Latest / Climate Cowboys / #294 The $3 Trillion Problem: Reindustrializing America’s Critical Mineral Supply | Nikhil Gupta (Determinant Materials)

Transcript

#294 The $3 Trillion Problem: Reindustrializing America’s Critical Mineral Supply | Nikhil Gupta (Determinant Materials) · Climate Cowboys

0:00
SPEAKER_01: Typical metal refining, you're breaking materials down to the atom layer.
0:04
SPEAKER_01: We have a microparticle refining technology,
0:07
SPEAKER_01: and that's how we can shrink the processing time down from weeks to months down
0:12
SPEAKER_01: to minutes to hours.
0:13
SPEAKER_01: China banned the export of tungsten.
0:16
SPEAKER_01: The price went 10x overnight.
0:18
SPEAKER_01: China has really all that market power and concentration of all of this.
0:22
SPEAKER_01: There's mines throughout the world.
0:23
SPEAKER_01: Every country has mines.
0:25
SPEAKER_01: That's really not the bottleneck, it's the processing, it's the refining.
0:28
SPEAKER_01: All the copper companies have to go to China to do the copper smelting and refining.
0:32
SPEAKER_01: That then goes to make Jensen Wang's NVIDIA Blackwells for all the data centers.
0:38
SPEAKER_01: To have real sovereignty,
0:39
SPEAKER_01: to have real control of this, we need to have this here in the United States.
0:43
SPEAKER_01: That's really how you have the economic resilience re-industrializing the nation again.
0:53
SPEAKER_00: You're refining metals in minutes instead of months.
0:56
SPEAKER_00: How are you doing that?
0:58
SPEAKER_01: We have a new, patented technology.
1:00
SPEAKER_01: We've got a completely different way of metal refining.
1:03
SPEAKER_01: Typical metal refining,
1:04
SPEAKER_01: you're breaking materials down to the atom layer,
1:07
SPEAKER_01: like in chemistry class in high school,
1:10
SPEAKER_01: and you're having to separate them specifically for each different metal type,
1:15
SPEAKER_01: different chemical reactions.
1:17
SPEAKER_01: We have a microparticle refining technology where we're separating things at
1:22
SPEAKER_01: a bigger macro scale.
1:23
SPEAKER_01: So because of that, it's faster, more efficient processing.
1:27
SPEAKER_01: And that's how we can shrink the processing time down from weeks to months down
1:32
SPEAKER_01: to minutes to hours.
1:33
SPEAKER_00: So explain to me a little bit more, like,
1:35
SPEAKER_00: you can go into some of the details,
1:37
SPEAKER_00: but keep it understandable for a non-science guy.
1:40
SPEAKER_00: How is that possible?
1:41
SPEAKER_00: Like, why haven't they done this already if you're saying they normally go down to
1:44
SPEAKER_00: the atom level,
1:46
SPEAKER_00: but you're doing it at a little bit larger scale, like bigger components, basically.
1:51
SPEAKER_00: You don't have to break down the Legos to the very tiny pieces.
1:52
SPEAKER_00: You can have a few of them together.
1:55
SPEAKER_00: Why haven't people done this before?
1:56
SPEAKER_00: Is it completely a breakthrough?
1:58
SPEAKER_01: I mean, yeah, it is a big breakthrough.
2:00
SPEAKER_01: I think it's a kind of standard, I mean,
2:03
SPEAKER_01: that's a pretty common question,
2:04
SPEAKER_01: I think, for a lot of innovative technology companies.
2:07
SPEAKER_01: I mean, you could say, why didn't IBM do what Apple ended up doing, right?
2:10
SPEAKER_01: Why didn't NVIDIA, I mean, why didn't some competitor before NVIDIA do what NVIDIA's doing?
2:14
SPEAKER_01: So I think there's a huge aspect of innovator's dilemma.
2:17
SPEAKER_01: On the panel earlier at, you know, we're at Climate Week.
2:21
SPEAKER_01: On the panel earlier,
2:22
SPEAKER_01: someone mentioned basically a lot of the innovation concepts So when you're stuck
2:28
SPEAKER_01: within the industry of metals,
2:30
SPEAKER_01: let's say,
2:30
SPEAKER_01: the metals industry,
2:32
SPEAKER_01: it's people coming up with their education,
2:35
SPEAKER_01: their PhDs,
2:36
SPEAKER_01: their background, the technology of the company, the assets, the know-how.
2:40
SPEAKER_01: It's all geared towards what the status quo is.
2:43
SPEAKER_01: There's a lot of embedded momentum behind that, inertia.
2:47
SPEAKER_01: We came at it as a fast moving innovative tech startup coming outside the industry.
2:52
SPEAKER_01: I'm a chemical engineer.
2:54
SPEAKER_01: I originally used to work in the oil industry.
2:55
SPEAKER_01: I worked for Shell and I worked in metal refining.
2:59
SPEAKER_01: I was in charge of this unit at Shell that was all about microparticle separations
3:04
SPEAKER_01: and manipulations.
3:05
SPEAKER_01: And I realized that like, hey, why is this not happening in the metals industry at all?
3:09
SPEAKER_01: Let me try to apply this new science, new way of thinking to that industry.
3:14
SPEAKER_01: That's how I came out of it and that's how we developed our technology for metals.
3:17
SPEAKER_00: And now is the tech itself,
3:19
SPEAKER_00: it's faster because you don't have to let it sit in the chemicals,
3:23
SPEAKER_00: for example, for so long so that all the separation can take place.
