Critical Minerals & Recycling with Diana Rasner, Group Lead @ CleanTech Group

Oh, today on the show we have Diana Razner. Diana is uh episode number two on this series that I am lucky enough to do with Clean Tech Group about their global 100 year end report that I love so much. Uh Diana focused specifically on the materials and chemicals section and what we talk about is so interesting. How to

understand the landscape of minerals and of chemicals and all of these things. Something uh I'll just give you right now something interesting she said think about all look at all the things that are in your life and either they contain metal themselves or metal was used to help shape them. Uh that was pretty big

for me because I looked around and I said, "You're right." Uh so what does it mean for all of that to happen? What are the supply chains? What are the different politics that we're hearing about uh around the uh uh the extraction of them and uh the utilization of them and uh you know a huge theme about China

uh having a stronghold in the supply chain which gets thrown around a lot but what does that actually mean? So incredible conversation. Uh it's like a college level course. So I'm excited for you to hear. Thank you as always to our sponsors, Clean Tech Growth Lab. If you're looking to grow in clean tech,

they are the people to work with and the producers of this podcast, Craze and Friends. With that, I give you Diana. Oh, welcome to another episode. uh our second uh special episode in the series with Clean Tech Group about their uh their year-end report from last year. Um today we have uh Diana and I'm very

excited. Uh this is about minerals and chemicals. Um I know you can talk about it uh much more eloquently than I can. So I'm just going to ask all the questions and uh if you could give a brief introduction of yourself and what you're building. Yeah, would love to.

Um, so hi everyone, Diana Razner. I am group lead for clean tech curving materials and chemicals and waste and recycling. Um, at best I love to say that I am really excited and look into innovations that start from like atom and molecule all the way to the material chemical and then even further into

their use, reuse and then hopefully proper disposal later. So before before we get into dissecting everything that you wrote about in the report because there's so much there, has this always been uh something that you're interested and have you always envisioned being in this industry or researcher for it or did something happened at some point that sent you in

this direction? Okay. Well, so interestingly enough, I actually wanted to go to school for architecture. um had a huge art background and I was like, "Okay, maybe I can do the engineering." I was one of those nerds that was playing with Legos and connects and stuff all the time. Um got into high school and took my first

chemistry class ever and actually fell in love with the subject and I really do have to credit that to the teacher I had at that time. Um, interestingly enough, you know, did the classes, took the AP course, uh, went into college and at the time actually was kind of more focused on chemical engineering. Got into, I

think, like my first class of thermo and was like, nope, not for me. But really fell in love with the certain side of chemistry and chemicals and like inorganic chemistry. So everything that was colors, metals, organo metallics, and that was kind of my calling to, okay, this is something I want to do.

This is something I'm interested in. I've been very lucky to have really great supporters and mentors through my career who kind of allowed me the opportunity to explore that space while still you know doing a job. So started with you know traditional manufacturing in chemicals with salv chemicals um did a really big 180 and actually went and

did R&D for Ramco for a number of years in cement and drilling fluids. So seen that side and then really my first exposure to clean tech was actually working with a startup out of Houston called Sizzy Plasmonics. So they were kind of my first uh glimpse and appetite into okay there are clearly technologies

and processes out there that can be better than better being more sustainable, cleaner, more efficient, whatever that might be. Um so that really kind of drove my kind of curiosity and ambition into wanting to stay in this space and joined clean tech about a year ago now.

So so so then as far as the the pivot into um uh you know the clean tech space or sustainability uh what was the journey with that startup? Yeah. So Plasmodics like shout out to them if anybody's here listens or knows them. um really they were kind of rethinking how you get the basic

building blocks of most materials and chemicals which is hydrogen and sin gas. So if you think about traditional industrial processes to make anything, you think of smoke stacks, you think of really high heat, really high pressure, like toxic chemicals, hazards, all this stuff, right? And typically that's off a like, you know, a petroleum or

prochemical backbone. Um, they were kind of revolutionizing this by saying we can do that exact same process with our catalysts, but instead of using, you know, fossil fuel-based energy sources, they'll use light. So their whole kind of technology basis is around photoc catalysts. So you illuminate light of different wavelengths or even just

regular old solar light and you can drive chemical reactions through that. And so that was kind of like my first oh my god this is one really cool um but also two like has a lot of different applications into areas where we need solutions to help just kind of fundamentally keep going as I don't know

a civilization. How how long are you there? I was there for five years. Nice. So, what was your then perspective on the the arc of a company in in the in the five-y year period? What what role did you play?

