district that is recycling
end-of-life electronics and batteries spent in automotive and
industrial catalysts and other metals-containing materials that
can be recycled.
There's also a company I'd like to highlight who I've spent
some time with, SoulBrain, which produces low-moisture and
high-purity lithium-ion electrolyte. They are the only
electrolyte manufacturer in my district for lithium-ion and the
only one in Michigan and one of two in the country. And why the
geography is significant is that I represent the country's
largest concentration of automotive suppliers, and we're
ushering in this electric vehicle wave but with one in Michigan
that's responsible for electrolytes. So I think the imperative
and the urgency around today's discussion is quite apparent.
Mr. Weiss, your company, it's private, a private company?
Mr. Weiss. That is correct.
Ms. Stevens. OK. And if you could share, what's your, you
know, revenues or profit or valuation?
Mr. Weiss. Yes. So we sell about $50-million worth of
castings per year.
Ms. Stevens. That's great. And you're employing about 260--
--
Mr. Weiss. Two hundred and sixty people, correct.
Ms. Stevens. Fabulous. And you're in the Midwest as well--
--
Mr. Weiss. That's right.
Ms. Stevens [continuing]. Which we appreciate. And you
know, we're talking a lot about the R&D, but I want to talk
about the level playing field. And if you could just shine a
little bit of light on that from your vantage point, do you
feel like we have a level playing field when it comes to these
types of materials and our access to these materials?
Mr. Weiss. Well, we clearly don't--I--in my mind. Most of
the materials or many of the materials are imported from China.
Ms. Stevens. Have your payments gone up since you're
importing from China?
Mr. Weiss. No.
Ms. Stevens. What you're paying for them? OK. They've gone
down?
Mr. Weiss. They're roughly the same, roughly the same. Yes,
I mean, there's an impediment there because, you know,
everything from potentially transportation costs, to time, to
quality of material, and so on, those are all negatives. And we
have the wherewithal to do it in the United States or we're
developing the wherewithal to do that all in the United States,
and we haven't quite done it yet.
Ms. Stevens. And what else could it take to help us develop
that wherewithal? What else do we need besides the R&D efforts?
Mr. Weiss. Well, I think you need the R&D effort. I think
you need customers to help support the work that you're doing,
not always buy from the lowest-cost producer, you know, so
being in the automotive supply market, we understand that a
little bit. And so there's a lot of effort to reduce the cost
of materials obviously.
Ms. Stevens. Right. And there's a demand factor as well.
And as my colleague Dr. Foster talked about, the flexibility
for the delineation of what is dubbed a strategic material
whereas that could change, I think we also need some
flexibility in terms of procurement. Wouldn't you agree, Dr.
Schwartz, in terms of how we maybe maintain or gain access to
these materials and the ways in which we go about them, and the
ways in which we incentivize the potential consumer activity
within our own markets?
Dr. Schwartz. I do agree with that, Representative Stevens.
The United States has plentiful natural resources. We do have
rare-earths. We do have lithium supplies. The challenge really
is overcoming the economics to compete globally. And I can't
speak to what other countries' policies are, but when it comes
to mining, mining has environmental challenges. And our
challenge as a country is to develop clean, environmentally
acceptable mining processes. And to this point that's not yet
economical. So it is very challenging for U.S. mining interests
to get into that business because it takes so long to get
approved for a new mine, because the environmental regulations
are what they are. And we as a country haven't yet developed
clean mining technologies because there hasn't been a clean
mining program out there.
So we have lots of challenges. We have the natural
resources here.
We just need to figure out a way technically and
regulation-wise to extract those elements so that your
companies in Michigan have all the lithium that they need to
produce batteries and electrolytes for----
Ms. Stevens. And so they can compete----
Dr. Schwartz. So they can compete.
Ms. Stevens. While we're certainly enthusiastic of the
legislation on the docket, I am sniffing that there's
opportunity for further legislation. But with that, Mr.