3:26
SPEAKER_00: You only have to have less separation.
3:27
SPEAKER_00: Is that accurate?
3:31
SPEAKER_01: The part in the sense that the big time saving is, yes,
3:34
SPEAKER_01: the acid leaching where it sits and dissolves in the acids,
3:37
SPEAKER_01: that takes ridiculously long.
3:39
SPEAKER_01: They typically boil the acids, it's called HPAL, high pressure acid leaching.
3:43
SPEAKER_01: They typically boil The material,
3:45
SPEAKER_01: the feedstock in acids in order to increase that rate of reaction just because it's
3:49
SPEAKER_01: so slow.
3:50
SPEAKER_01: Even then, it still takes forever, weeks to months.
3:52
SPEAKER_01: Being a chemical engineer,
3:53
SPEAKER_01: I started out with all these chemical reactions,
3:55
SPEAKER_01: trying all these kinds of processes.
3:57
SPEAKER_01: I realized there's no way I could ever start a company in that.
3:59
SPEAKER_01: It doesn't make any sense.
4:00
SPEAKER_01: It just takes too long.
4:01
SPEAKER_01: The capital and operating costs are huge.
4:04
SPEAKER_01: So yeah,
4:05
SPEAKER_01: the reason we can do it faster is because we aren't breaking things down to
4:09
SPEAKER_01: that atom layer.
4:11
SPEAKER_01: We're breaking things down to a bigger layer,
4:12
SPEAKER_01: microparticles, which is a million times bigger than the size of the atom.
4:16
SPEAKER_01: We're separating things at that macro scale.
4:18
SPEAKER_01: So it's basically a more thermodynamically efficient process.
4:22
SPEAKER_01: There's less work going on.
4:23
SPEAKER_00: And is this still, it's not a chemical process.
4:25
SPEAKER_00: It's a physical, like mechanical process at this point?
4:28
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, we call it, you know, like it's fluid mechanics.
4:30
SPEAKER_01: It's a hydrodynamic process.
4:31
SPEAKER_00: Okay, interesting.
4:34
SPEAKER_00: This is definitely above my understanding with technology,
4:37
SPEAKER_00: but I think from here,
4:39
SPEAKER_00: I'd be curious to know,
4:41
SPEAKER_00: how did you end up deciding,
4:43
SPEAKER_00: you mentioned a little bit with your work at Shell,
4:44
SPEAKER_00: but how did you decide to go work on this problem and make the leap
4:47
SPEAKER_00: to doing your own thing?
4:49
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's really cool, I mean,
4:50
SPEAKER_01: just to see the zeitgeist,
4:52
SPEAKER_01: you know, really the heart Hard tech, defense tech space has exploded.
4:56
SPEAKER_01: Everyone's talking about critical minerals.
4:58
SPEAKER_01: We're in New York City.
5:00
SPEAKER_01: The president was in the city the other day.
5:02
SPEAKER_01: He and just in general, the White House, DC, are pushing heavy on critical minerals.
5:08
SPEAKER_01: OSC, half their budget is basically dedicated towards critical minerals.
5:15
SPEAKER_01: So it's hit the zeitgeist.
5:17
SPEAKER_01: And the funny thing is actually it was the climate tech people that were pushing,
5:20
SPEAKER_01: realized some of this earlier than the defense tech people.
5:22
SPEAKER_01: But I figured out long before all these people did,
5:26
SPEAKER_01: you know, maybe that sounds arrogant or something, but it's the truth.
5:29
SPEAKER_00: You've been working on it for a while now, right?
5:31
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean,
5:31
SPEAKER_01: I basically,
5:32
SPEAKER_01: you know,
5:33
SPEAKER_01: it's hit the zeitgeist,
5:34
SPEAKER_01: but I basically realized back even in college that critical metals are going
5:39
SPEAKER_01: to be completely important.
5:40
SPEAKER_01: It's the foundation of all of modern industrial society,
5:42
SPEAKER_01: defense, automotive, space, electronics, now AI.
5:47
SPEAKER_01: It's completely needed.
5:48
SPEAKER_01: Our entire background of society is built around it, and China dominates all of it, right?
5:52
SPEAKER_01: From the climate tech perspective,
5:54
SPEAKER_01: I originally realized it because I was interested in energy and resources.
5:58
SPEAKER_01: I saw that, like, look,
5:59
SPEAKER_01: you know,
5:59
SPEAKER_01: with solar, wind,
6:00
SPEAKER_01: batteries, EVs,
6:00
SPEAKER_01: what you really were trying to do is people are trying to go from
6:03
SPEAKER_01: a fossil fuel economy to an exotic metal economy.
6:06
SPEAKER_01: And so that's kind of where, you know, where initially the interest came.
6:09
SPEAKER_01: And then I realized, like, it's needed for defense.
6:12
SPEAKER_01: It's needed for, obviously, computing.
6:14
SPEAKER_01: It's needed for all these things.
6:15
SPEAKER_01: And so, you know,
6:16
SPEAKER_01: basically I kind of had that whole interest in that background
6:19
SPEAKER_01: before anyone was even really talking about this.
6:22
SPEAKER_00: Now, are you, are your customers going to be the mines then?
6:26
SPEAKER_00: And are you, what are the inputs?
6:27
SPEAKER_00: Are they,
6:28
SPEAKER_00: is it like a brand new mine or are you guys taking kind of the wasted,
6:31
SPEAKER_00: you know, unprocessed other components and then processing those?
