Life cycle inventory data for critical mineral mining: Recommendations and new U.S. data compendium

Abstract

Production and pollution data and information for United States critical mineral mines are heavily fragmented across numerous databases and sources, such as government emissions reports and company documents. These disintegrated data complicate fair and consistent analyses and community understanding of mine operations and their impacts. We aggregated location, production, and emissions data for 19 active critical mineral mines in the United States and developed an interactive data compendium map and data set. We also calculate the ecotoxicity, human health cancer, and human health non-cancer life-cycle impacts of the emissions from these mines. Further, we analyze the proximity of these mines to disadvantaged community tracts identified by the Justice40 initiative. All mines are within 29 miles of a disadvantaged tract. Furthermore, we define a methodology to develop probability distribution functions for mining pollution data to support robust mining life cycle inventory data. We also discuss next steps to expand the data compendium to additional critical minerals and other countries like Australia and Chile.