Can the U.S. Win the Rare Earth Race? A Candid Talk on National Security, AI, and Supply Chains with Carl Coward | Growth Elevated

Podcast Introduction and Guest Introduction (00:00:00)
Julian introduces the podcast, its mission, and guest Carl Cowherd’s background and expertise.

Carl’s Career Background and Early Mining Experience (00:02:48)
Carl shares his Norwegian roots, career start in Australia, and early exposure to the mining industry.

China’s Strategic Planning and U.S. Flat-Footedness (00:05:15)
Discussion on how China’s long-term strategy outpaced the U.S. in securing critical minerals.

Why Critical Minerals Matter (00:05:42)
Explanation of why minerals like lithium, cobalt, and rare earths are vital for technology and defense.

China’s Dominance in Mining and Processing (00:06:18)
Details on China’s control over both mining and processing of critical minerals.

U.S. Awareness and the Impact of COVID-19 (00:09:31)
How COVID-19 exposed vulnerabilities in the U.S. supply chain and increased public awareness.

Government and Private Sector Response (00:11:04)
Carl describes current efforts by the U.S. government and private sector to build a resilient supply chain.

Supply Chain Constraints and Misconceptions (00:13:10)
Clarifies that minerals are globally distributed, but economic extraction and processing are key challenges.

Mining, Processing, and Economic Viability (00:15:12)
Breakdown of the steps and risks from exploration to processing, and the importance of cost efficiency.

Vision for a Western Supply Chain (00:17:08)
Carl’s vision for U.S.-based processing, allied sourcing, and the need for private-public collaboration.

Investment Opportunity and Timeline (00:20:01)
Discussion on ROI potential, current risks, and estimated timeline for building a domestic supply chain.

Regulatory and Educational Needs (00:22:36)
Emphasis on regulation, tenacity, and building educational infrastructure for mining and processing.

Market Size and Institutional Investment (00:24:30)
Explains why the market’s small size deters big investors and why it’s still critical for tech sectors.

Tech and Defense Sector Involvement (00:25:50)
Focus on defense sector urgency, tech leaders’ awareness, and the need for broader industry engagement.

Public Advocacy and National Security (00:28:17)
Advice for public advocacy, importance of congressional action, and connection to national security.

Energy Infrastructure and Critical Minerals (00:29:04)
Links between energy demand, grid infrastructure, and the need for critical minerals in energy transition.

Career Opportunities in Mining and Engineering (00:31:01)
Encouragement for students to pursue engineering and mining careers, given the sector’s long-term prospects.

Closing Remarks and Call to Action (00:33:11)
Carl and Julian discuss the importance of communication, awareness, and collective action to solve the problem.

Speaker 1 00:00:00 Good morning. This is Julian Castelli. I’m the host of the Growth Elevated Leadership podcast, where each week I talk with inspirational entrepreneurs and leaders in the tech industry. Past guests have included CEOs and CXO, CXO of great companies like Work Front, CSG healthcare, Pathology Watch and Moment, canopy, the San Francisco 40 Niners, and many more. This episode is brought to you by Growth Elevated. Growth elevated is a community of tech founders, CEOs, and CSOs who are committed to working together to share best practices and learnings in an effort to help all of us become better leaders. We do this through educational programs like this podcast, as well as our blog, and of course, our annual Ski and Tech Summit, where we bring leaders from all across the world to beautiful Park City, Utah to enjoy some great skiing, networking, and problem solving. If that sounds interesting. Check us out at growth com and please subscribe to this podcast wherever you listen to podcasts. Today. I am super excited to welcome Carl Cowherd to the program.

Speaker 1 00:01:03 Carl is a seasoned investment professional with a track record of leading over 50 transactions across four continents in various sectors such as mining, oil and gas, renewable energy, waste, water, food, materials and technology. Now, while I was super excited to bring Carl on is because he’s working on something that I think we’ve all all aware of, but none of us really have an inside view into what’s happening. Carl is deeply committed to supporting the US government in securing critical minerals and reducing our exposure to countries that are not friendly to the US and Western allies. These minerals include lithium, cobalt, rare earths, copper, tin and graphite, which are all important to US national security and play a vital role in developing and producing defense applications, renewable energy and other key industries. So this is a little different than our normal interview, but it’s super exciting, super relevant. Carl, thank you for joining us this morning.

Speaker 2 00:02:01 No thank you Julian. Thanks for having me on.

Speaker 1 00:02:04 So, Carl, we were at dinner and, the conversation we had, was different than the 90% of the other conversations.

