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Exciting News!
Pacific Soda is developing a new trona mine in the Green River Basin.
Here!
Our operation will implement proven solution* mining technology
to access deep high-grade, high quality trona beds.
Here are 10 game changing facts
about solution mining technology.
Safe for People.
Solution mining is a safe, proven technology that has been used for decades to extract minerals from the earth. It is used to mine salt, potash, lithium, and other minerals around the world.
It consciously manages
water resources.
In Wyoming’s arid climate, water is a precious commodity. The limited quantity of water needed for solution mining is largely recirculated. Needed amounts can be sourced locally from the Green River without affecting flow, and it can be treated and reused multiple times.
It’s minimally disruptive to land.
Since solution mining targets the preferred minerals for soda ash production, undesirable minerals remain underground, significantly reducing the volume of low-level wastes that require surface management. This decreases the footprint of the processing plant, as well as the mine’s overall disturbance.
It leaves unnecessary
materials underground.
Solution mining’s efficient and selective process leaves undesirable materials underground; it doesn’t bring waste to the surface where it would need to be stored.
It consumes less energy.
Compared to traditional mining, solution mining consumes less energy by almost 25%.
It’s safe for wildlife.
Thanks to minimal surface disruption and inert processes, native wildlife can continue to migrate, nest, hunt, feed and reproduce near the premises of a solution mine with little to no risk of sustaining injuries or being exposed to unsafe materials.
It preserves underground formations.
Solution mining isn’t fracking. Pumping pressures are significantly less than the pressures used to fracture rock formations and no hydraulic breakage of rock occurs in this process. Instead, trona which occurs in large deposits and dissolves in hot water, is selectively dissolved from targeted trona beds. Due the natural characteristics of trona beds there are no faults and fractures; solution is confined within targeted beds and not released into surrounding formations. Once the mineral-laden solution is at the surface, soda ash is recovered via simple straightforward evaporation.
It’s a better steward of the
natural resource.
Solution mining makes it possible to access trona deposits that are much deeper and of higher quality than those that can be mined using traditional methods.
It’s the lowest-cost option.
Soda ash is produced by three methods: synthetic (chemical reaction process); conventional mining (calcining and processing); and solution mining and evaporation. Solution mining is the lowest-cost alternative—yielding a desirable, high-demand global commodity—and creating a robust operation here in Wyoming that assures strong futures for employees, customers and local communities.
It can secure a stable, sustainable
revenue stream for Wyoming.
Trona is one of the world’s most abundant natural resources, and it’s been used to make essential, everyday products—like glass, detergents, baked goods, medicines, paper and textiles—for more than 5,000 years. It’s not a fossil fuel and is not subject to the boom-and-bust economics of coal, oil and gas. Although Wyoming holds 90% of the world’s trona resources, we currently only represent 20% of the global market share. And with the trona industry already contributing approximately $100 million annually in state taxes and royalties, the state and its residents stand to benefit from strengthening our market position.
