The United States Department of Energy says the country needs roughly 6,000 new mining engineers over the next decade, and officials chose a rare earth processing plant in Exeter, New Hampshire, to make that case. The facility, run by Phoenix Tailings, has become a focal point in a broader federal campaign to rebuild a domestic workforce capable of mining, processing and recycling the critical minerals used in everything from electric vehicles to missiles.
As reported by the New Hampshire Bulletin, Audrey Robertson, assistant secretary of the U.S. Department of Energy, said the labor gap is on full display in Exeter itself. “This is where the workforce is needed,” she said, framing the town as proof of the problem she’s trying to solve. Robertson also described mining jobs as well-paid work that’s resistant to disruption from artificial intelligence, and called on New England universities to expand their degree offerings in mining-related fields — even though, per the Bulletin’s reporting, no New England university currently has a mining program that qualifies for federal workforce awards.
Phoenix Tailings, which is based in Massachusetts and operates locations in Burlington, Woburn and Exeter, is one of a limited number of domestic companies refining rare earth metals on U.S. soil. The company’s Exeter facility can process 200 metric tons of rare earth metals annually, and Phoenix Tailings plans an expansion that could more than double that output, according to the Bulletin. New Hampshire Public Radio reported in October 2025 that the plant was producing neodymium-praseodymium and dysprosium-iron alloy, with ambitions to scale beyond 1,000 tons a year.
A Supply Chain Built on a Handful of Plants
Rare earth elements are a group of 17 metals that are, somewhat counterintuitively, relatively common in the Earth’s crust but notoriously difficult to isolate because of their chemical similarities, according to the International Energy Agency. They’re essential to manufacturing electric vehicles, missiles, MRI machines and computer chips, the Bulletin reports, which is part of why the federal government is treating refining capacity as a national security concern. The International Energy Agency found that China produced 91% of the world’s refined magnet rare earth output in 2024, and demand for those magnet materials has already doubled since 2015 and is projected to grow another third by 2030.
Phoenix Tailings CEO Nick Myers has put an even sharper point on the imbalance, telling New Hampshire Public Radio in July 2025 that virtually all heavy rare earth metals are produced in China. The company has drawn investment from Yamaha and BMW, the station reported, and its Exeter plant is explicitly pitched as an onshore alternative to refining capacity that has been almost exclusively controlled by China. Even with new entrants like Phoenix Tailings and MP Materials — with about 3,000 tons of annual capacity at its existing facility and a 7,000-ton figure for 10X, totaling 10,000 tons — the IEA projects that capacity outside China will meet only about 25% of refining demand for magnet rare earths by 2035.
Rare earth mining and refinement also carry environmental costs, with the Bulletin noting the industry’s history of environmental destruction and toxic waste. New Hampshire regulators have already weighed in on at least one piece of Phoenix Tailings’ Exeter operation: the New Hampshire Department of Environmental Services issued the company a state permit for an emergency generator.
Why Colleges Haven't Caught Up
The shortage Robertson described isn’t limited to New England: the Department of Energy estimates that the United States needs about 6,000 new mining-sector engineers over the next decade.
Robertson summed up the stakes bluntly, according to the Bulletin: “We need to innovate, quickly, across the supply chain, and then we need to have students who are educated in the way that those companies need, to continue to grow — and we don’t have enough of either.” She has also said the U.S. supply chain is 100% reliant on foreign adversaries for these materials, and credited Phoenix Tailings with helping strengthen the domestic industry. President Donald Trump has separately called for increased domestic rare earth production, the Bulletin reported.
Federal Dollars Flowing to Universities
An earlier phase of federal funding sent awards to 16 universities, including Pennsylvania State University and Columbia University in New York City, according to the Bulletin. That matches a DOE program known as the PROSPECT Planning Prize, which selected 16 universities nationwide — including New Mexico Tech — to split $16 million aimed at growing the skilled workforce needed to produce, process, recover and recycle critical minerals, according to New Mexico Tech. New Mexico Tech says that prize is part of a broader $100 million DOE initiative called Providing Opportunities for Specialized Education in Critical Technologies, or PROSPECT, which aims to double the number of graduates in mining, minerals and related supply-chain fields within two years.
Penn State received a separate $1 million DOE award to build a critical-materials workforce pipeline spanning extraction, processing, metallurgy, recycling and advanced materials, according to Penn State. The university says it is building a pipeline to train workers in this sector and describes the country as facing a serious shortage of skilled workers. The DOE’s own estimate, that the U.S. needs about 6,000 new mining-sector engineers over the next decade, underpins both the Penn State and New Mexico Tech awards.
The article about Exeter’s role in this push was reported by Molly Rains for the New Hampshire Bulletin, whose beat includes energy and the environment. For now, the gap the federal government is trying to close runs straight through towns like Exeter — where a rare earth plant is scaling up production even as no New England university has a mining degree program that qualifies for federal workforce awards.
