Could lesser-known Niron Magnetics boost manufacturing on Minnesota’s Iron Range? ^⁠46%

7/14/2026, 10:00:00 AM

Topics: Rare Earth Minerals, Manufacturing Expansion, Economic Development, Supply Chain Resilience

Keywords: Niron Magnetics, Iron Range, Manufacturing, Rare Earth Minerals, Magnets, Economic Development, Minnesota

BS Summary: This article contains 1 faulty reasoning type, including Framing Effect, with Framing Effect as the most egregious example at 3.7% saturation with 40 hits. Analysis detected 40 faulty-reasoning hits from 1,095 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 48.5% and a BS Rank of ⁠46% (8,427 of 15,517 articles). This article is better (less manipulative) than 54.30% of the article peer group.

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While the Twin Metals plan to dig for copper, nickel, cobalt and other metals within the Boundary Waters Canoe Area (BWCA) watershed gets most of the national attention, a lesser-known opportunity could be a game changer for Minnesota’s Iron Range.

Minneapolis-based Niron Magnetics is considering the range for its third-and-largest facility that would replace hundreds of jobs lost by the declining iron-ore mining industry.

Niron seeks to significantly reduce U.S. reliance on mostly Chinese-imported “rare-earth” minerals, which are critical to magnets that power electric motors.

Niron operates a Northeast Minneapolis office and pilot plant and is constructing its first production plant near St.

Cloud that will employ 175 people.

The company also plans a huge, $1.8 billion plant by 2029 that will employ 700-plus workers.

That has tongues wagging on the job-hungry Iron Range, where taconite mining has declined for decades due to imported steel and modern domestic mills that use more recycled steel feedstock.

Niron officials say its magnet is based on Minnesota iron and nitrogen, is economical and more environmentally friendly.

“Minnesota has an opportunity to address this crisis and offer a transformative solution to U.S. commercial and defense manufacturers,” Niron said in a recent statement.

“An alternative to rare-earth permanent magnets has been invented in Minnesota …using domestically sourced raw materials, iron and nitrogen.”

Minnesota economic development and Niron officials declined to discuss location prospects that likely would include government participation through infrastructure and other investments.

The site selection process in Minnesota and unspecified other states has just begun.

Speculation centers around resurrecting a shuttered taconite plant.

This spring, Niron hired Savills, a commercial real estate adviser that works on site selection for large-scale manufacturing around the globe.

“This process is about identifying a partner that shares our commitment to rebuilding U.S. manufacturing capability for technologies that are essential to the global economy,” Niron CEO Jonathan Rowntree said this spring.

“Permanent magnets are foundational to everything from electric motors to defense, and expanding domestic production with the right partner who shares this vision will be critical to strengthening supply chain resilience.”

Minnesota officials say an Iron Range plant fits Niron’s quest for “access to transportation infrastructure, energy capacity, workforce availability and alignment with environmental and economic development priorities.”

“It’s a massive opportunity that fits agency priorities,” Ryan Malich, executive director of business development at the Minnesota Department of Iron Range Redevelopment and Resources (IRRR), the economic development agency, said in an interview.

“These are the types of jobs that we’re trying to add to the area in evolving, innovative technologies.

We want to be on the frontside of technological development.

We have a highly skilled, available workforce.

All the elements seem to line up well for this potential development.”

The Minnesota plant would be outside the BWCA watershed.

In April, President Donald Trump signed a Republican-backed bill lifting a ban on mining in the Lake Superior National Forest adjacent to the BWCA.

That could make way for Chilean-owned Twin Metals Minnesota to develop a hard-metals mine about nine miles southeast of Ely, a project environmentalists argue likely will pollute the watershed.

Twin Metals has disputed that claim in a permitting battle that has raged for years.

The bill was championed in the U.S.

House by Duluth-area U.S.

Rep.

Pete Stauber, a Republican.

Although Niron and Twin Metals would both supply materials needed by everything from cell phones to airplanes, they seek different metals.

Still, Niron would be a significant economic boost on the Range and could lessen interest in the controversial Twin Metals project, which opponents have long contested in legislative halls and the courts.

The administration of Gov.

Tim Walz has opposed the Twin Metals proposal on environmental grounds and is courting Niron’s expansion in Minnesota.

Stauber and the entire bipartisan Minnesota congressional delegation also support Niron’s expansion.

“Niron … is a fabulous story about technology developed at the University of Minnesota and commercialized over [several years] through the pilot plant in Northeast Minneapolis and the groundbreaking last year of the Sartell plant,” Deputy Commissioner Kevin McKinnon of the Department of Employment and Economic Development (DEED) said in an interview.

“The promise, the trajectory of where they are going is very exciting.

We continue to work with them in Sartell [including a $10 million investment].

And the third project would dwarf Sartell.

The scale is exciting.

We believe Minnesota is a compelling location for such a project.”

In addition to its 60-person Minneapolis headquarters and pilot plant, the under-construction Sartell plant should produce 1,500 tons of magnets annually.

The $1.8 billion, 1.6 million-square-foot facility would begin construction in 2028 and produce 10,000 tons.

Rowntree told a congressional committee last November: “Manufacturing permanent magnets from iron and nitrogen reduces the need for rare-earth mining, chemical separation facilities and complex metallurgical processing.

A single integrated facility transforms commodity iron ore and atmospheric nitrogen into finished magnets that automotive powertrains, headphones and refrigerators need.”

Niron, which has raised about $300 million in private-public capital, will need hundreds of millions in additional capital to continue its rapid expansion.

A public offering of stock within a couple years is a possibility for a company with designs on $1 billion in revenue.

Niron’s technology was invented by University of Minnesota Professor Jian Ping Wang.

Most of the global supply of high-power magnets is rooted in 17 “rare-earth” minerals, up to 70% of which are mined in China, which controls up to 90% of manufacturing, according to the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Companies around the world seek lower-cost alternatives.

The U.S. largely abandoned rare-earth mining because of expense, difficulty and environmental issues.

Niron intends to produce a growing supply of magnets crucial to cleaner energy-and-economic growth, national-security and reducing China’s grip.

“The Chinese put export controls in place around rare earths, and that’s been a great benefit to us,” Rowntree told Fast Company magazine last fall.

He said Niron seeks to “solve this problem for western companies as quickly as possible.”

Niron’s patented secret-sauce involves reducing iron, or recycled steel, to powder and mixing in a chemical compound that increases magnetism but doesn’t require extreme heat to bind the components together.

Niron’s investment partners and customers include U.S.

Department of Energy, GM Ventures, Volvo, Samsung Ventures, Stellantis (maker of Chrysler and Fiat) and Western Digital.