Chairman, I remain enthusiastic for a second round of
questioning and yield back my time.
Chairman Lamb. Thank you, and recognize Mr. McNerney for 5
minutes.
Mr. McNerney. Well, I thank the Chair. And I thank the
witnesses this morning.
It's really encouraging to hear some of the successes of
the CMI. We created that in part because of concern about
China's dominating the market and what we've seen with Japan
lately sort of verified that. And they don't seem to have the
environmental concerns and regulations that Dr. Schwartz just
referred to, and that's a bit of a challenge for us, but I'm
sure we can get through it.
The one question I have--is there an opportunity to, Dr.
Schwartz or anyone, to obtain critical rare-earth materials
through fracking and/or geothermal energy production?
Dr. Handwerker. Not as far as I know.
Mr. McNerney. Nobody has a positive answer on that?
Dr. Hayes. Helium does not come through fracking processes
either so I'll just say that.
Mr. McNerney. All right. Thanks. Does the difficulty of
obtaining rare-earths--and this follows up with Ms. Stevens'
questions--give other countries a critical advantage on battery
manufacturing? Dr. Schwartz?
Dr. Schwartz. Again, the United States has enough lithium
reserves to become a net exporter to the world.
Our challenge is, again, the economics of extracting that
lithium and turning it into a product that can be sold on the
world market. We have the material. We just have to figure
out--again, we have to overcome those barriers to the
scientific processes of how do we extract the lithium from
geothermal brines, how do we extract the lithium from mine
tailings. I think we have that. I think we have developed that
process. So then the question becomes how do we do that
economically considering some of the environmental regulations
to make that extraction and processing cost-competitive on the
world market.
I believe you are correct; the rest of the world does not
have the same hurdles that we do. Our environment is incredibly
important, and we need to protect it. We need to come up with
ways to mine more environmentally friendly.
Mr. McNerney. Thanks. Dr. Handwerker, as each critical
material has a different supply chain and market structure, can
you speak to why it's so important that H.R. 4481 authorize the
DOE to develop more comprehensive analysis on market chain?
Dr. Handwerker. So, first of all, all of the critical
materials are byproducts of similar kind of primary mining
operation. And so it's going to be important within H.R. 4481
to really work with those supply chains, including existing
mining in the United States, to be able to extract the rare-
earth materials that are there in sometimes very low levels, as
Dr. Schwartz mentioned. They are there, but the challenge is
really how to extract them with these really part-per-million
or tens-of-part-per-million level.
So, first of all, the mining supply chain, we really are
looking at the Critical Materials Institute more holistically
at which of these different primary mining: Copper, iron,
niobium, which ones can provide each individual critical
material. In terms of the recycling and reuse, yes, each supply
chain is going to be different. And so that's why we're
focusing on the ones where we can have the highest impact. So,
for example, for rare-earths in hard disk drives, in magnets,
and hard disk drives, those are--I think we know what a
circular economy would have to look like, what the full supply
chain would look like.
For engines, that's the primary use of rare-earth magnets
in the U.S. We are working on that because those are very
different in terms of products, in distribution, so there are
many more challenges for those. So, yes, all the supply chains
are different, and we have to select which ones to look at.
Mr. McNerney. Can items be manufactured in a way that makes
their extraction of rare-earths from the recycled products
easier?
Dr. Handwerker. Yes, absolutely. So one of the things I'm
very proud to be able to report is our collaboration with
Seagate, they now have a task force in determining how to reuse
the whole magnet assembly in next-generation hard drives. And
the Seagate CEO has said they're going to make hard drives from
hard drives thinking specifically about the rare-earth magnets
and the magnet assemblies.
So, yes, they can be, but it really takes the engagement
across the supply chain, and I think Critical Materials
Institute has played a leading role in that to show what's
possible, how to take the assemblies out, how to put them back
into the hard drives. And then if they can't be put into the
hard drives, how to create all the different pathways in the
supply chain to get them back into new hard drives starting out
from the oxides.