6:34
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so unlike really any other company I've seen out there,
6:36
SPEAKER_01: and I've,
6:37
SPEAKER_01: like I said,
6:37
SPEAKER_01: I've followed the space for over a decade before I ever started the company.
6:41
SPEAKER_01: I've seen pretty much everything.
6:44
SPEAKER_01: I haven't seen anyone doing it the way we're doing it or being as flexible as we are.
6:47
SPEAKER_01: We're a full stack technology platform.
6:49
SPEAKER_01: We can process a variety of inputs and produce a variety of metal outputs.
6:53
SPEAKER_01: It's because the science is ultimately very different than the chemical reactions.
6:57
SPEAKER_01: So to answer your question, we're pointedly, we can do a variety of things.
7:01
SPEAKER_01: Scraps, mineral ores, used electronics, manufacturing defects.
7:06
SPEAKER_01: We want to be that sort of drop-in refining layer across every vertical,
7:10
SPEAKER_01: defense, automotive, mining.
7:12
SPEAKER_01: You know, big tech, AI, space, et cetera.
7:16
SPEAKER_01: So basically,
7:18
SPEAKER_01: our vision for the company is that we have our drop-in units on-site at
7:22
SPEAKER_01: the mine site or at the,
7:24
SPEAKER_01: let's say,
7:24
SPEAKER_01: the Defense Primes factory for manufacturing defects,
7:27
SPEAKER_01: like let's say titanium for missiles, for example, or at the scrap site, right?
7:31
SPEAKER_01: And they're using our technology, and we're providing the know-how, et cetera.
7:36
SPEAKER_00: Interesting.
7:37
SPEAKER_00: So that's pretty fascinating.
7:39
SPEAKER_00: I'm just trying to kind of wrap my head around this.
7:43
SPEAKER_00: We obviously have heard a lot about this right now.
7:44
SPEAKER_00: This is very common to talk about.
7:46
SPEAKER_00: But just as a refresher,
7:48
SPEAKER_00: why does this matter so much right now with this whole kind of talk about onshoring
7:52
SPEAKER_00: in America?
7:53
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so like I said,
7:54
SPEAKER_01: I really think it's the biggest issue the country faces in sort of
7:56
SPEAKER_01: the ex-China world, something we might even go to war over.
7:59
SPEAKER_01: You know, basically up to 90% of all the critical metals we're finding is dominated by China.
8:04
SPEAKER_01: You know,
8:04
SPEAKER_01: I was talking to someone earlier that works at a hedge fund here in the city
8:08
SPEAKER_01: and they're like a commodities long short hedge fund.
8:12
SPEAKER_01: And, you know,
8:12
SPEAKER_01: he's basically telling me that they made a good amount of money pretty quickly
8:16
SPEAKER_01: because China banned the export of tungsten.
8:19
SPEAKER_01: The price like went 10x like overnight.
8:21
SPEAKER_01: So, you know, China has really all that market power and concentration of all of this.
8:26
SPEAKER_01: And like I said, it's need for all those critical industries.
8:29
SPEAKER_01: The White House and Congress on both sides of the aisle realize this.
8:32
SPEAKER_01: They know that it's needed for industrialization, national security, etc.
8:37
SPEAKER_01: We're completely beholden throughout our modern society,
8:40
SPEAKER_01: throughout our economy, to China's metals.
8:43
SPEAKER_01: There's mines throughout the world.
8:45
SPEAKER_01: Every country has mines.
8:46
SPEAKER_01: That's really not the bottleneck.
8:48
SPEAKER_01: It's the processing.
8:49
SPEAKER_01: It's the refining.
8:50
SPEAKER_01: I was in D.C.
8:51
SPEAKER_01: last week and people at different organizations,
8:53
SPEAKER_01: I don't think I'll name them,
8:55
SPEAKER_01: but basically different organizations were like,
8:56
SPEAKER_01: yeah, we all realize that It's the processing, it's the bottleneck.
9:00
SPEAKER_01: I mean, President Trump has said that himself many times.
9:03
SPEAKER_00: So you think that it sounds as though there is urgency to onshore this stuff now in America.
9:12
SPEAKER_00: Is it going to persist,
9:13
SPEAKER_00: do you think, even if the administration changes to a democratic administration?
9:16
SPEAKER_01: Definitely.
9:17
SPEAKER_01: It's completely bipartisan.
9:18
SPEAKER_01: Like I said,
9:18
SPEAKER_01: even this interest came prior administrations,
9:22
SPEAKER_01: probably the Biden administration, if I were to guess.
9:25
SPEAKER_01: The climate tech's ecosystem realized that actually before defense tech,
9:29
SPEAKER_01: that the critical mineral is what I just kind of articulated.
9:32
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9:35
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10:33
SPEAKER_00: Okay, interesting.
10:34
SPEAKER_00: I guess I didn't realize that.
10:34
SPEAKER_00: I didn't follow that.
10:36
SPEAKER_00: I do know I was paying attention to some of the...
10:40
SPEAKER_00: Some of the grants that were supposed to go out in the loan programs office that would pause.
10:43
SPEAKER_01: EDF, Energy Dominance Financing.
10:45
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, exactly.
10:45
SPEAKER_01: I met the guy who changed the name.
10:47
SPEAKER_01: Oh, okay.
10:47
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
10:50
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, because they had paused so many of those funds.
10:52
SPEAKER_00: And now, I think it was just, what, while we're recording, it's like three, four weeks ago.
10:57
SPEAKER_00: I can't remember the exact timing.