Speaker 1 00:02:11 Because you might talk about the weather. You might talk about sports and family. You might talk about business. But now all of a sudden, you sat next to me and I said, what’s new? And you said you were working on securing rare earth, our rare earths supply of rare critical minerals, something I am very aware of because I hear about it on the news, but I don’t know anybody who’s having an impact on it. And I said, man, that was really interesting. And we had a great conversation at dinner, and you were kind enough to come here and continue the conversation today. Thank you for that. Let’s start with your background. How tell us, tell us a little bit about your career and how it led to this point where you’re now working on such critical problems.

Speaker 2 00:02:48 Yeah. So, a bit of background. I’m Norwegian by background, and I spent.

Speaker 1 00:02:53 As am I. I’m 50% Norwegian two. So we share that in common.

Speaker 2 00:02:56 There you go, 100%.

Speaker 2 00:02:57 So I was born and raised in Norway and left Norway in 2000. Spent 13 years in Australia where I started my career in investment banking. I was very lucky to live in Perth, Western Australia and started my career in, you know, early 2000 and 405 when you kind of had the beginning of the commodity supercycle. So, it’s a funny story. My, my, my first boss, who was a mentor of mine, he said to me, congratulations, you just won the lotto. And at the time.

Speaker 1 00:03:34 When you were out there in Perth.

Speaker 2 00:03:35 Yeah, exactly. And at the time when he offered me 50 grand a year to work, I thought myself, well, you know, it’s a decent salary to start with, but surely not the lotto. But I think he saw something that I obviously didn’t know, which was this commodity supercycle coming. And I was working in Perth, Western Australia, which was really the hub of mining for for the world and very exposed to China. So, you know, it was a it was an incredible blessing to start my career there in the time which couldn’t have been better.

Speaker 2 00:04:08 So it’s been ten years in investment banking in Australia. And that led me to, to spend a lot of time in the US. Towards the end of that time, I met my now wife, and, and was lucky enough to, to move to the US full time, I am. I often joke that I’m, I’m half Norwegian, half Australian, half American because I, I love all those three countries so much and, and I feel very patriotic about the US. I’m very grateful to be here. I’m very proud of being here. And I’m, you know, proud of, the work we’re doing here. So. And of course, I have an American wife and an American daughter so very defensive of the United States.

Speaker 1 00:04:52 Well, that’s a great combination of countries and nationalities, and we’re glad you’re here. So. So you saw the beginning of this supercycle. what else did you see that helped you think that this this was going to be a challenge in the country? And obviously the challenge now is that we we’ve been caught flat footed, haven’t we, in terms of, our preparation for the, for critical earth, rare earth minerals, right.

Speaker 2 00:05:15 Yeah. So I think, you know, we spent decades, over the last few decades, really been flat, quite flat footed and really been, you know, been asleep at the wheel, to be honest with you. I mean, from the government point of view, private sector point of view. And we relied on globalization to bring critical minerals to, to our doorstep and to sort of serve the industrial base or manufacturing or SpaceX or EVs or whatever.

Speaker 1 00:05:42 And these are critical things for batteries, semiconductors. What are the what are the what? Just, just, you know, for a layman like myself, explain to me why these are so critical. What are the industries dependent on these.

Speaker 2 00:05:53 Yeah. So there’s about depending on who you ask, if it’s a DoD Doe, a white House, you know, there’s typically 30 to 35 critical minerals that go into the supply chain for the EV defense sector, chip manufacturing, etc.. And they’re designated as critical because the supply chain is very volatile, i.e. we’re very dependent on other countries.

Speaker 2 00:06:18 in in the case of most of these minerals, we are completely dependent on China in some of them. We are not just dependent on the mining side of it, but also the processing side of it. So taking a mined mineral to a metal, to a magnet, to an end product that we use in our day to day life, if you sort of step back, Julian, and think about it this way, everything you have around you today, the picture behind you or or everything you look at is either mined or grown. There’s no exception to this. So when you go back to first principles, you realize how important mining is for everything that we do day to day. And as we’re moving at moving technology like AI and manufacturing and robotics forward, we are becoming more and more dependent on these critical materials. But going back to your question, when I started early in my career, I saw how to how the Chinese in particular were making 20 to 50 year bets on some of these commodities to feed their growth of the country.

Speaker 2 00:07:25 So they have a central.

Speaker 1 00:07:26 They had a strategic industrial plan.

Speaker 2 00:07:28 Correct. and they have performed it to a tee to a point where even in the early 90s the, the Chinese president or chairman at the time, Deng Xiaoping, he famously said that, you know, the Middle East has oil. China has rare earths. That sort of forward thinking is, is hard to even understand when you look back now, because very few people were talking about it, rare earths was just something that wasn’t that well known and wasn’t that important today. it is critical. And we at my firm, we joke that we have, Donald Trump is our chief marketing officer to make, you know, now, investors and many people are aware of how important and rare.