Mr. McNerney. As I yield back, I'm going to say that I
think Congress should show some leadership in encouraging that
behavior in industry. Thank you. I yield back.
Chairman Lamb. Thank you. And I want to thank our colleague
Mr. Swalwell for joining us today and offering the legislation
that is kind of underlying this hearing. And with that, I
recognize Mr. Swalwell for 5 minutes.
Mr. Swalwell. Thank you. And I thank the Subcommittee
Chairman and Ranking Member, as well as Chairwoman Johnson and
the Ranking Member of the Committee, for holding this hearing
and allowing me as a non-Committee Member but a former
Committee Member to participate. This is an issue of great
importance to our country, particularly my district with two
national laboratories and one that I have worked on for many
years.
And I was hoping, Dr. Schwartz, to start with you. When
this bill last came to the floor in 2014, there were some
concerns expressed about the impact it would have on government
interference in the private sector. And I was wondering if
you're aware of those concerns and how you would respond to
such concerns.
Dr. Schwartz. Thank you for the question. I am not
specifically aware of what those concerns are. I have heard
that--and there are always debates about what is the role of
Federal funding for industrial research. The Critical Materials
Institute is focused very much so on the early stage research,
but we rely on industrial input and guidance as early as we can
get it. In many cases researchers at universities, at national
laboratories think they may know what the whole question is,
what the whole problem is, but don't understand all of the
corporations' research that have gone on for decades and
decades and decades. So having that team with industrial input
early saying, you know what, we've looked at that part of the
problem, don't spend your time and money there. Having that
industrial input to say, you know what, when we look out 10
years, 20 years, these are our fundamental challenges, that's
where national labs and academia can play the biggest role.
Mr. Swalwell. Thank you, Dr. Schwartz.
And, Dr. Hayes, you're a great example of the talent that
has come out of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. And as
a researcher and professor of chemistry, could you describe the
importance of critical materials not only to our economy but
also our national security?
Dr. Hayes. I was not involved in the national security aims
at Lawrence Livermore National Labs, but I think Dr. Schwartz
may be better able to answer that. But certainly what we have
been hearing today is about these many critical elements that
come and enable many applications, whether it's for just
regular everyday life, new batteries, you know, new types of
engines and the like, and also in the national security
apparatus of course, those are exotic materials that certainly
are on the list.
Mr. Swalwell. And you are familiar with the annual budget
for the Critical Materials Institute, which is $25 million. My
legislation would raise the baseline to $30 million with a 5-
percent increase each year for 5 years. How would this
additional funding benefit research?
Dr. Hayes. So I am not enabled to comment on that.
Mr. Swalwell. Sure, if Dr. Schwartz wanted to help us with
that one.
Dr. Schwartz. There is so much to do, just like there is so
much for all of you to do and there's not enough time. There's
so much for the national labs to do, for academia to do in
terms of that early stage research. I very much appreciate your
proposed bill. The Critical Materials Institute would benefit
immensely by having that baseline increase. That would allow us
to continue to focus on the most critical elements or
continuing to develop that critical materials framework that
will position this country, that will create that enduring
capability to address critical materials as new ones come
about.
Mr. Swalwell. One other issue is our global
competitiveness. And within weeks of this bill coming up for a
vote in 2014--and we got very close to passing it--China was
found in violation by the World Trade Organization for its
practices related to rare-earth elements. In fact, in this most
recent trade war with China, they have sought and have publicly
stated that they would use their rare-earth advantage against
the United States. Can any witness talk about how continuing to
invest in critical materials innovation could help us have an
edge or at least get on the same plane as China?
Dr. Schwartz. So, ideally, just like the United States is
striving to and in many cases has achieved energy independence,
we would like to have that same independence in everything. We
would like to be fully dependent on our own production
capabilities, on our own manufacturing capabilities so that we
can make the new energy systems, we can make the new
technologies and electronics, and we can make defense systems
when we need to make it here. We've lost a lot of that
capability not because we don't have the natural resources here
but because of environmental issues, because of cost of labor.