Oh gosh. Um anybody working in the startup space will say you wear a lot of hats. So, uh I started with them uh actually helping them scale their catalyst itself. So, when I first joined, they had just come off of series A if I remember correctly. Um, and they were still making catalysts in like

these little round bottom flasks that were maybe 200 to 500 milliliters. So very very small, meaning grams at a time. Um, so my first real job with them was actually scaling that to where they could make liters at a time or kilograms at a time. And even that in the context of what you need for industrial space

just wasn't enough. But it was their first massive step up to where they are today. Um I was fortunate enough to actually get an exposure to the health and safety side. So I actually ran health and safety for them for a number of years. Uh so anything with like keeping your people safe while you're

trying new crazy things. uh the risk assessments had some touch in regulation and policy and you know permitting of all things which I think a lot of people will either really appreciate or right now are just like grimacing at the thought of that cuz it's a really tough place to be in and just on my own life

journey ended up heading to New York so I had to take myself out of Houston but they were really supportive about keeping me remote and ended up doing a little bit of uh marketing and commercial development for them so Oh my god. Yeah. Everywhere under the sun. Yep.

That's I will say like anybody who ever wants the challenge of working for a startup, whether it be in the clean tech space or whatever space, you will gain so much experience and insight into things you never thought you would ever possibly imagine. So, it's like kind of speedrunning your career and figuring

out what you like, what you don't like, but also gaining a lot of great relationships and experience from it. Yeah, that's okay. That's really awesome. I appreciate you sharing that. Um something something I like to ask is uh was there anything and it can be with uh the startup experience or or any of

the ones beforehand. Is there anything that significantly impact uh an experience that you had um specifically impacts the way that you uh operate at Clean Tech Group? Ooh, I think specifically throughout my career, we'll start with this one. is just how important relationship building is actually. And that could be with your current

co-workers or whoever you're currently working with. It could be the ancillaries, the people you don't see or very rarely interact with. But if I bring it back to clean tech group, what we pride ourselves on is what we call human intelligence. And that's really like continuing to make and nurture relationships with all the different

ecosystem members in the clean tech space. So that's not just the startups like I was at Sizzagy Plasmonics, but with the, you know, corporates who are hopefully adopt you and want to use you. That's with the investors who are going to be providing you capital and funds to be able to do what you need to do cuz

it's a really scrappy space out there. Um, that includes just like the workers who are supporting you behind that, right? So throughout every piece of my career journey, I think the biggest thing I took away is leaning into and learning from the people who are around you. Like sometimes it really is just

kind of sitting down and having a conversation with an operator at the desk or talking to an engineer when they're frustrated or funnily enough, those coffee chats you have in person uh around a water cooler or whatever that might be, that's a real thing um that I do miss from being remote. But it's kind

of a a chance to humanize yourself and kind of ground yourself outside of the work and be able to relate and actually hear and not just, you know, empathize or sympathize if they're having a hard time, but learn from them because you won't know everything. They might have something you're going to need, you

might have something they're going to need. And at the end of the day, it's all about, you know, getting together and putting a solution or a decision that has the best information at the time possible. So what has the journey been uh becoming who you are to to this space? I mean I

the the name that I have is minerals and chemicals. I believe that's that that's what it's right. That's what it's called in the report. What's it been like to establish yourself in this space? But he was like, "How do you feel about critical minerals or metals?" And I was like, "What about them?"

I was like, "Look, I can tell you everything about like hydrogen sides fuels. You want to know it?" And then he was like, "Well, let me throw this one at you. How do you feel about medals?" Because we think it's something that's going to become increasingly important um this following year. And you know, he

was right. Like I think anybody who's checking into your news stories or anything following what the US administration is doing or even globally um it's become a big deal. kind of my journey into that space and what we wrote in the GCT 100 was really following, you know, what does that supply chain look like and what are some

of the problems with it and what are some of the solutions we're trying to bring up there. So looking at, you know, how you get stuff out of the earth. So the ores, what are the issues with that right now?

What are mining operators and mining companies currently facing in terms of their challenges with what's happening down in the earth? what's happening above the earth, the markets going all over the place, and then you have this all-encompassing idea that I would be hard to say like any material you touch uh doesn't have some kind of metal in it

or had some metal used to process it, right? So it really is kind of fundamentally the backbone to most human infrastructure to most you know digital infrastructure and I keep repeating on and on and I touch upon this in the report as well those of you who are following this big AI space with data

centers with hyperscalers like yeah it's an electricity problem but even further back from that it's a how do you transport those electrons right how do you actually get your signal from A to B to see and be able to have those loops that you want AI to do if you don't even have the copper, the zinc, the steel,

the things you need to actually build this before you can start processing. So then with that introduction, I'm cur so if talked about this space, you alluded to it a little bit, but how do we how do we understand at a simple level to begin the conversation? I mean, you mentioned the the getting the stuff

out of the ground and then the processing and and you know, you started to go along the the supply chain. How do we understand like where do we begin when we start talking about this space? Yeah. So, I think it's really easy to start with first you've got to find where you would even want to dig, right?