10:58
SPEAKER_00: A whole bunch of that money went out the door to,
11:00
SPEAKER_00: like, Mariana Minerals and a bunch of other companies.
11:02
SPEAKER_00: Coreshell, I think, is a past podcast guest.
11:04
SPEAKER_00: All those types of companies.
11:05
SPEAKER_00: And I think it's interesting to see.
11:09
SPEAKER_00: This is part of the reason why we did rebrand the podcast because I think
11:12
SPEAKER_00: that there's such an interest.
11:14
SPEAKER_00: There's many reasons why left and right should both be interested in these technologies.
11:19
SPEAKER_00: You have to sometimes take a compromise that some of the things that
11:23
SPEAKER_00: the technologies may be used for may be not things that you're as excited about.
11:28
SPEAKER_00: For example, defense tech, right?
11:29
SPEAKER_00: I think a lot of people don't appreciate that.
11:31
SPEAKER_00: They're not interested in that.
11:32
SPEAKER_00: But if we want batteries,
11:34
SPEAKER_00: if we want them, especially made in ethical ways, we need minerals from here.
11:40
SPEAKER_00: Totally.
11:41
SPEAKER_00: What I'm curious is,
11:42
SPEAKER_00: do you foresee most of this going onshore in America or nearsharing with friends?
11:49
SPEAKER_01: No, I don't get the nearshoring thing so much.
11:51
SPEAKER_01: I mean, like,
11:52
SPEAKER_01: obviously,
11:53
SPEAKER_01: it's better than it being in Russia or in China or some of
11:57
SPEAKER_01: the other adversarial nations for the U.S., I guess, like Russia and others, Iran.
12:03
SPEAKER_01: But, no, I mean, like,
12:04
SPEAKER_01: to have real sovereignty,
12:05
SPEAKER_01: to have real control of this,
12:06
SPEAKER_01: you know, we need to have this here in the United States, right?
12:10
SPEAKER_01: That's really how you have the economic resilience.
12:13
SPEAKER_01: That's how you, you know, that's how you have all these social ills that get solved.
12:17
SPEAKER_01: Increasing the wealth of the society,
12:20
SPEAKER_01: advancing the society,
12:21
SPEAKER_01: having good paying jobs,
12:23
SPEAKER_01: re-industrializing the nation again,
12:25
SPEAKER_01: and having that full sovereignty and control of our destiny,
12:29
SPEAKER_01: our economic and our national security destiny.
12:32
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's quite fascinating.
12:34
SPEAKER_00: I've actually only recently heard a couple of dissenting opinions on this,
12:39
SPEAKER_00: that it's not a great idea to ensure,
12:41
SPEAKER_00: and I don't understand Why that would be,
12:44
SPEAKER_00: because I think at the bare minimum,
12:47
SPEAKER_00: even if you're going to choose,
12:49
SPEAKER_00: let's say to have,
12:49
SPEAKER_00: you know,
12:51
SPEAKER_00: certain things should be under your control completely,
12:53
SPEAKER_00: especially if it's defense related,
12:54
SPEAKER_00: because you can't have somebody like sneaking in technology, right?
12:57
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
12:58
SPEAKER_00: So it's fascinating to me.
12:59
SPEAKER_00: I definitely agree with you.
13:01
SPEAKER_00: Is the key bottleneck then,
13:03
SPEAKER_00: you mentioned refining as a key bottleneck,
13:04
SPEAKER_00: but if we could refine things faster, would we still...
13:10
SPEAKER_00: Do we need to be able to produce the minerals we need here,
13:12
SPEAKER_00: or do we need to build new mines, and how long would that take?
13:15
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean, so, like, of course, as the society grows, you definitely need new sources, right?
13:23
SPEAKER_01: But what we're seeing is with all this attention the last couple of years,
13:26
SPEAKER_01: new mines are popping up.
13:27
SPEAKER_01: They're getting restarted.
13:29
SPEAKER_01: People are looking at it again.
13:30
SPEAKER_01: People are looking at waste products like tailings.
13:33
SPEAKER_01: People are looking at...
13:35
SPEAKER_01: Products like used electronics and other things.
13:37
SPEAKER_01: So the feedstock exists here.
13:39
SPEAKER_01: There's a huge amount.
13:40
SPEAKER_01: And I mean,
13:41
SPEAKER_01: America probably doesn't have the level of like a Canada or Russia in terms
13:44
SPEAKER_01: of resources.
13:46
SPEAKER_01: But we have a huge amount of resources here.
13:48
SPEAKER_01: So it's really the mining isn't that bottleneck.
13:51
SPEAKER_01: Again, it's the processing.
13:53
SPEAKER_01: To the other part of the question, though, yes, that is one of the challenges.
13:56
SPEAKER_01: It does take a long time to ramp up a new mine.
14:01
SPEAKER_01: So I'm, of course,
14:02
SPEAKER_01: supportive of everyone doing things in this space,
14:05
SPEAKER_01: but I see a lot of these companies that are saying we're going
14:08
SPEAKER_01: to revolutionize mining on the upstream side.
14:11
SPEAKER_01: It doesn't matter.
14:12
SPEAKER_01: What you're doing is going to take a decade plus.
14:14
SPEAKER_01: You're not really solving the problem in the short term.
14:16
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
14:16
SPEAKER_00: So you guys can take,
14:17
SPEAKER_00: do you have the numbers on how much capacity you can unlock with your technology?
14:22
SPEAKER_00: Let's assume you guys are dropping units tomorrow.