Speaker 1 00:08:18 Yeah, it has come to the forefront. Now people are talking about it. And that’s that’s why it’s so interesting to hear that you’re you’ve been involved in it. So you’ve been making investments in mining. You started your career in mining. You saw the Chinese preparing for this.

Speaker 1 00:08:31 When did you start getting concerned that the US or the West in general wasn’t going to matching up.

Speaker 2 00:08:37 Started kind of in 20 1415 when you saw the really start of the EV revolution. Yeah, right.

Speaker 1 00:08:44 All the batteries were so critical.

Speaker 2 00:08:46 All the batteries.

Speaker 1 00:08:47 We’ve all heard of it, I think through lithium batteries, because we all use them in our cell phones and our computers. Now they’re in our cars. But you’ve seen you’ve seen the full supply chain of things. But that’s that’s kind of what the retail person knows.

Speaker 2 00:08:58 Well that’s right. And I, I remember one thing that stood out to me. I asked a very senior executive for a and a, you know, automotive business. And they said, what? I asked him, where does batteries come from, where all the components come from? What’s the traceability and supply chain look like? And he couldn’t tell me. And I’m just going, well, this is a problem. And and then when we dug into it and I kind of educated him, he realized that he had 30 different countries and 100 different suppliers to get everything he needed in that battery.

Speaker 2 00:09:31 And, you know, when you started looking at that, you start to realize how dependent we are on others. And I think that’s a decision to us. And as manufacturers have made over decades, to have it that way. But then, right, the Covid is really what made everyone aware of how volatile our supply chain is? I think that was the moment where people went, oh, this is a problem we’re having problem with P, we’re having a problem with, you know, toilet paper we’re having. And then you start looking at that and think, okay, there’s a much greater issue here. And we’re completely dependent on China, Russia and other countries that not necessarily always are our friends.

Speaker 1 00:10:14 You know, you’re right. That’s probably when when the public sector really got jolted into some awareness because we had shortages of critical supply chain items. And when you start looking at that, you know, you feel a shortage of toilet paper in your household. But when you start thinking about the critical things for the future, robotics, drones, R, all those type of things, batteries, now all of a sudden you start looking at the rare earths.

Speaker 1 00:10:38 And so so you’ve been seeing this problem for a long time. Maybe the rest of the population caught up during Covid, but but what’s so exciting is now you’re taking your private sector experience, both investing and being an entrepreneur. And and you’re working with the government as you’ve been working with, with multiple administrations trying to solve this problem. I mean, I don’t want you to tell us anything that’s top secret, but what can you share with us in terms of the progress you’re making and what you’re trying to achieve?

Speaker 2 00:11:04 No, I think that especially with this new administration, there’s a there’s a mandate and a sense of awareness around this issue. And the DoD, Doe, all the all the acronyms inside of the USG are really trying to solve it, and they’re trying to mobilize efforts to make it happen. my team at Neo Terra, which is my firm, we’ve put together a very strong team of engineers, critical minerals experts, business executives to solve this issue. And we’re building a larger consortium of financial partners and, other mining companies To, to work with the USG to solve it.

Speaker 2 00:11:46 Because I think what makes the US very, incredible. And we’ve seen this in many sectors is that once they get motivated and once it gets focused on a problem, things happen. Yes, things happen fast. And I think we’re on that at that tipping point right now where there’s a better understanding inside of the USG to solve this problem, the need to solve this problem, the criticality around this issue. And I think that together with the private sector, we will make, you know, make big impact over the next 2 to 5 years in this issue and in this problem. And my, my goal is that when my, when my daughter goes to kindergarten and in five years time or school, there will never be any talk about China’s or Russia’s dominance in this space anymore. This will be solved. We have the talent. We have the ability, and we have the know how to solve this. And if we can just coordinate correctly with USG, I think this will be solved and it will bring prosperity, prosperity to the US technology sector, manufacturing and infrastructure, which which I think is currently not in place.

Speaker 1 00:13:10 So let me let me ask you to dig into the supply chain a little bit, because I think you shared with some of the, some of the, some of these topics in our dinner conversation. Is the issue a lack of, of the minerals in the United States, or is it is it the supply chain in general? Is it? And what are the critical elements? You have to have the minerals in the ground. You have to mine them. You have to have the capital to mine them. So you have to actually have investment to say we’re going to do those. And then then you have to process them. What what is the what constraint in that supply chain. Yeah. Is it true that there all, all the minerals just happened to be in Russia and China? Or is there something? Is it a little more complicated than that?

