Ann: ARR Teams up for Defense Rare Earths R&D Processing, page-15

ARR is working on the front end while the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory is working on the back end with funding from DARPA under the EMBER program. There are three funding phases with the final phase culminating in an aggressive pilot-scale REE biomining demonstration. The use of the term aggressive gives some sense of the urgency and significance of the EMBER program to DARPA and by extension to the military industrial complex in the US.

There is no guarantee that the EMBER program will result in positive outcomes but if it does it could revolutionise and in turn facilitate the expansion of applications utilising rare earths. Its not easy being green in the rare earth space but EMBER will give it a red hot go.

Returning to the subject of the aggressive phase 3 stage, its interesting to ask the question where would they build the pilot plant. According to the Green Car Congress website, its anticipated that the pilot scale demo will need to be co-located with the REE source material site.