14:25
SPEAKER_01: No, I mean, like, I mean, well, the whole economy, right?
14:26
SPEAKER_01: It's a $3 trillion global critical metals market, right?
14:29
SPEAKER_01: So we want to be the key layer.
14:31
SPEAKER_01: Everyone's using our technology.
14:32
SPEAKER_01: Our units are dropped in everywhere.
14:34
SPEAKER_01: So yeah, it's a massive market.
14:35
SPEAKER_00: So for the refining.
14:36
SPEAKER_00: So help me understand this as well.
14:38
SPEAKER_00: Once the metals,
14:40
SPEAKER_00: let's say you've got a mine,
14:41
SPEAKER_00: I don't know, maybe pick one in America that we can use as an example.
14:44
SPEAKER_00: But you've got a mine here.
14:46
SPEAKER_00: They dig out the, they dig out, maybe explain a little bit how they're doing this to us.
14:51
SPEAKER_00: But they dig out the ore.
14:53
SPEAKER_00: Then where does it go right now, currently?
14:55
SPEAKER_00: What are they doing now?
14:57
SPEAKER_01: Quick break from the show.
14:58
SPEAKER_00: Because you're listening to Climate Cowboys, you're probably trying to build something massive.
15:03
SPEAKER_00: A company that will create impact that lasts for generations.
15:06
SPEAKER_00: But there's a bottleneck that every founder hits.
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15:46
SPEAKER_01: So it's a very complex global supply chain.
15:50
SPEAKER_01: There are certain aspects that are happening here, certain aspects that are happening abroad.
15:54
SPEAKER_01: Mostly it's happening abroad.
15:55
SPEAKER_01: You want me to start from like the full lining side?
15:57
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so let's say they've got
15:59
SPEAKER_00: the ore.
15:59
SPEAKER_00: Are they shipping it to China to have it refined and then bringing it back or what?
16:02
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, sometimes the raw ore is getting shipped.
16:05
SPEAKER_01: Sometimes they're doing,
16:06
SPEAKER_01: they're creating a concentrate,
16:07
SPEAKER_01: which is basically they're doing some pre-processing,
16:09
SPEAKER_01: comminution,
16:10
SPEAKER_01: where they're like breaking things up,
16:12
SPEAKER_01: getting rid of,
16:13
SPEAKER_01: you know,
16:13
SPEAKER_01: it's funny,
16:14
SPEAKER_01: I was talking to someone and they were like,
16:15
SPEAKER_01: oh, the mining business, we're really a waste management business.
16:18
SPEAKER_01: Have you heard that quote before?
16:19
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I have not heard that quote, but that makes sense.
16:21
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, because it's, I mean, it's like most of the feed is just, it's just useless stuff, right?
16:24
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
16:25
SPEAKER_01: It's oxides, there's always dirt, but there's also oxides, sulfides, things like that.
16:31
SPEAKER_01: So basically, most of the material is actually not useful.
16:37
SPEAKER_01: It's not the target ores, right?
16:38
SPEAKER_01: And one of the challenges for mining also is that the ore grades have been declining
16:42
SPEAKER_01: over the years.
16:42
SPEAKER_01: So they used to have more metal than they were, but just like oil, actually, frankly.
16:46
SPEAKER_01: It's like, you know, the easy stuff is gone.
16:48
SPEAKER_01: That doesn't mean you can't get the other stuff, but it's harder to get.
16:51
SPEAKER_01: It takes more money.
16:52
SPEAKER_01: It takes more energy, et cetera.
16:54
SPEAKER_01: But that's a bit of a tangent.
16:55
SPEAKER_01: But yeah, so what they'll do is they'll concentrate it up.
16:57
SPEAKER_01: They'll make it concentrate.
16:59
SPEAKER_01: And then they'll ship it abroad.
17:00
SPEAKER_01: There are a small amount of smelters or refiners in the United States.
17:05
SPEAKER_01: So in some cases, they are doing some of the smelting.
17:08
SPEAKER_01: But again, pretty much all that has to flow in or out of China to do the refining.
17:13
SPEAKER_01: There are some Western players in Europe has a good number.
17:17
SPEAKER_01: Not Western, but like outside of China, Japan has too.
17:20
SPEAKER_01: So there's spatterings of it, right?
17:22
SPEAKER_01: But like almost,
17:22
SPEAKER_01: you know,
17:23
SPEAKER_01: for example, in the United States, there's only two smelters,
17:25
SPEAKER_00: right, that exist.
17:27
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so almost all of them are in China.
17:29
SPEAKER_01: So all the copper companies have to go to China to do the copper smelting
17:32
SPEAKER_01: and refining that then goes to make Jensen Wang's NVIDIA Blackwells for all
17:37
SPEAKER_01: the data centers that eventually Amazon and Microsoft are going to buy.
17:43
SPEAKER_01: It ends up in GPT and Claude.
17:45
SPEAKER_01: It makes all these VCs lots of money, etc.
17:48
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
17:49
SPEAKER_00: So what you'll be able to do then is then stop the drain,
17:52
SPEAKER_00: so to speak, right at the point of the mine and you can refine there.
17:55
SPEAKER_00: Will you guys refine at the site of the mines and then have them ship
17:59
SPEAKER_00: the refined minerals straight to their customers?
18:05
SPEAKER_01: Ask me that one more time.
