Arizona's energy revolution and critical minerals

Arkansas’s diverse landscape—ranging from the Mississippi Delta in the east to the Ozark and Ouachita Mountains in the west—offers a variety of natural resources that present both opportunities and challenges in the context of energy transition. The state’s population is unevenly distributed, with dense urban centres such as Little Rock, Fayetteville, and Fort Smith contrasting with sparsely populated rural areas. This disparity, coupled with ageing infrastructure and rising electricity demand, underscores the urgency of energy system modernisation. With coal plants scheduled for retirement, utilities are actively engaged in resource planning to mitigate potential shortfalls as early as 2026.

Renewable resource opportunity

Arkansas is making strides in renewable energy development, buoyed by recent federal investment. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has announced $200 million in funding for green energy projects across the state, including $93 million for the Solar for All programme and $100 million for Metroplan’s economic planning initiatives.

While Arkansas currently has only a single wind turbine, installed in 2003, the elevated terrains of the Ozark and Ouachita Mountains offer promising sites for further wind energy deployment. These less populated, wind-prone areas could help diversify the state’s renewable energy mix.

The state’s expansive and open Delta landscapes, particularly in the sun-rich southern and eastern regions, are ideal for large-scale solar energy projects. Arkansas has considerable solar potential, and strategic investment in solar farms could significantly enhance energy production efficiency. Entergy Arkansas is leading this effort, with several solar facilities set to come online, including West Memphis (180 MW), Driver (250 MW), and Walnut Bend (100 MW) in 2024, followed by Flat Fork (200 MW) and Forgeview (200 MW) in 2025. Additionally, Clearloop is partnering with Microsoft to develop up to 100 MW of solar energy projects across the state.

Biomass is also a viable renewable energy source in Arkansas. The state’s robust agricultural and forestry sectors, especially in the Delta and mountainous regions, offer ample biomass resources for bioenergy production. This provides economic benefits to rural communities while supporting the state’s clean energy goals.

Importantly, Arkansas’s renewable energy ambitions are closely linked to its critical mineral development. Lithium extracted from the Smackover Formation will be vital for battery technologies used in solar energy storage, electric vehicles, and other low-carbon technologies. Furthermore, Entergy Arkansas plans to retire its White Bluff and Independence coal plants by 2028 and 2030, respectively, in compliance with a federal consent decree. These closures mark a significant step in the transition to cleaner, more sustainable energy sources.

Critical minerals

Arkansas boasts a diverse geological profile that supports a range of critical minerals essential to modern technologies and renewable energy systems. While not yet widely recognised as a major producer of minerals like lithium or cobalt, the state holds promising reserves of several strategic resources.

Southern Arkansas’s Smackover Formation is one of North America’s richest lithium deposits. ExxonMobil has secured rights to 120,000 acres and plans to use Direct Lithium Extraction (DLE) technology to produce battery-grade lithium carbonate with a lower environmental footprint than traditional mining methods. Production is expected to commence by 2027. In parallel, the U.S. Department of Energy has awarded $225 million to Standard Lithium for its South West Arkansas project, aiming to produce up to 45,000 tonnes of lithium annually in two phases, reinforcing domestic battery supply chains.

Arkansas has also seen historical extraction of vanadium, a mineral increasingly important for energy storage applications such as vanadium redox flow batteries and aerospace manufacturing. Barite, used in medical devices and automotive production and as a weighting agent in oil and gas drilling, contributes to the state’s role in the broader energy economy.

The Ouachita Mountains are world-renowned for high-quality quartz crystals, an essential component in electronics, fibre optics, and photovoltaic solar cells. Meanwhile, silica sands from Arkansas are used in the production of silicon, vital for semiconductors and solar panels. Though not currently mined, manganese, found in past deposits, remains critical for steel production and battery technology, suggesting potential for future exploration.

Arkansas also has a historical association with bauxite, the principal ore of aluminium. While aluminium is not classified as a critical mineral, it plays a key role in lightweight, energy-efficient transport and renewable energy infrastructure, including wind turbines and solar panel frames. Additional mineral resources include niobium (linked to igneous formations at Magnet Cove), rare earth elements (found in phosphate deposits), and cobalt (associated with manganese occurrences in the Ouachita Mountains).