And so, I know you're going to be talking to my colleague Senita on this and she has a really great write up about this, but you've got to find a place in the Earth's crust or whatever this might be that is economically feasible to actually set up a mine. Like you could just dig a hole straight down

into the earth and hope you find iron or copper or any of these minerals or metals, but you want to be strategic about it. And with that, there's a ton of time. There's a ton of risk and there's a ton of planning that has to be done, which in the scape of a mind,

that's 5 years right there off your timeline. Right? Then we get into the actual establishment of, okay, you found your source. Let's talk with the current sources we have right now, right? Mining is not a new industry. It's been around for god knows how long. It's probably since the beginning of civilization at

this point. But the techniques that are used are actually quite simple and the same that have carried through all these millennia if you think about it. It's you dig up ore, you crush it down, you do some kind of chemical heat processing, and voila, you have metal.

And then you can go take the metal and make whatever you want. And that's kind of fundamentally one of the biggest challenges right now is there aren't a lot of great ways to do this at scale that don't break away from how we've just concurrently been doing it. And in fact, we've gotten so good at it that

all of the org grades of the mines we currently have in existence, and this could be applied to things like copper, to iron, to a lot of other areas, um they are now dropping. So the percentage of the metal you would find in like a clump of ore has been dropping over time. And what that means is if you are

a mining company and you have a supply that you need to fulfill for iron ore, for copper, whatever that might be, right? You have to dig more rock, which is more time, more resources, more labor, so more cost just to fulfill that same order maybe 10 years ago, maybe 20 years ago. So that's kind of one of the

big issues. That's upstream. We'll take a break there. Then we can talk about the midstream. And this is where probably the my opinion the biggest challenges lay is over time the cost of actually doing this process. So we call this the refining in the midstream, right? being able to actually extract that metal out and get it into a

composition that's readily able to be used in products and further whatever you need to build out that is currently dominated by China at this moment and it's not a matter of oh we just over time gave it to them there's a lot of geopolitical influence and also regulations that happened during the last probably 50 years where it was one

more economic to let them do it. And two, there's a huge environmental burden to it, too. So, there's tons of toxic chemicals, waste streams, um the emissions from the actual smelting part that they just take over. Question, teacher. So upstream uh is the you said it's just the the decision of where to put the uh the mine

and does the introduction to midstream take once you take it out or is that still upstream technically like once you have it and and you and you take it out and then it's transported somewhere else to be refined is that the it's the transportation to the refining part that's usually what's happening right now. There's still a good amount

of processing that happens on mining sites and it's really to get that concentrate as they call it into a percentage that those smelters and refiners can use. So lots of rock crushing, lots of flotation is what they would call it. So think big water tanks where all of the ores will settle down

that maybe they want to get rid of as waste something will float up. It's very physics simple things in the grand scape of it. So where does mid where does the the concept of midstream start? Midstream starts when you have the concentrate in your hands and now you want to produce metal. So you currently

have metal mixed ore or like some kind of you know maybe it's now 60% 70% of the metal you need then you take it to the midstream and then from the midstream you get to your 100%. Okay. And you said the midstream is dominated by China. So a lot of correct does that mean that a lot of the the the

materials that are mined globally are shipped to China to be processed? It is probably I think last thing we saw was 80% of all minerals that are actually mined within global are sent to China or smelting and refining.

Okay. So upstream midstream that's awesome because we definitely have to talk about that. Is there uh downstream? Yeah there absolutely is. Um, so downstream now that you have your metal right, let's continue on the line of you got to ship these things. So take the metal, pay a tax for the emissions and

the shipping of a middleman aka China to get you to the manufacturing spot where you're making wires, steel beam, whatever that might be. Right? Here's the interesting thing is at one point we were really good globally at making things, but China was also just as good at this. In fact, they're actually probably their number one refiner and

user of goods because they were more efficient. They had cheaper labor. And again, that emissions profile and the regulatory processes that they had in place were just faster. So, I know a lot of folks probably grew up in the age of everything saying made in China and that had to go with the fact that they were

just really, really efficient and cheap at what they did. So not only were they doing the midstream to the metals, they were taking that further and making the products that we were getting and so we were importing right either we import the metals because we have our own you know domestic processing ability to create

these goods or we say hey too expensive not enough in it for me takes too long to set up hey China like go ahead and do this for us and we'll buy it from you right and that's just global trade in a nutshell it's just particular particularly for metals this became very very concentrated and bottlenecked at

this point. So are we talking about when when we when we say transport of metal like I have a metal water bottle that I'm looking at are we saying that that China would would process create the metal water bottle and then send it or we're saying China would send the metal needed to make the water bottle to another

country and then that country or both? Both. Both are both are correct. Okay. Well, this is cool. I'm glad that we have this. So, okay. So, I have written down upstream, midstream, downstream. So, uh now that we have that overview, which is perfect. Um what so let's let's go back to upstream. So, you

talked a little bit about uh the the rudimentary practices that exist uh still today. What are some you know what are what is the activity in this space? Who what types of technologies are being used? You know, AI is everywhere. So, you know, what's what's happening with AI here? uh who are the you care about?