It was more efficient for U.S. companies to outsource. In terms
of energy security, national security, I think the United
States would benefit by bringing some of that back here.
Mr. Swalwell. Thank you to all the witnesses. And thank you
to the Subcommittee Chair. And also thank you to the staff for
working with us over the years to bring this forward. I yield
back.
Chairman Lamb. And there's been an interest in a second
round of questions at least from Dr. Foster, so, Dr. Foster,
you're recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. Foster. Certainly. And thank you. Let's see.
Mr. Weiss, these aluminum-cerium alloys, is there a
compromise in the machineability or are the advantages all in
casting? Is there any downside to these?
Mr. Weiss. No. There is not a machineability issue with the
alloy, the machine, just as other aluminum alloys do. The one
downside that we are working on currently is in improving the
ductility of those alloys for high toughness type of
applications.
Mr. Foster. And you mentioned that you have a scheme in R&D
for the direct reduction of the cerium carbonates.
Mr. Weiss. Correct.
Mr. Foster. Can you say little bit about it?
Mr. Weiss. Yes. And we've done this on a laboratory scale.
What we do is we inject the carbonates into the liquid alloy
under the surface. The speed of reaction----
Mr. Foster. This is during the refining of the aluminum
integrated into the----
Mr. Weiss. Once we melt the aluminum at least--so we start
with a batch of pure aluminum. We introduce the carbonate under
the surface of that melt. The kinetics are such that it pretty
much instantaneously changes to metallic cerium. And then the
aluminum cerium then are metallic. And then based upon the
reduction chemistry, we're left with aluminum oxide, which is
not a good thing, and then we remove the aluminum oxide without
removing the cerium.
Mr. Foster. OK. All right. And so you still ultimately have
to get the energy in to reduce it.
Mr. Weiss. Correct.
Mr. Foster. OK. All right.
Mr. Weiss. Correct.
Mr. Foster. Yes, it sounded like you had some magic around
that, but it's basically a simplification of the process.
Mr. Weiss. It's a simplification of the process.
Mr. Foster. Right.
Mr. Weiss. It does not require, therefore the way we do
things now which is to buy metallic cerium and alloy it in.
Mr. Foster. Right. Now, do you find that our patent system
is serving you well? You know, you're developing all this neat
technology and of course the obvious worry is you'll develop it
all, get it going, and then find that China has looked online
at all of your publications and set up a big factory that you
can't compete with?
Mr. Weiss. I guess it's always a concern.
Mr. Foster. Yes. And this is something I struggle with all
the time.
Mr. Weiss. Right.
Mr. Foster. You know, that we developed all this great
technology, and then because of labor costs or environmental
costs or some little advantage, all of the real benefit comes
not only in the making of the original chemicals but the value-
added chain for permanent magnets and so on that have
strategically been--so, you know, I think ultimately we have to
find some way to gently interfere with the workings of the free
market here, that the free market has applied--has--you know,
the free market has said, OK, the low-cost worldwide producer
of, you know, rare-earth magnets is a place where they don't
have environmental regulations and they have low cost of labor.
And they can, you know, go on the internet and pull all the
intellectual property over for zero cost.
And so under those circumstances we cannot sustain a large
class of industries unless we interfere strategically with the
workings of the free market. Is there any way around that logic
that you're aware of? Do we have to, you know, either subsidize
or put quotas on imports or something like that to preserve
these industries?
Mr. Weiss. From my perspective the most important part is
the research side of it. I mean, as a company that strives to
make money, we have to deal with the problem all of the time.
And so we have done things like automate our operations and
find less-expensive ways to do things. And from the standpoint
of this direct reduction, we're looking at the next step is can
we automate that process to make it as inexpensive as possible
so we are relatively unassailable from the international part.
