On August 9-10, 2023, the Thomas J. O’Keefe Institute for Sustainable Supply of Strategic Minerals at Missouri University of Science and Technology (Missouri S&T) hosted the third annual workshop on ‘Resilient Supply of Critical Minerals’. The workshop was funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and was attended by 218 participants. 128 participants attended in-person in the Havener Center on the Missouri S&T campus in Rolla, Missouri, USA. Another 90 participants attended online via Zoom. Fourteen participants (including nine students) received travel support through the NSF grant to attend the conference in Rolla. Additionally, the online participation fee was waived for another six students and early career researchers to attend the workshop virtually.
Out of the 218 participants, 190 stated their sectors of employment during registration showing that 87 participants were from academia (32 students), 62 from the private sector and 41 from government agencies. Four topical sessions were covered:
A. The Critical Mineral Potential of the USA: Evaluation of existing, and exploration for new resources.
B. Mineral Processing and Recycling: Maximizing critical mineral recovery from existing production streams.
C. Critical Mineral Policies: Toward effective and responsible governance.
D. Resource Sustainability: Ethical and environmentally sustainable supply of critical minerals.
Each topical session was composed of two keynote lectures and complemented by oral and poster presentations by the workshop participants. Additionally, a panel discussion with panelists from academia, the private sector and government agencies was held that discussed ‘How to grow the American critical minerals workforce’. The 2023 workshop was followed by a post-workshop field trip to the lead-zinc mining operations of the Doe Run Company in southeast Missouri that was attended by 18 workshop participants from academia (n=10; including 4 students), the private sector (n=4), and government institutions (n=4).
Discussions during the workshop led to the following suggestions to increase the domestic supply of critical minerals:
(i) Research to better understand the geologic critical mineral potential of the USA, including primary reserves/resources, historic mine wastes, and mineral exploration potential.
(ii) Development of novel extraction techniques targeted at the recovery of critical minerals as co-products from existing production streams, mine waste materials, and recyclables.
(iii) Faster and more transparent permitting processes for mining and mineral processing operations.
(iv) A more environmentally sustainable and ethical approach to mining and mineral processing.
(v) Development of a highly skilled critical minerals workforce.
This workshop report provides a detailed summary of the workshop discussions and describes a way forward for this workshop series for 2024 and beyond.
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Workshop Report: Rethinking NSF’s Computational Ecosystem for 21st Century Science and Engineering
This report summarizes the discussions from a workshop convened at NSF on May 30-31, 2018 in Alexandria, VA. The overarching objective of the workshop was to rethink the nature and composition of the NSF-supported computational ecosystem given changing application requirements and resources and technology landscapes. The workshop included roughly 50 participants, drawn from high-performance computing (HPC) centers, campus computing facilities, cloud service providers (academic and commercial), and distributed resource providers. Participants spanned both large research institutions
and smaller universities.
Organized by Daniel Reed (University of Utah, chair), David Lifka (Cornell University), David Swanson (University of Nebraska), Rommie Amaro (UCSD), and Nancy Wilkins-Diehr (UCSD/SDSC), the workshop was motivated by the following observations. First, there have been dramatic changes in the number and nature of applications using NSF-funded resources, as well as their resource needs. As a result, there are new demands on the type (e.g., data centric) and location (e.g., close to the data or the users) of the resources as well as new usage modes (e.g., on-demand and elastic). Second, there have been dramatic changes in the landscape of technologies, resources, and delivery mechanisms, spanning large scientific instruments, ubiquitous sensors, and cloud services, among others.
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- Award ID(s):
- 1836997
- PAR ID:
- 10384269
- Editor(s):
- Reed, Daniel A.; Lifka, David; Swanson, David; Amaro, Rommie; Wilkins-Diehr, Nancy
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- NSF Workshop Reports
- ISSN:
- 9999-999X
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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