So I will leave the exploration AI to Senita to talk about but like shout out to some folks who run our GCT 100 like beer AI who are using kind of AI and sensors to look down into the earth's crust with crazy technologies to figure out what bodies exist. AI upstream is really about kind of automation and

processing of these ores but also like looking to find you know more efficient ways of the process they are again I always go back to these mining companies have existed for a really long time right they know what they're doing and they know because they live in a commodity world so every cent every

little kilowatt hour every type of labor that goes into that end metal they have to keep track of. So AI is really boosting them both at the, you know, major corporation, but also probably more importantly at the smaller and midsize streams and companies where they're able to make decisions faster about what's coming out of the ground.

Um, why is it getting into problems with their fleet or transportation or what they're digging into? That's all places that we're seeing AI kind of being adapted upstream. I also love this kind of area of AI being this data workhorse for better, you know, mining technology, period. So, let's talk about how you

actually drill or get to those ore bodies, right? AI is letting folks be able to drill less rock or be able to blast less rock because now they're able to kind of identify where that concentration that are economic to them would be versus I don't know going and digging in like an acre of land to only

find maybe 10% of it is what they needed. Right. So is is out out of the innovation that's going on uh in the space is any of it uh not utilizing AI to some extent or is it really just some like iteration of an application of artificial intelligence?

One of our clients happens to be one of the biggest mining companies in the world and they are they was really funny and candid when I was speaking to them. They're like we have enough AI scientists and data scientists at this point that we could have a whole company based off itself. So it's everywhere and

if it's not already like in their work streams or like what they're working in, they are going to very rapidly start adopting it either through their own notions or by partnering up with people. So that's one that we always are looking at is you might have an AI platform that exists here, right? Here's a bunch of

data that I've collected for god knows how many centuries at this point. let's make something that is more feasible for us. Let's learn from that and figure out what our next targets are or how to extend the life of our current assets, whatever that might be. And that's just the rock. I'm not even

talking about like fleet optimization or like the actual machinery and tools that you would use at these companies. Um AI is everywhere at this point. And it's very much a if you're not going to use it, you are going to fall behind.

Yeah. Where where is where is um like again like if I you know correct me if I'm not using this terminology correctly but in the minerals and chemicals space well we're we're just talking about minerals and metals right? Is this technically like a chemicals conversation?

It's it's everything. Yeah. Okay. So as in in the upstream bucket where are we going like what what is the conversation within this this upstream section like like you know where where the directions that people are going. Is it really like you're speaking to uh the the the refinement of uh uh of the

operations but utilizing AI to be more efficient to to find um fi to to find drilling sections that are uh that are uh that they're more confident in and um something you you mentioned that was interesting is that on on average when you get a a chunk of uh ground material how I don't know

tougher. Okay. So, if you get a chunk of ground material and you're looking for X metal, you're saying uh proportionally that chunk is made up of less and less on average less and less of that material or that that that metal of interest. Is that because of um like you know we're we're using it you know and and it's

being used up or is it because of the accuracy of uh like finding methods? No, it's really we just use it, right? We've grown as a population. Our infrastructure continues to grow and needs to be upgraded. Um, let's just talk about, you know, humanity at this point. Like we have like tons of people

coming online who need access to water, who need access to electricity, who need access to buildings, whatever that might, it's all based in minerals. So as the world grew and the population grew and we started heading into this industrial world where digitization takes over and you know robots are running everything that nature that's

just a small part of it. You need more metal to do that right and this becomes a matter of we just keep digging it up because we need it. Got it? And we can't stop digging it up because we will continue to need it. And in fact, there's huge projected shortfalls of how much we need based on just the

current mines we have right now, but also if we were able to open up every single deposit that we found right now. But the biggest thing is time, right? Like it takes forever to open up a new mine. We're talking on the order of like decades at this point. it it has to do

with you know one like I said finding that ore body two permitting it getting all the regulations in place because there's a huge social license that comes with mining um if you look at what happens in places like Chile or the DRC or any places in Zambia where you know you have some really unfortunate

humanity issues coming from the from the mining sector you have to play into that and you have to figure out how to build a better mine but it takes a lot of time unfortunately. So I think that that sets us up nicely for a topic that I will come back to actually. But it does remind me of it.

It does make me think of recycling because that seems like uh you know a valid response to that. But before we get there, midstream. So you mentioned that this is dominated by China, but what so what's what's happening in this bucket of uh of minerals and chemicals like where is it going or you know is is

is this recognition of uh this part of the supply chain being concentrated in China a recent thing or has it been known? Uh is it is it new that people are trying to uh establish uh not such a strong dependency on China, you know, like these types of things.