Mr. Foster. Yes, but then you depend on the protection of
that intellectual property to work which is another ongoing
challenge.
I'd like to change the subject a little bit. I'm really
impressed at the wonderful things you're doing in materials
science. How is the situation in recruiting the next generation
of materials scientists? Do they all want to go and do, you
know, machine-learning AI stuff, or do they want to, I guess a
generation ago they went into finance. Are you having better
luck that way? Do young kids understand the magic of what
you're doing and how it can change the world? Dr. Hayes?
Dr. Hayes. I would say absolutely. In my line of work I'm a
spectroscopist, but I'm surrounded by so many young people that
are just chomping at the bit to get into these problems in part
to solve issues related to the environment, to climate change
and the like. And so the development of new materials is driven
by a large sort of----
Mr. Foster. And what fraction of the graduate students that
you all work with are foreigners that we're going to send home
when they get their Ph.D.s?
Dr. Hayes. In my program, 50 percent.
Mr. Foster. Fifty percent is a typical number?
Mr. Weiss. Yes, that's typical.
Dr. Schwartz. Yes.
Dr. Hayes. Yes.
Mr. Foster. And so I have introduced legislation to try to
fix that. And I look forward to your support. Well, thanks so
much, and I yield back.
Chairman Lamb. I recognize Mr. Weber for 5 minutes.
Mr. Weber. Thank you. Are we going to be able to have a
third round do you think? Man, where do we start? Quantum
computing--well, let me back up because I'm on the hill of what
Bill was saying. I'm really interested in that, especially when
he was talking about gently doing something to the free market.
So I want to go to you, Mr. Weiss. If you can tell us,
what's the source of most of your aluminum?
Mr. Weiss. Canada.
Mr. Weber. Canada?
Mr. Weiss. Canada, yes.
Because we deal so much in military products, we are
actually restricted from buying aluminum from some sources.
Mr. Weber. OK.
Mr. Weiss. But nonetheless, we've always bought from Canada
and probably if we were doing commercial products, we'd buy it
from Canada.
Mr. Weber. OK. Well, that's good to hear. We're hoping to
get the USMCA (United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement) done,
just FYI, so I thought I'd get that plug in there.
I want to switch to quantum computing because, you know,
last year we passed that H.R. 6227, National Quantum Initiative
Act about quantum computing. Are each of you using any of
that--maybe not you, Mr. Weiss. I don't know. But are you all
finding that useful? And what percentage and tell us how that
works for you.
Dr. Schwartz. So the legislation I believe is useful from a
national laboratory perspective. That is providing instructions
and guidance to the national labs, to universities that says
the United States thinks that this is a very important
direction to pursue. Through the Department of Energy, there
have been a number of funding opportunity announcements, a
recent one on quantum information sciences. Ames Laboratory won
one of those awards on developing new algorithms and codes to
work on quantum computers. There is the Energy Frontier
Research Center program through basic energy sciences within
the Office of Science, Ames Laboratory, and many others
recently won a New Center Award to develop topological
semimetals which have the potential to contribute to quantum
information science.
Mr. Weber. So you're not there yet, but you see it coming?
Dr. Schwartz. So there are quantum computers out there.
Ames Laboratory does not have one. You can purchase a quantum
computer I think through a company in the State of Washington.
A number of labs do have those existing quantum computers where
they are trying to further develop the capabilities.
Mr. Weber. OK. And do any of you all--and this could be for
you, too, Mr. Chairman and you, too, Bill. It seems like a week
ago in the news that China cut off exports to Japan of a rare-
earth mineral or essential element. Did anybody pick that up in
the news? Does that make sense?
Mr. Foster. Yes, back in roughly 2010 China cut back the
rare-earths for magnet purposes to Japan as some--I can't
remember what they were fighting about, but it was----
Mr. Weber. Yes, I was thinking like in the last week of
news I saw it come across my Apple watch of all things.
Mr. Foster. Well, it's a threat there that's all the time.
