Nine Months to Build a Data Center

A state-of-the-art AI data center can be built in nine months. A new mine takes 20 years. Teck Resources CEO Jonathan Price captured the scale of the challenge: "Demand moves in years; supply moves in decades."

That mismatch is now driving a fundamental shift in how the United States thinks about critical minerals. The Department of Energy announced $75 million this month for five pilot projects that will extract rare earth elements, germanium, gallium, and aluminum from coal and coal-based feedstocks , according to MINING.COM. One of those projects— a University of North Dakota facility at Falkirk Mine in Underwood—is one of five selected nationwide under the initiative . The bet: brownfield projects and unconventional sources can deliver critical minerals faster than greenfield mines, which often require a decade or more just to permit.

The urgency is real. UNCTAD's 2026 trade update notes that lithium demand could increase by more than 350% by 2040, while graphite demand could rise by more than 130% , according to DataM Intelligence. Meanwhile, China represented more than 90% of global rare earth processing capacity in 2024, and even as new mines open, finished materials required for applications will remain in short supply through 2026 , S&P Global reported.

Can Brownfield Projects Fill the Gap?

The most effective near-term route to increasing critical minerals production is likely to come from brownfield mining projects, given the long lead times of greenfield mining ventures , according to an analysis in Metal Tech News. Many existing mines have access to additional mineral deposits which have previously been considered uneconomic—based on the application of mining methods and technologies available at the time .

Canada is learning this lesson the hard way. Canada takes about 20 years to permit and build a mine compared with 14 years in Australia , according to S&P Global Market Intelligence data cited in PwC Canada's Mine 2026 report. Canada's lengthy mine development process is putting billions of dollars in potential critical minerals investment at risk as competing jurisdictions move projects into production years faster , the study suggests.

The coal-to-critical-minerals pivot represents a different calculus. The announcement advances the Trump Administration's efforts to strengthen the U.S. coal sector, including nearly $700 million recently announced for coal infrastructure and operations , the DOE noted. It's also a hedge: extracting value from existing industrial sites sidesteps the permitting gauntlet that has stalled traditional mining projects.

What About the Geopolitical Chessboard?

While Washington bets on coal waste, the broader critical minerals landscape is fragmenting. There has been a flurry of trade deals that exclude both Beijing and Washington, with Cullen Hendrix of the Peterson Institute noting that "because of the political risk associated with aligning with China or with the United States, there's developing this patchwork of critical minerals agreements that have nothing to do with either" country , Foreign Policy reported.

The United States signed eleven new bilateral critical minerals frameworks or MOUs in early 2026 with countries including Argentina, Ecuador, Guinea, Morocco, Peru, the Philippines, and Uzbekistan, and signed ten other frameworks in the previous five months , according to the State Department. The Export-Import Bank has issued $14.8 billion in Letters of Interest for critical minerals projects, including $455 million for rare earth development in the United States and $400 million for lithium extraction in Arkansas .

The centerpiece: Project Vault, a $10 billion Export-Import Bank direct loan crowding in private capital to launch a strategic critical minerals reserve, with a focus on refined and semi-processed materials , Time reported.

But producer countries are playing their own game. Zimbabwe implemented strict lithium concentrate export quotas, while the Democratic Republic of Congo—which produces over 70% of the world's cobalt—implemented a months-long export ban in February 2025, and Indonesia significantly reduced its 2026 nickel mining quotas . Each move is designed to capture more value domestically and reduce reliance on a single buyer—usually China.

Battery metals markets are responding. Cobalt prices have remained firm through the first four months of 2026, hovering around $25.53 per pound, with the DRC's export quotas capping hydroxide exports at roughly 96,000 tonnes for 2026 , according to the Canadian Mining Report. The raw material bill for lithium, graphite, nickel, cobalt and manganese in EV batteries sold in 2025 climbed to $15.8 billion, a nearly 13% gain, and Indonesian talk of export quotas caused a surge in nickel sulphate prices since the start of 2026 , MINING.COM reported.

What Changed This Week

The DOE's $75 million coal-to-minerals announcement signals a strategic pivot: Washington is betting that unconventional feedstocks and faster-to-deploy brownfield projects can help close the supply gap while traditional mines crawl through permitting. Producer countries, meanwhile, are asserting leverage through export quotas and processing mandates, fragmenting supply chains further. And battery metals prices—particularly cobalt and nickel—are holding firm despite broader commodity volatility, reflecting structural tightness that quotas have engineered into the market.

What to Watch

The University of North Dakota's Falkirk Mine pilot is expected to begin operations later this year—watch whether rare earth recovery from lignite proves economically viable at scale. Selections under the second DOE topic area, Mines & Metals Pilots—All Industries, will be announced at a later date . On the geopolitical front, the U.S.-EU-Japan critical minerals action plans announced in February are due for their first progress reviews this fall. And cobalt: market tightness is expected to be particularly severe in Q1 2026 since material from the DRC is unlikely to reach China during this period , according to Fastmarkets—meaning Q3 and Q4 shipment data will reveal whether the quota system is sustainable or if demand destruction begins to bite.