Yeah, it's a very long history. Um, the easiest way I can put it is this isn't new. This is actually very much a consequence of, you know, geopolitics. And for the longest time when you let you know a country that is willing to take the environmental burden for the goods you need and it's cheap and it's

effective more like nine times out of 10 you will go that route and so things like the great infrastructures like the EPA clean air water act all that stuff that exists here in the US and many other western worlds right that was the concession they were willing to make is we want to protect our land we want to

protect our resources. So, we will let another country that's already established in it take over. And what that actually did is create this huge bottleneck of any of the kind of minerals and metals you would need for a lot of different things. I'm I'm when I say it's the backbone of like the

industrialized world, it truly is. when they have that much control over not just the supply to you but then in the end goods that are also shipped to you and the technologies used to actually make and refine those things.

it becomes a really big challenge and figuring out how do you actually get that back onto your own domain when they've had years to do this like decades to build this up right scale it up the funding behind it and then also now that they have this scaled they're able to go and look at cleaner

ways to do it so if you think about in the context of how much we have to catch up to them in order to even spur you know a domestic process processing and manufacturing capability. It's really really daunting.

Also one of the biggest opportunities for startups in this space and it's why we highlighted a bunch of them in the clean tech 100 because this is such a problem. Is there is there anyone that has uh differing opinions about this this narrative of reliance on China or is it pretty I mean everybody will have a different

opinion about how severe the problem is. I would say I think it would be a little shortsighted. Um maybe a little naive to think it's not a problem at all. there always will be a part of me that says, you know, trade and commerce will hopefully kind of friendshore things. So, we've seen in

the news recently that, you know, Trump is talking to China about having industrial relationships for these critical because he knows this is a problem, right? you wouldn't be seeing all of these billions of dollars being invested into US companies or things like stockpiling or all these like different kind of non-dilutive funding coming out for these areas if he didn't

know it was a problem. Um, and a lot of folks will say, well, it's just because of the military base and, you know, sovereignty and like, well, it's true, right? Like, these are things if your supply chain is broken, you won't have or you won't be able to get easily or you're going to pay a ton for it,

right? Right. So, um, so then, so then you you mentioned there's a there's a ton of, uh, uh, companies in the space that are addressing this. Who are the companies and how are they addressing this? Yeah. So, some of the ones that we had it highlighted in here, um, let's talk lithium for a second because I know

that's a really big space everybody asks about. So, if you're thinking about EV everything, electrify everything, right? Um, lithium right now is predominantly extracted in areas like Chile and South America. There's a couple other places in the world that are doing this. And at the moment they're creating that concentrate just through literally

taking salty water which is lithium water we'll call it for simple sakes and letting it dry out into these big ponds. So they let the sun evaporate all of the water that's in that pond into the air. So that's ton of water that comes from local communities. Maybe they have to truck it in from the sea

after desalinating it or whatever that might be. But that's lost just to produce this. And then Yep. let's go and ship it off to China for them to refine it into what we need to make your batteries, to make, you know, any of those wonderful electrify everything processes. Um, direct lithium extraction is an area that we've followed for quite

some time now that we're really excited by because this is no longer just about extracting that lithium and recovering or reusing that water. It's now they're going a step further and actually refining it into the actual materials we need to build said battery materials to build those kind of precursors needed to electrify things.

Say again, Chile themselves. Well, not just Chile. Like there's a lot of minds who are doing this on site by partnering either with their own technology or with the startups that are in here. But like mangrove lithium electrolyt are prime examples of this, right? They're not only extracting, they're actually refining in the same step. So they're

closing that bottleneck so you can be in control of your own supply chain. Wow. So what are the like like what are what are the opportunity? Okay. So the opportunity is clear, right, idealistically. And so what are what are some of the uh the difficulties that that companies like this run into? Is it

more uh is it more based in the in the in the technology? Because I would assume Oh, let me ask this. Are they hardware specific? Is that what is that the innovations? So So not Yeah. So not only are they bringing uh the difficulties of scaling a hardware startup, but uh you know, what are the

other difficulties that they run into? Yeah. So the hardware is a big one on this because anytime you're thinking in the mineral sector, you've got to think scale, right? So just because your one technology fits for a demonstration or a pilot does not mean that you will scale linearly if that when you actually get

to the amount you need to produce to be economically viable. Right? So, it's like, okay, I have this thing that fits maybe in a shipping container and it can process one ton, but actually these mines all process in the megat tons. So, am I going to put a thousand of these shipping containers out here? The answer

is probably not, right? There's always that adage of the more things you have, the more things that can break and the more things you have to maintain. So that's one of the biggest challenges about any kind of innovation in the mining sector is the scale that you have to work at.

I see. I think the other one that a lot of people don't pay attention to is actually the labor and the workforce you would be working with in this space is these are, you know, pretty rudimentary. I'm not going to say rudiment, that's a terrible word. These are pretty uh basic education level workers if any education

at all who would actually be operating these things, right? You have these brilliant PhDs who are making strides in this technology and these cool platforms. Yeah. And they have amazing engineers from Western world able to run it and optimize it.