18:06
SPEAKER_00: At the mines right now,
18:08
SPEAKER_00: if you walk through the supply chain now,
18:10
SPEAKER_00: will you be able to then drop your units to refine at the site of the mine and
18:14
SPEAKER_00: then they can then ship it to their buyers?
18:17
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
18:17
SPEAKER_00: Instead of going to China?
18:18
SPEAKER_00: Yes, yes, yes.
18:19
SPEAKER_01: So I can't say which one because I'm waiting for them to release this press release.
18:24
SPEAKER_01: But we've been invested in and we're working with one of
18:28
SPEAKER_01: the largest mining companies in the world.
18:30
SPEAKER_01: So they told us that, for example, the...
18:34
SPEAKER_01: The big tech hyperscalers like Microsoft, Amazon, etc.
18:39
SPEAKER_01: come to them first for material, for data centers and other things.
18:45
SPEAKER_01: But they're just the mining company, right?
18:46
SPEAKER_01: So they're like, look, we're mining, we don't do the metal refining.
18:50
SPEAKER_01: We can't sell you the pure copper.
18:52
SPEAKER_01: It still has to go through China.
18:54
SPEAKER_01: So what they like is that, yes,
18:55
SPEAKER_01: we can drop the units on site with our modular technology,
18:59
SPEAKER_01: and it actually makes sense.
19:00
SPEAKER_01: It's not just a catchphrase of modular.
19:02
SPEAKER_01: There's aspects of the technology that cut the operating and capital costs down and
19:06
SPEAKER_01: the footprint that allows it to be modular.
19:08
SPEAKER_01: But they like that we can do the processing on site,
19:11
SPEAKER_01: and that allows them to create the refined metal and sell it directly to
19:15
SPEAKER_01: the hyperscalers.
19:16
SPEAKER_00: Currently,
19:17
SPEAKER_00: are they selling the product to Chinese or other refiners,
19:22
SPEAKER_00: and then they then sell the refined product,
19:25
SPEAKER_00: or does, you know- You're like asking,
19:27
SPEAKER_01: do they own the customers, essentially?
19:28
SPEAKER_00: Well, I want to know if the mining companies actually are the ones who pay for
19:33
SPEAKER_00: the whole processing,
19:35
SPEAKER_00: the whole refinement process,
19:36
SPEAKER_00: and then sell the end metals,
19:38
SPEAKER_00: or are they just a commodity broker, like,
19:40
SPEAKER_00: we'll mine it out,
19:41
SPEAKER_00: we'll sell it to the refiners,
19:42
SPEAKER_00: and then the refiners, they go and find their own buyers.
19:47
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, we're a little early in the process,
19:49
SPEAKER_01: but from what I've discussed with them,
19:51
SPEAKER_01: they basically sell the refined metal to the downstream customers.
19:56
SPEAKER_00: By working with you?
19:57
SPEAKER_00: Or are they currently doing that?
19:58
SPEAKER_01: No, they're currently doing that,
20:00
SPEAKER_01: but the point is they don't have a domestic solution and they don't have
20:03
SPEAKER_01: a local solution.
20:04
SPEAKER_01: So they've said it doesn't make sense to send it to China for supply,
20:08
SPEAKER_01: security, transportation, logistics, a million different reasons, right?
20:12
SPEAKER_01: Insurance.
20:13
SPEAKER_01: So having it on site is hugely valuable, right?
20:16
SPEAKER_01: One of their assets is actually they have a refiner smelter like 700 miles away
20:21
SPEAKER_01: a neighboring state.
20:26
SPEAKER_01: And they were like, even that doesn't make any sense.
20:27
SPEAKER_01: Like, we're not going to build a huge billion dollar smelter.
20:30
SPEAKER_01: It'll take forever to get the rail lines or whatever you want to do permitted across
20:35
SPEAKER_01: the different states, etc.
20:36
SPEAKER_01: It's going to cost money.
20:37
SPEAKER_01: So they love the fact that we can do it locally on site.
20:39
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
20:40
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SPEAKER_00: All right, back to the show.
21:35
SPEAKER_00: So then,
21:36
SPEAKER_00: do you have the numbers on approximately how much cost it will take out of the,
21:42
SPEAKER_00: I don't know how they measure it, is it per ton basically?
21:45
SPEAKER_01: It can depend, yeah.
21:47
SPEAKER_00: Let's say cost per ton or whatever, whatever metrics you want to use for us.
21:50
SPEAKER_00: How much are you guys able to reduce it if they're able
21:52
SPEAKER_00: to process it here using American electricity,
21:56
SPEAKER_00: not shipping it over the season, bringing it back and then selling it?
21:58
SPEAKER_00: Do you know how much you guys are able to cut the cost?
22:00
SPEAKER_01: It's going to depend,
22:02
SPEAKER_01: it's hard to answer you specifically because it depends a lot on the feedstock and
22:06
SPEAKER_01: the target metal products,
22:07
SPEAKER_01: you know,
22:08
SPEAKER_01: what the grade of the ore is and all these different, a million different factors.
22:11
SPEAKER_01: But generally,
22:11
SPEAKER_01: like we are very,
22:12
SPEAKER_01: we see ourselves being very cost competitive with the old antiquated technologies.
22:16
SPEAKER_01: Remember, China didn't invent these technologies.
22:18
SPEAKER_01: We basically shipped them off to China decades ago because they were toxic and super expensive.
22:23
SPEAKER_01: So we see ourselves having like a 50% cost reduction for the processing compared
22:27
SPEAKER_01: to incumbent technologies.
22:29
SPEAKER_00: And in this case, it's also a much cleaner process.