Mr. Weber. What, my watch or the trade thing?
Mr. Foster. No----
Mr. Weber. Yes.
Mr. Foster. No, the Chinese threat. They have the----
Mr. Weber. Well, I got you.
Mr. Foster [continuing]. Japanese by the throat here.
Mr. Weber. OK. Well, I don't know if you all were paying
attention or saw that.
So here's an interesting thought. In your discussion, Dr.
Hayes, with Mr. Baird earlier, you talked about using liquid
helium and stuff like in some of the high heat areas, so I'm
thinking how about waste heat recovery in those applications?
Has any thought been given to that?
Dr. Hayes. To the best of my knowledge I do not know of
that aspect being capitalized.
Mr. Weber. No? Anybody else?
Mr. Weiss. I will point out that in the production of
aluminum-cerium alloys, which is my thing, that the formation
of the intermetallic is exothermic, and therefore, the total
heat content per pound of aluminum melted is lower in the
aluminum-cerium alloy.
Mr. Weber. In some of Dr. Schwartz's testimony, he said
that CMI researchers discovered a way to reduce the processing
temperatures from 3,100 degrees centigrade to 800 degrees
centigrade through electrolysis in a molten salt. Do you know
what those correspond to in Fahrenheit, 3,100 centigrade?
Dr. Schwartz. Let me get back to you on that one.
Mr. Weber. OK. You're supposed to know these numbers right
off the top of your head, no heat from this end, pun intended.
Dr. Schwartz. That's a National Energy Technology's
Laboratory work----
Mr. Weber. OK.
Dr. Schwartz [continuing]. That I'm less familiar with.
Mr. Weber. So in those applications there would be some
possibility of getting waste heat recovery?
Dr. Schwartz. I suspect the answer is yes.
Mr. Weber. OK.
Dr. Schwartz. Department of Energy colleagues of mine have
been discussing how to take advantage of waste heat for the
last few years.
Mr. Weber. Right.
Dr. Schwartz. And I believe there are relatively small
programs funded through DOE, but this is an area that is ripe
for additional research. If you look at those Sankey diagrams
that show where energy is going, a tremendous amount is going
to waste heat. And there are opportunities to do something with
that, whether it's create electricity or just put it back into
the process for metalworking, for example.
Mr. Weber. Right. Well, I would suspect that the latter of
those two would be the more friendly for what you're doing as
opposed to try to put it to the grid. But anyway, these things
just fascinate me. So I'm over my time, Mr. Chairman. I
appreciate that. I yield back.
Chairman Lamb. I recognize Ms. Stevens for 5 minutes.
Ms. Stevens. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Dr. Hayes, can you talk about the ways in which you work
with Federal agencies and which agencies you work with in your
helium recycling and storage efforts?
Dr. Hayes. So the National Science Foundation is the major
one of course. I am also funded by the Department of Energy, so
they are concerned about these aspects. And then at times I've
been fortunate to be invited to a helium users meeting here in
D.C., and that involved the Defense Logistics Agency showing up
and discussing. So I would say those are the three primary
ones.
Ms. Stevens. And I know you talked about this in your
testimony. NSF is a funder of yours. And do you know through
what programmatic division NSF funds you?
Dr. Hayes. Yes. So math and physical sciences and
specifically the Division of Materials Research and also a
couple of other ones.
Ms. Stevens. Yes. And do you know the average annual
allocation of award that you're getting from NSF? And how
strict are their boundaries for which they're funding you on?
Dr. Hayes. So a typical grant amount is a 3-year grant, and
the target amount is on the order of $360,000, so $120,000 per
year in this program within the Division of Materials Research.
Ms. Stevens. And so none of that goes toward labor costs?
Dr. Hayes. Some goes toward labor, absolutely. No, graduate
student labor and maybe a little bit of summer salary in my
case.
Ms. Stevens. So no one's getting rich off of that.
Dr. Hayes. Oh, no.