go put that out in the middle of nowhere where people don't speak English or they barely have an education and now they have to not only maintain this but they have to work it and own it and if it fails apart or breaks down it's their risk right so how are companies dealing with that

how are they addressing those there are some amazing kind of collaborative communities happening in this space and especially with minds particularly um we spoke to SQM and how they actually are working step with the not just the indigenous people, but the local people where their salt flaps are of telling them this is what we're going

to do. Here's how it works. Here's a job we can create for you and train you on so that you understand not only what it is we're trying to do, but how it impacts you. So, there is a huge amount of education and also like movement of being more receptive to having your

local communities be a part of this. At that same time, that's not everywhere, right? Not all mines are created the same. Not all locations are the same. We just talked about kind of the, you know, human humanitarian things happening in other spaces in the mining industry. Um, so it's it's changing, it's evolving, it's becoming more

prevalent, but it's still not enough. Interesting. Um, okay. Well, I I I did want to uh move on to uh the downstream just to just to complete the cycle here, but the the midstream sounds so uh so fascinating. So, thank you for for walking us through that. I guess we'll just have and we'll have a second

episode that's just entirely about upstream, entirely about midstream. There you go. Uh but but just quickly, so so downstream, like what's happening in the space, who's operating? I mean, you you very uh like very clearly walked through, you know, the the mechanics of of this mid-stream section and who's operating and why and and these

difficulties like what's happening downstream. Yeah. So downstream, you've got to think, okay, what are the actual goods that I need to build X, right? One of the prime ones that we had in GCT 100 was actually a company called Niron Magnetics. And so if you've heard the term rare earths recently, it's because

everybody's freaking out like, oh, we don't have enough rare earths, like all this process. It's same story. So it's the same story with China. But what's important about rare earths is they are actually impermanent magnets. So, anything you need as far like a motor, a piston, some kind of anything that turns or an electronic

that has a signal, they all come from magnets and there's a permanent earth magnets. So, rare earths form the faces for these magnets that are in everything. Interesting. So, Nyron's approach is we're just going to say you don't need that supply chain.

We actually use Earth abundant materials to create those exact same magnets with great properties that you can use as a replacement to any of the rare Earth's ones. And they have some great collaborations and uh partnerships already with folks in the speaker space.

They just penned one with Stellantis for some of their uh engines. and they're continuing to build this out because as that supply chain like gets tighter and tighter, you're going to need alternatives out there that can have the same performance if not better. It's like are you going to be willing to pay

the cost to get a rare earth permanent magnet or can you just buy from us locally here in the US and actually, you know, have the same thing? is is is this is this idea of a uh abundant uh material right ab you said rare rare earth metal. So we're saying abundant metals.

No, it really is. So is this a crowded space or is this an extremely niche space? It's it's not exactly crowded, but it's becoming a lot more of a uh option that people are looking into. Okay. Because if you're going to be constrained by an actual material that has to be mind, process, shipped, like

why not look at other things that could be just as effective that you can get your hands on faster, quicker, more cleanly? Well, I I mean great question actually. Why like are there people that answer that question? I mean like are there people that are saying you know abundant material magnets aren't you know

actually uh as as effective or useful as rare earth? there they're always will be those people and I don't I want to say what you have to realize is that when you're going to go and use a new technology or new substitute for things there is a learning window and like a learning cost to adoption right you have

to work with those manufacturers to ensure you have the same properties you have the same maintain like paint maintainability all of that but to just go and say no they don't work as well I think well maybe not now but who knows for the future right that doesn't mean you just completely blow it off.

So, so we we we closed uh that that I I mean that this is awesome. I mean, I keep looking at it upstream, midstream, downstream. Very very cool. I'm glad that we walked through each of those things. Who's who's happening in there?

I have I have a couple um specific questions before we get to the end. And I do want to mention battery recycling because that's something that that you also wrote about. So, how do we understand that space? Um okay. within.

Um so this was kind of an interesting area where there's a lot of let's say uh trepidation right now and it has to do with a little company named Northfol over there in the EU and you know at one time and I lived through it and probably got my career started in it

the whole idea was electrify everything right Tesla was becoming this huge thing EV batteries were everywhere and so the next natural logical thing would be like what happens when these batteries die or what happens when they come to their end of life.

Let's build up a supply chain to actually take those materials out of those batteries and be able to make new batteries or at least get them back to the, you know, working metals and minerals or some type of form that we can reuse. Well, as it turns out, um, these batteries actually are very

robust. They last quite a long time. And there's now a phenomenon where these batteries are becoming secondary storage for energy. So yes, you can recycle them. There's a lot of different ways to do that. Um hydromemetal energy, a lot of folks know about that space where you kind of use chemicals to bring it back to their

precursors and use electricity to get them back. But if you don't have a manufacturing capacity to actually make those batteries again, you're recycling it for no reason, right? You're putting a lot of money and a lot of funding into something that isn't supported all the way through. So, it's like they were missing that end block of that value

chain where they were spending so much money just recycling, they didn't have an end customer, right? EU did not at that time have a battery manufacturer they could rely on. The same way this space is dominated by China. They actually did put in the effort, the energy, the money to not only build not

just the raw materials that we just talked about, right? But then to the actual batteries themselves, partnering up and actually vertically integrating to where, hey, you have this EV from BYD. Um, it's now it's end of life and I need that material back cuz I don't want to mine more. I want to be more circular. They

went and did it with Brump and now Brmp is the recycler. So it's a full circular argument of you have to consider every single part along the lifetime of your material. So are so are there are are there other spaces then or I mean other other markets, other countries that are investing heavily in in making this?