22:32
SPEAKER_01: It's much cleaner.
22:33
SPEAKER_01: It's more efficient.
22:34
SPEAKER_01: It's safer, right?
22:35
SPEAKER_01: Safety is a huge thing.
22:36
SPEAKER_01: When I used to work for Shell,
22:37
SPEAKER_01: we would talk about it all the time because it's inherently
22:39
SPEAKER_01: a very dangerous industry, oil and gas.
22:41
SPEAKER_01: Same thing with mining.
22:42
SPEAKER_01: I was in a session with them last night.
22:44
SPEAKER_01: The company that we're communicating with.
22:47
SPEAKER_01: Got to be very careful what I'm saying here.
22:49
SPEAKER_01: And they were like, yeah, safety is huge because mining is inherently a very dangerous industry.
22:53
SPEAKER_01: We have to keep it safe.
22:54
SPEAKER_01: So yeah, not having nasty acids or huge heats and pressures, that's a huge advantage as well.
22:59
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I'm kind of wondering if by making mining cleaner and safer,
23:05
SPEAKER_00: it'll actually lead to many more people being willing to work in mining again.
23:08
SPEAKER_01: I think, yeah, you're
23:09
SPEAKER_00: right.
23:09
SPEAKER_00: That's not something we talk about.
23:11
SPEAKER_00: Because usually people complain.
23:12
SPEAKER_00: They say,
23:12
SPEAKER_00: there's no way you're going to be able to build smelters and all this stuff
23:14
SPEAKER_00: in America.
23:15
SPEAKER_00: I've heard that
23:15
SPEAKER_01: so many times.
23:16
SPEAKER_00: Because nobody does like data centers.
23:18
SPEAKER_00: They're not going to have smelters either.
23:19
SPEAKER_00: But if it's a totally different technology, you don't need a smelter.
23:23
SPEAKER_00: You can do it differently.
23:24
SPEAKER_00: And if it can create good jobs...
23:26
SPEAKER_00: And if they're safe, then who's not to?
23:29
SPEAKER_00: And also,
23:30
SPEAKER_00: I think people underestimate,
23:31
SPEAKER_00: to an extent,
23:31
SPEAKER_00: I'm from the Midwest,
23:32
SPEAKER_00: people underestimate,
23:33
SPEAKER_00: I think,
23:34
SPEAKER_00: the amount to which people would really appreciate the industrial base being able
23:39
SPEAKER_00: to be reignited.
23:40
SPEAKER_00: New jobs back in those areas that have been hollowed out.
23:43
SPEAKER_00: I think people really, the coastal elites, you know.
23:47
SPEAKER_00: They tend to forget.
23:47
SPEAKER_01: I was born in this city, and I grew up in Fairfield County, Connecticut.
23:52
SPEAKER_01: So normally on paper, it's like, oh, coastal elite.
23:55
SPEAKER_01: I mean, I came from like a semi-rural slash suburban area of Connecticut, of Fairfield County.
24:01
SPEAKER_01: But yeah, I I used to wonder the same thing.
24:02
SPEAKER_01: I was like, what the heck?
24:03
SPEAKER_01: Why don't we make anything in America?
24:05
SPEAKER_01: Everything is manufactured in China.
24:06
SPEAKER_01: I mean, as a kid, the crayons, everything.
24:09
SPEAKER_01: And so I was wondering about this even as a child.
24:12
SPEAKER_01: And so it's good to see now that there's a tension.
24:14
SPEAKER_01: People are realizing the trade-off wasn't free.
24:19
SPEAKER_01: There were downsides to that.
24:20
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
24:21
SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's good that they're recognizing it now rather than it's being completely too late.
24:25
SPEAKER_00: But what are some of your insights around selling to Selling to mining companies.
24:32
SPEAKER_00: I know you guys can't talk about who you're working with now,
24:35
SPEAKER_00: but there's other people working on other technologies related to this.
24:39
SPEAKER_00: What are the two or three things that you've learned about selling
24:42
SPEAKER_00: to mining related organizations?
24:44
SPEAKER_01: We're early on the mining side.
24:47
SPEAKER_01: But I think generally these are large companies.
24:51
SPEAKER_01: I mean, they're of course the smaller exploration kind of companies.
24:55
SPEAKER_01: But if you're actually producing ore and you've gone through that 10-year cycle
25:00
SPEAKER_01: where it's a half a billion plus type of CapEx,
25:03
SPEAKER_01: they're generally giant behemoth organizations.
25:06
SPEAKER_01: In speaking with them,
25:08
SPEAKER_01: going on some of their webinars, etc., I was like, wow, I'm having deja vu here.
25:11
SPEAKER_01: It's like I'm back at Shell, right?
25:13
SPEAKER_01: It's like a giant, huge company, physical industry, global operations.
25:19
SPEAKER_01: So you really have to understand the hierarchy and the kind of like the different...
25:24
SPEAKER_01: Product and business groups, and there's the tech side, there's the business side.
25:28
SPEAKER_01: Who's interested in your deal and going to evaluate it on the technology?
25:32
SPEAKER_01: And then who's going to be able to run with it and actually give you some kind
25:38
SPEAKER_01: of commercial contract?
25:39
SPEAKER_01: So just kind of understanding the hierarchy,
25:41
SPEAKER_01: realizing that it can take time,
25:43
SPEAKER_01: but if you can get the right champion,
25:46
SPEAKER_01: and I think we're beginning that process with the avenue that we've attacked it
25:50
SPEAKER_01: with them.