Ms. Stevens [continuing]. And so they're primarily funding
you for the research side of the efforts but nothing for
commercial application as--along with DOE, nothing for
commercial application?
Dr. Hayes. There are two programs that I've participated
in. One is the Energy Frontiers Research Center, as well as the
CCI, Centers for Chemical Innovation through National Science
Foundation. Both have had strong emphases encouraging us to go
into commercial directions. So there are small business
partnerships that are nucleated and sort of grow out of those
large team assemblies. But as an individual researcher, it is
extremely hard on academic timescales to partner with industry.
We'd like to, but it's difficult.
Ms. Stevens. Which we have respect for that. Doctor, the
remaining two of you that I know are, you know, directly tied
into Federal research endeavors, do you mind just talking a
little bit about your work with NSF? I know, Dr. Schwartz, you
mentioned NSF in your testimony as well.
Dr. Schwartz. As a Department of Energy national
laboratory, we get zero funding through National Science
Foundation.
Ms. Stevens. Zero.
Dr. Schwartz. Zero funding. And it's good. We're a
Department of Energy national laboratory. One advantage that
Ames Laboratory has is we sit on the campus of Iowa State
University, the only lab that actually sits on a campus. And
many of our joint researchers are joint faculty members, and
they develop understanding, expertise, students, and postdocs
through NSF, and sometimes that work is very relevant to the
more mission-oriented Department of Energy research.
Ms. Stevens. Yes. And you're able to have access to it,
which is great. Yes.
Dr. Schwartz. Very important, yes.
Ms. Stevens. Yes. Thank you.
Dr. Handwerker. So I've worked extensively with National
Science Foundation. I've been at Purdue for 14 years. I've had
major interdisciplinary programs in sustainable electronics,
which thankfully I've been able to keep up those contacts in
sustainable electronics, who are also part of hard disk drives,
so we could bring some of these key contacts not only in
educating our students, but also in connecting the technologies
that they're developing, the science they're doing in actual
practice.
So in one program that ended recently we had 30 2-year or
3-year fellows, all U.S. citizens, who got their Ph.D.s working
in this program. So, yes, we work extensively with that.
The other thing is that in action number six of the
strategic plan, the President's strategic plan for critical
materials, it is specifically focused on workforce development.
So I've been talking and others at CMI have been talking with
people at NSF who were in charge of this workforce development
piece to see how we can actually expand the reach for critical
materials, mining, recycling, substitution into NSF.
Ms. Stevens. Right. Well, Dr. Handwerker, we also want to
commend you for your educational background, including a
bachelor of arts in art history. And now a Ph.D., you know,
scientist and you're also working with NIST as well.
Dr. Handwerker. And I'm also working with NIST very
closely.
Ms. Stevens. What our Chairman might know is that on the
Subcommittee, which I chair, on Research and Technology, which
has oversight of NSF and NIST, we are glad to be good funders
of the, you know, rare-earth materials and materials work that
all of you are doing and want to make sure that that makes its
way into future legislation and that competitiveness and
productivity and jobs are at the forefront. So thank you all so
much. I'm over my time, but this was obviously a good one. I
yield back, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Lamb. Thanks. Dr. Baird for 5 minutes.
Mr. Baird. Thank you, Mr. Chair. And this round of
questions is going to go to all the witnesses, but this is
going to be a ladies-first round, but I want to know what
policies that Congress, the Department of Energy, and other
relevant Federal agencies might do to encourage industry-led
research and development efforts in critical materials research
and so on?
But before we do that, Dr. Hayes, I noticed in your
testimony that this is the International Year of the Periodic
Table. Is that 2018 or 2019?
Dr. Hayes. 2019.
Mr. Baird. I noticed that helium was the second element on
that, and then you also mentioned that it's very, very small
and it can escape anything. Helium can escape anything. So I
was wondering if we're doing any research on some kind of
container. I'm just kidding you. Back on the question of what
policies could Congress and Department of Energy and so on,
other Federal agencies do to encourage industrywide research
and development? So, Dr. Hayes.