Well, absolutely. And the EU is still heavily trying to invest in this space. I think it's more they've gotten wiser. they've probably learned a little bit from Northvolt's failure about what's needed to actually keep that um economy and that kind of space alive. So, they're heavily investing into the downstream of who's the battery, who's

going to be the automotives, right? Who are going to switch to this? How can you get those into there? Um silo's a great example. Sorry. Silence is a great example of one. Ascend Materials here in the US who are uh part of our GCT 100. They all of these guys are taking a chunk out of the

recycling space and now partnering up with the end users to provide them with the materials needed to produce those batteries. So they learned would you say anyone is doing it as well as China yet? Say again. Would you say anyone is doing it as well as China yet?

No, not at this moment unfortunately. I mean I I I can't I can't that that's just a unfortunately that is just a fact is China is this in so many different areas not just in their capacity but also the different battery chemistries too.

Interesting. Well, there is a company that made your list that I definitely want to shout out. It's called Nycle. Yes. Right. And they're they're in the space. They are. And Nycle is really unique in that they're using kind of an electrochemical platform for all sorts of things including batteries. And they have these little oysters that you put

these battery materials or these shredded materials into and it gets you your raw material and your raw metals back out. So like they're like we know hydromeat works like everybody's going to go towards it. Let's do something completely different. And so they're working with nickel which is awesome. Um huge kind of a we're talking about

humanitarian issue with nickel in Indonesia right now. Um, and they're like, "Let's just build these modular units that we know we can scale up as this, you know, economy and as this ecosystem grows, we can add more. We're not going to dump and make a giant factory out of this if we don't have the

support and the feed stock for it first." So, I really love that approach that's happening in this space. Nice. Well, without any of the context that we've spoken about today and definitely not the work that you have put in to understand the the landscape, uh I saw Encycle on that and if I I

would have put them as you know as one of the companies as well. I think the um the founder CEO Megan O'Connor is is a like a close friend definitely mentor of mine and uh and yeah I mean she's she's bad ass so what she's doing and now in so much more context

about about you know why her company matters but uh it's even more cool um I have you know you mentioned uh North Northbolt and I have these two companies that you mentioned H Highleberg Hi Hidle Berg and uh Arcellar Mistl Arcellar Metal. Yes.

Yes. Okay. So, big incumbent companies. Yeah. So, what what uh what because I believe they both failed to some capacity some investment right happened. So, what what do those represent as far as uh this conversation goes? Yeah. So, let's break this apart. Um H Highleberg is a cement company. huge huge company. Um, when I wrote this in

the report, it was really about talking, you know, a lot of folks in the clean text space and sustainability space talk about what's called hard to abate. And what that means is the industrial processes by which you make these materials are really heavily driven by cheap fossil fuels, right? So, they're emissions intensive. It has to do

intrinsically with just how you actually make this from, you know, history. H Highleberg cancelled a massive CCS project, so carbon capture and sequester project because of costs. The amount of money that would put put in there just didn't make sense for them financially.

And when you get to a company of that scale, when you have shareholders and a lot of different people you have to, you know, talk to and negotiate with, you have to make hard decisions when it comes to sustainability, unfortunately.

So, this was a big setback for that sector in particular, not just carbon capture, but for cement in general, because the signal was like, if it's not cheap enough for us, we don't want it, right? And that's always going to be the case with any of these kind of incumbent processes and companies. Your economics

will always have to come first. Our acceleral to the steel industry saying, you know, we really wanted to do this. We had all the plans to do it. They had a ton of funding behind them, but at the end of the day, it was not economically prudent for us to continue to go down this route

because we're in a commodity space, right? There are margins we have to be aware of. We have to know how much profitability we're making. And at this moment in time, things like hydrogen, DRRi, and EAFs just aren't on our plate at this moment. Not to say it won't be in the future, but when you're dealing

with companies that are that massive, where they have that much hole for any of the other startups or innovators you're trying to play in that space, right? It just becomes that much more, I don't know, depressing, I guess, is the way I would put it.

So, what specifically are the technologies that they represent? So for H Highleberg it was a cement uh clay where they canled carbon capture um off of a couple of their plants and then for Arxellar Metal their steel company it was the development of new hydrogen derived uh direct iron reduction and steel making.

Okay. So, so then yeah and and and you had and you had mentioned a little bit about this but to you does this represent uh fundamental shortcomings of the technologies or approaches themselves or does it have to do with their application or just um something else?

