Poland does not have rare earth elements, but researchers believe that the key to the green transition may lie in coal waste heaps and their untapped potential.
by Adam Radoliński (Focus Europe)
This article is a translation of a Polish text published by the Focus Europe portal.
Poland has no documented deposits of rare earth elements. What it does have, however, is something with the potential to become just as valuable: millions of tonnes of mining waste heaps, coal rich in critical raw materials, and a scientific community convinced that the waste of the past holds the key to the economy of the future. The question is whether the state can take advantage of this before Poland falls behind in the global race for these strategic resources.
National Exploration Programme
According to Poland’s Ministry of Climate and Environment, the key initiative is a draft law designed to secure the country’s strategic access to domestic mineral resources, including critical raw materials. The new legislation will establish a stable national framework for implementing the EU Critical Raw Materials Act (CRMA), covering strategic projects, market monitoring, reporting and coordination obligations.
At the institutional level, Poland has already approved a National Programme for the Exploration of Critical Mineral Resources, coordinated by the Polish Geological Institute. With a budget of PLN 180 million (around €42 million), the project is scheduled to run until 2032.
The initiative divides national priorities into three categories. Platinum group metals, copper and helium are classified in the first category, while rare earth elements fall into the third, which covers materials with limited domestic potential.
A comparison of funding highlights the gap within the European research landscape. A similar programme in Spain operates with a budget of more than €180 million—over four times Poland’s funding. For this reason, Prime Minister Donald Tusk established the State Raw Materials Policy Team on 31 March 2026. Its task is to update the current strategy and launch discussions on new financial support mechanisms for raw material projects.
Poland on the Margins of European Raw Materials Policy
The geological assessment is essentially the same across all four Visegrád countries: none has documented deposits of rare earth elements. Although Czechia and Hungary possess coal waste heaps from mining activities, occurrences of these elements in igneous rocks, carbonatites or alkaline complexes remain isolated and insignificant throughout the region.
Dr Łukasz Kruszewski of the Institute of Geological Sciences at the Polish Academy of Sciences considers them little more than mineralogical curiosities of scientific interest, unlikely to lead to anything economically significant. Under these circumstances, regional cooperation appears indispensable.
For observers focused on the energy transition, it may come as a surprise that Poland’s greatest domestic potential for critical raw materials lies in coal—the very resource often seen as incompatible with green energy.
Dr Kruszewski explains that coal holds considerable potential not only for rare earth elements, but also for germanium, antimony and caesium. While this may sound paradoxical, countries such as China and Russia have long been extracting these materials from coal-related resources.
This potential extends not only to coal itself but also to shale, the rock that accompanies coal seams and is typically discarded in waste heaps. Kruszewski argues that public debate often presents a black-and-white picture, viewing coal either as something that must be abandoned as quickly as possible or solely as a fuel.
Nature, however, is far more complex. Coal can be burned, but it can also serve as a source of elements essential for modern technologies. One example is dysprosium, a rare earth element used in the magnets found in wind turbines.
He points in particular to the Lublin region and the Upper Silesian Coal Basin. Coal from Lublin contains germanium, often accompanied by gallium—both classified as critical raw materials because of their role in semiconductor production. Another promising area is the Tajno massif, which has not yet been fully explored but is believed to contain rare earth minerals.
Further opportunities exist in Lower Silesia, where polymetallic copper deposits near Legnica contain locally enriched black shales. Kruszewski also highlights the former uranium mining area around Kowary, where studies have found significant concentrations of rare earth elements, especially yttrium.
Waste Heaps Are an Untapped Treasure
Mining waste heaps scattered across Upper Silesia and other mining regions are among the most controversial features of Poland’s industrial landscape. Some local communities even regard them as regional landmarks, such as the famous Szarlota heap in the town of Rydułtowy.
From the perspective of raw materials strategy, however, these sites represent a largely untapped treasure. Kruszewski notes that excavating or removing waste heaps presents considerable challenges, as disturbing the material generates dust and carries a risk of spontaneous combustion. Nevertheless, he estimates that only around half a percent of the more than 200 existing heaps pose a genuine fire hazard.
Kruszewski was a member of the Remining working group under the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT), which focuses on recycling mining waste. He explains that properly assessing the economic potential of a waste heap requires analysing not 10 or 20 samples, but 200, 400 or even 500. Even so, the costs of such studies remain surprisingly low.
He acknowledges, however, that previous attempts to cooperate with the mining industry failed because mining companies showed little interest in such projects. As a result, the Polish Geological Institute has taken the lead in carrying out systematic research. Its current project aims to identify various mineral resources contained in waste heaps across Poland. According to Kruszewski, the focus extends beyond coal waste, and similar studies have been undertaken in the past.
Technically Feasible, but Costly
Kruszewski supports his argument that extracting raw materials from mining waste is feasible by pointing to an example from the United States. During mine reclamation planning in Virginia, a team led by Paul Ziemkiewicz discovered elevated concentrations of cobalt and rare earth elements. At the time, however, there was no economically viable technology to recover them. It took researchers two years to develop a commercially feasible extraction process.
According to Kruszewski, stakeholders need to abandon the assumption that low concentrations automatically make extraction uneconomic. A low concentration in the rock does not necessarily mean a small overall volume. Some Polish waste heaps contain tens of millions of tonnes of material, making them substantial deposits in absolute terms. Moreover, technological progress continues to lower the threshold for profitable extraction.
For extraction itself, he proposes adapting heap leaching techniques already used in gold mining. Suitable solutions could be flushed through the piled material, allowing target elements to be recovered while leaving the heap largely intact. Kruszewski stresses that rare earth metals bind strongly to carbonate ions, opening the door to far more environmentally friendly methods than those used in gold mining, which have often involved cyanide and caused environmental disasters, including in Romania.
Another promising, though still unproven, approach is bioleaching using microorganisms. Researchers at the Faculty of Biology of the University of Warsaw have already identified bacterial strains capable of efficiently concentrating uranium—another valuable metal found in waste heaps, although not yet classified as a critical raw material.
Recycling as a Strategic Priority
Kruszewski believes recycling should become Poland’s top strategic priority in the field of rare earth elements. The EU Battery Regulation adopted in 2023 requires lithium and cobalt recycling rates of between 50 and 95 percent by 2031, depending on the material, making new recycling infrastructure inevitable. Magnets recovered from wind turbines are expected to become one of the most important secondary sources of raw materials.
Many turbines installed during the early expansion of Europe’s wind energy sector are approaching the end of their service life and will soon be dismantled, allowing their magnets to be recovered and reused.
Discarded electronic devices could provide another important source of secondary raw materials. A particularly significant project is the planned rare earth processing plant in Puławy, where Grupo MKANGO, together with the Polish chemical company Grupa Azoty, intends to build a processing facility. The Polish government has already designated the project as strategic, with implementation planned for 2027–2028.
Kruszewski nevertheless points to the continuing disconnect between scientific research and government decision-making. He says he has never encountered direct government involvement in research projects. The only consistent activities he is aware of are those carried out by the Polish Geological Institute, with which he partly collaborates.
The Ministry of Climate and Environment responds that Poland actively participates in the work of the European Critical Raw Materials Board (CRM Board) and is implementing the mechanisms established under the CRMA. According to the ministry, the key instrument is the Raw Materials Mechanism platform under the RESourceEU initiative, which aims to match demand for permanent magnets and lithium.
The ministry also stresses that this mechanism should not be confused with joint procurement in the strict sense, as it is not organised by the European Commission. Rather, it functions as a flexible platform for aggregating demand and connecting market participants across strategic value chains.
