Faith Bannister | WVOW News
MULLENS West Virginia Governor Jim Justice announced Thursday a new economic development plan extracting rare earth metals Wyoming County on Thursday, November 17.
The Council on Aging hosted the Governor and Omnis Building Technologies in Mullens to introduced a new environmentally conscious, technologic process to extract materials from coal impoundments.
Omnis Building Technologies is a privately held, wholesale building materials company that specializes in economical and sustainable housing.
There are 46 metals required to construct an iPhone and those metals can all be found in the Mountain State; however, the process currently used to extract those materials is incredibly harmful to the environment. Omnis claims to have developed a method of extracting rare metals with no residue, and the company is investing $60 million in development of a facility in Wyoming County.
Governor Justice expressed his excitement for the program
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“If this man has the answer, he has the answer on something that would absolutely revolutionize the entire world. And would put it right at our doorstep. Right here…Y’know for us to sit and think that in Mullins, West Virginia or in Bud, West Virginia that he (himself) is sitting getting ready to introduce a man that may have the technology to do something environmentally, almost pristine, beyond all comprehension – to do something with what we have already done… to produce the coal that we’ve produced and the waste – the waste bears these rare earth metals”
Omnis President Simon Hobson spoke on the what the company has developed.
“This is where the rare earth metals, the strategic metals, will come from that will change our society. That will give us the next generation of prosperity, the next generation of peace, and we can do it in a way that will care for the environment…and we can take these materials turn it into these special metals.”
Earlier this year, Omnis announced the construction of a forty-million-dollar manufacturing facility in Bluefield and broke ground in March.
The announcement by Omnis follows state legislation passed this year with incentive to clean up mine ponds expressly for development of industry.