The technology exists and it works. like this this isn't this is no longer a case of oh we have to wait for these to scale up or that they don't like they're not as efficient or they're not as clean or what they work they they have worked right this is a clear case of yeah we

know they work but they don't make us money okay and so anybody who's entering into this space learned the past couple of years it all comes back down to the economics of what you're doing and unfortunately No one is willing to pay a green premium for the things you can just go buy for cheap. Until that

actually is settled in and folks actually work on that, everything will come back down to the cost to deploy whatever it is. Gotcha. Well, I uh I I have learned an unreal amount and uh I'm buzzing and this has been really fun. Uh coming to the end of this, I have uh two questions

for you. What is one of uh um a long shot let's say like like a something a prediction that you made about this coming year about this market that you feel like is a long shot and uh what is something that you uh disagree about with uh your your colleagues? Is is there is there a topic that you know you

have a uh you know I know we were supposed to have Buff Lopez on. I don't know if that's a good example if there's something you guys you know disagree about, but yeah. So is there a long shot in the in the report and is there a topic that you know you have different

takes on than your colleagues? Copper two in one stone. How about that? Beautiful. And this this this is uh with Buff not being here. He'll he'll be happy I mentioned this. I talk a lot about AI in the report, right? We talked about it in the mineral sense for sure. In the materials and chemicals world, AI is

popping up everywhere because as a scientist, as a chemist, I had been in a lab formulating, putting things together, trying to figure out how they interact, work, whatever that might be, right? And that is a timeintensive process. AI is kind of now broaching into this world where well let me just use some

computers and processing to tell you all the different variations of things you could get and by the way based on these reports in this prior you know study you might have a solution that's your AI platform that's growing everywhere right now then you have a deeper level of that not only will I tell you what those

materials are I'll actually make them for you and they self-driving lab, right? So, think about like having a space or a room with a robot with the arms all over the place and different types of chemical precursors, liquids, whatever that might be. And overnight, it is assimilating all of these different little things to produce X

product or X material for you to test. My hot take on this is I think it's BS. And not to say that there are not going to be applications for this. There are some great companies out there making strides in this. My issue with it is just because you can make it doesn't

necessarily mean you should. And there's been a couple of reports in this space of these self-driving labs or these AI platforms creating chemicals, one that already exists because it wasn't smart enough to realize that one formulation maybe if you change a certain structure or something is the exact same as another. Mhm.

Or if you're going towards cleaner, more sustainable, healthier, you know, less toxic materials, you're using toxic materials or toxic chemicals in the same process to create that better thing. So, it's like you just completely negated the fact that what you're trying to aim for is something that's more sustainable.

Well, I'm glad you said it here so that we could check in. we could check in in 12 months or whatever and see, you know, see how that's going. And again, as far as in the materials go, I think the use of AI is no longer going to be an option. Like the

industrials are already playing it. The corporates are already in this space. How fast they actually get to that process of being to iterate over and over and over again and getting that to scale. That's the question, right? Um that's what I'm always going to be paying attention to is great if you made

it. Now, can you scale it? And does it perform the same way once you've scaled it that it does in your little tiny little out? Well, lastly for you, Diana, what inspires you? Oh, man. Um, honestly, being outside and getting to talk to people and learn more about what drives them and kind of this fundamental

basis of we all want, in my opinion, we all want to do better, right? We all want to be better. We want to leave this place in a better place than what we have right now. So getting to learn and hear from all the different innovators, the corporates, the investors who are just excited about this about saying,

you know, let's change the tide, right? Yeah, we can do this really well, but let's try something different. Let's make a change. Let's see if it works better, faster, more efficient, more sustainable, whatever that might be. because it's the small step changes that are going to make the improvements over time. Like this is very much a

transition. There's no silver bullet. Like I'm I really hate to say that, but there isn't. So everybody needs to come together and put all the solutions on the table and be like, "Look, here's what we need to do, right? And here's the support we need and here's how we can get this scaled up as quickly as

possible." Cuz in the grand scheme of things, it's time. Time is your biggest enemy. I can go and fund everything you under the sun if we really cared. not gonna happen fortunately. But yeah, even if you had unlimited funding, you're always going to be pressed against time and trying to not just undo, you know, what this earth looks

like at this moment, but hopefully just be able to live in this environment a little bit longer, a little bit healthier, be able to enjoy a lot of what the earth already has for us. Super cool. Diana, thank you so much for walking through this. I mean, it's I can't believe it's been as long as it

has flew by for me. Um if anyone else was inspired, what's the best way to follow along or get in touch with the work that you're doing? Yeah, absolutely. Um come follow us at Clean Tech Group, our website. Get in touch with us and we pride ourselves on building relationship with anybody in

this space. Just having a conversation about what you're passionate about, what you're working on, what you're interested in. That's all valuable to us. And at the end of the day, we're here to build relationships and partnerships that help make change and drive decision-m.

Read the report. Read the report, especially Diana's section after this. Read it all. Come on. All right. Read read it all. That's right. Cool. Diana, this is super fun. Thank you so much. Uh I'm excited for the next one to see how this conversation ages.

Thank you very much for having it. It was great to talk to you about all this. You got it.