Dr. Hayes. I would start by saying basic research funding
has been a challenge over the time of my career. And, you know,
I think we need to see increases in that basic research funding
and also encourage ties to industry and finding mechanisms to
do so. Three-year grant cycles make it difficult to achieve
those things.
I might highlight tied to supply chain issues, this is
maybe outside the purview of this Committee, but just to
highlight that the strategic helium reserve that is being
privatized in 2021, here we have an abundant source of helium,
one of the top three producers worldwide. You mentioned a
container. That is one of the only containers for helium. It
keeps it underground, yet we're about to sell it off to a
private company that may belong to a foreign entity. And so
even though that's outside this Committee's purview, I think
that that's something to keep in mind.
So what can Congress do? Maybe keep the container, keep our
production capacity of something that we are a leader
worldwide. So I'll let others respond with that.
Dr. Handwerker. So another important part of research and
moving it actually to commercialization and creation of a
supply chain is that it goes from research to development and
demonstration. And what we've found in many cases is that we're
not serving our country well by throwing the technology, the
science over the wall and expecting then industry just to be
able to take it forward without additional scientific help as
they move forward at the development and demonstration stage.
So I think that could be one important policy emphasis in
making sure that we maintain those connections during the
commercialization stage because in this technology readiness
level (TRL), 1 through 4 is the early stage research. To get to
commercialization, you've got 5 through 9, and that is where
that valley of death happens. And the valley of death happens
frequently because something wasn't determined in the early
research stage. But if they had access to that research
capability, then they could overcome it.
Mr. Baird. Thank you. Dr. Schwartz?
Dr. Schwartz. So there are big companies, very large
companies that do fund critical materials research. CMI
partners with a number of them. Ames Laboratory partners with a
few others. And I know that there is significant investment by
some of our largest companies in critical materials and other
research. Small companies don't have the resources to do that.
They simply can't afford. Those small companies often have
access to small business incentive programs for jointly funded
research.
I think that if there are ways to incentivize U.S. industry
to come forward and say these are what the biggest scientific
challenges are going out 5 years or 10 years, that would be the
areas that universities and national laboratories could have a
big, big impact on.
In terms of specific research, in terms of a specific
hurdle in order to become profitable or to make a larger impact
on the global supply chain, I'm sure policies could be put in
place that would--it's something that Representative Foster
maybe alluded to--are there ways that Congress or the United
States could make U.S. companies more competitive in the
international market.
Mr. Baird. Thank you. And, Mr. Chairman, could I have Mr.
Weiss comment?
Chairman Lamb. Yes.
Mr. Weiss. Yes, I think it's important to emphasize what
Dr. Handwerker said about the industrial collaboration. We
see--TRL levels are supposed always go up over time as research
continues. That's not always the case. You sometimes get it up
to a 7, and then you miss a critical piece and you fall back
down that chain again. And so at least there is a role for some
research in the later stages of development and
commercialization, and I think that's very important.
The other comment that I have is the way that the CMI
system is set up. It's a bit of a dream team because there are
people at the academic institutions and at the national labs
that understand some fundamental business economics. So when we
have our weekly calls on our program and someone suggests
something and I say you can't do that because it's going to
cost you $2 a pound, there's an understanding that even though
it's a great idea, it's never going to go anywhere. And so we
cut off those dead ends very, very quickly by having a very
close relationship between the researchers and, in this case,
ourselves. Thanks.
Chairman Lamb. Before we bring the hearing to a close, I
want to thank our witnesses once more for coming all the way to
D.C. to testify for us today. The record will remain open for 2
weeks for additional statements from the Members and for any
additional questions the Committee may ask of the witnesses.
The witnesses are now excused, and the hearing is now
adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 11:54 a.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.]
Appendix
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Additional Material for the Record
Letter submitted by Representative Haley Stevens
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