25:52
SPEAKER_01: If you can find the right champion, you can streamline and go quickly with it.
25:56
SPEAKER_00: Yeah,
25:56
SPEAKER_00: I always wonder because I know that selling to utilities is you don't ever want
25:59
SPEAKER_00: to say the word innovation because they're... Risk averse.
26:02
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, the whole business model is like keeping the lights on, right?
26:05
SPEAKER_00: And I think that mining, innovation would oftentimes sound like potential risk, right?
26:10
SPEAKER_00: And they can't have risk,
26:11
SPEAKER_00: especially with their team because there's already enough pent up anger
26:15
SPEAKER_00: against mining companies.
26:15
SPEAKER_00: I remember at one point growing up in Wisconsin where there was meant to be a mine.
26:22
SPEAKER_00: I forget what kind of mine it was going to be.
26:24
SPEAKER_00: I think there's,
26:25
SPEAKER_00: I guess I'm very optimistic,
26:27
SPEAKER_00: I'm sure you are too,
26:28
SPEAKER_00: about what we'll see as outcomes from re-industrializing America and just hopefully
26:46
SPEAKER_00: Hopefully reigniting a spirit of interest in helping everybody,
26:51
SPEAKER_00: not just the tech people in San Francisco or the finance guys in New York.
26:56
SPEAKER_00: I really hope that we see that, especially being from Wisconsin.
27:01
SPEAKER_00: There's a lot going on.
27:03
SPEAKER_00: It's 2026 in the climate world.
27:07
SPEAKER_00: I'm kind of curious,
27:08
SPEAKER_00: are there any particular observations,
27:09
SPEAKER_00: whether it's from Climate Week or broadly,
27:11
SPEAKER_00: that you've been really noodling on and thinking a lot about recently
27:14
SPEAKER_00: that you can't get out of your mind?
27:17
SPEAKER_01: Oh, that's an interesting question.
27:20
SPEAKER_01: Any thoughts or any questions you're saying have I been noodling?
27:23
SPEAKER_00: Anything that you've observed that you think is really going to be important going forward?
27:29
SPEAKER_01: I just think, yeah, I mean,
27:30
SPEAKER_01: I just think every day I'm more and more bullish on what we're doing
27:34
SPEAKER_01: and how it's going to make a big impact and how like the time is now.
27:37
SPEAKER_01: This is the perfect moment for this because it's just it's just hitting the zeitgeist.
27:41
SPEAKER_01: I mean, you're hearing about this Greenland thing with the president.
27:45
SPEAKER_01: So there's just a huge need for it.
27:48
SPEAKER_01: And it just reminds me that the future is the past.
27:53
SPEAKER_01: If you go back in history,
27:54
SPEAKER_01: like the World War II type of moment,
27:57
SPEAKER_01: it's just the same things were being thought about.
27:59
SPEAKER_01: We were talking about Cuba earlier.
28:00
SPEAKER_01: Cuba was a huge source of cobalt to make turbines for planes, et cetera, in World War II.
28:06
SPEAKER_01: So I remember years ago as I was learning about all these things,
28:10
SPEAKER_01: I read some of the Department of War papers that had been Whatever,
28:14
SPEAKER_01: declassified, released.
28:16
SPEAKER_01: And, you know,
28:17
SPEAKER_01: that kind of,
28:17
SPEAKER_01: like, macro strategy way of thinking of, like, understanding where the pieces are.
28:21
SPEAKER_01: It's almost like a game of risk, actually.
28:23
SPEAKER_01: Or, like, Settlers of Catan or something.
28:25
SPEAKER_01: You know,
28:25
SPEAKER_01: you kind of have to understand where the resources are,
28:27
SPEAKER_01: where are the capabilities for the processing,
28:29
SPEAKER_01: you know,
28:29
SPEAKER_01: where's the factories going to,
28:31
SPEAKER_01: you know,
28:31
SPEAKER_01: take the refined metal and turn it into the weapons or turn it into
28:34
SPEAKER_01: the data centers are.
28:36
SPEAKER_01: So it's just, I just see more evidence every day that, you know, the time is now for this.
28:40
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I agree.
28:41
SPEAKER_00: I think it's really important that we, again,
28:46
SPEAKER_00: I'm obviously very biased because I named my company after Roosevelt,
28:49
SPEAKER_00: but We need to have an interest in preserving the future of America,
28:55
SPEAKER_00: preserving our land,
28:57
SPEAKER_00: and also preserving American power and demonstrating that power abroad.
29:03
SPEAKER_00: And we can't do that if we can't have any capacity here.
29:06
SPEAKER_00: So I really appreciate you coming on, man.
29:08
SPEAKER_00: This has been a lot of fun.
29:10
SPEAKER_00: I'm excited to see what you guys do.
29:11
SPEAKER_00: And hopefully you can get some mining jobs back in, or refining jobs.
29:16
SPEAKER_00: Refining.
29:16
SPEAKER_00: Mining and refining.
29:17
SPEAKER_00: Mining and refining back in America.
29:20
SPEAKER_01: Totally.
29:20
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, we're going to help revitalize the entire broader American re-industrialization.
29:24
SPEAKER_00: It's going to be amazing, man.
29:26
SPEAKER_00: Too many cool things going on.
29:27
SPEAKER_00: It's good to see.
29:28
SPEAKER_01: Totally.
29:28
SPEAKER_01: All right.
29:29
SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
29:29
SPEAKER_00: Awesome,
29:30
[music]