Speaker 2 00:13:45 No, it’s a bit more complicated than that. So, Mother Nature didn’t ask for permission where to put the minerals, first of all.

Speaker 1 00:13:52 So, and that’s a misconception, I think.

Speaker 1 00:13:54 I think people just kind of simplify that, right?

Speaker 2 00:13:56 Yeah. so critical minerals and let’s just sort of talk about the 32 or 30 odd critical minerals, the lithium, the cobalt, the rare earths, etc.. they are abundant everywhere. Okay. However, it’s the concentration, it’s the availability, it’s the volume and it’s the inability of them. That kind of is a driving factor of them being able to be economically extractable. Okay. So so if you can imagine mining anything or digging anything out of the ground, it’s easier to dig it out of ground if it’s two meters down the ground versus 200m. Right? you know, if you if you have a project in a thick jungle or in a middle of a city versus an A in an open space where there’s no people, you have to be able to develop an economic resource or an economic reserve, which has to happen through exploration, which means drilling, proving out the project, proving out the economics, proving that the grade, which is directly, directly connected to the economic, the economic, viability of the project.

Speaker 2 00:15:12 Yeah, yeah. So there’s a full so before mining even starts, there’s a full economic evaluation that needs to be done for drilling, exploration, prospecting, etc. that needs to be done. So that’s one part of it. Then of course you have to build the mine. Yeah. You have to finance the mine. And that’s that comes with its own risks. So hence to do that you need to have offtake. You need to have you need to have mine life that extends to to create an ROI for the investors, right? And you have to ensure that you are in a cost curve that will allow you to live through the ups and downs of a commodity cycle. So if you look at lithium today, lithium prices are reasonably low and it makes it very uneconomical to mine in many areas. So you have to focus on being in the lowest cost or at least a second quartile cost side of the cost curve. Then once you have the the mined material, you have to process it. You have to bring it into, a material that has a value to a third party.

Speaker 2 00:16:19 and this could be a metal, it could be a magnet. it could be a various sort of, various various things that has an end user, application. So, for example, in robotics, in, in EVs, in anything Thing that, in computers. everything. They all need magnets. Yes. Right. Magnets come from rare earths. Heavy and light, rare earths. And. And magnets are very important for anything that, has electricity and moves. So highly important for for new robotics, for evolution. Very important for defense. And and those supply chains are in many cases completely controlled by China, either through the mining or the processing.

Speaker 1 00:17:08 Got it. So what’s your vision? You know, if if you’re successful in ten years, what have we developed. And you know, obviously not specifically where but just what where in general do you think we’re going to be, finding the minerals? Where are we going to be mining them? Where might we process them? And what’s what is the vision of a, a, a Western supply chain that’s competitive look like.

Speaker 2 00:17:31 Yeah. So I think you have to, you have to build processing and manufacturing in the United States. Okay. So because the manufacturing and the processing and the manufacturing of the end end product is, is key. The mines, you don’t have any control of where they are. Now, there’s mining opportunities in the United States. But I think the level of sophistication in the US around the mining side is reasonably low. You have, you don’t really have a mining culture in United States anymore. As we did, that could change over the next decade. but, you know, what I foresee is countries like Brazil, Australia. resource rich countries in.

Speaker 1 00:18:15 Yeah, going back to Perth where you said whereas like the Perth personally. Right. You know, Australia is an ally. Is there plenty of material there that we, we could, we could bring over and process here.

Speaker 2 00:18:26 Plenty of materials in Australia, plenty of materials in African nations in South America. and you know.

Speaker 1 00:18:33 And you call these friends shoring? when you were talking.

Speaker 1 00:18:36 So. So we can we can find the supply in friendly Western allies for sure.

Speaker 2 00:18:41 And what you need to do is you need to become a alternative buyer to the Chinese. Okay. So the reason why the Chinese have such control of the mining sector is not just because they own the mine, but they control the offtake. Right. So you control the offtake, you control the volume. So any any commodities business if you control the volume you control the business. so, so you know we need to become an alternative to the Chinese in particular. And to do that we need to have processing capabilities in the country. And that is one of the major drivers of this administration to make that happen. But in my opinion, and I think the opinion of many people in the private sector is that this needs to be driven by the private sector, but supported by the government’s, so permitting reducing red tape. Ensuring we have access to, to strong US capital. You know, public sector capital and debt structures, etc. it’s important for this to come to fruition.

Speaker 2 00:19:46 And we have to build a we have to build an education base around the two. Right. We have to educate and build schooling and, and around these sort of topics. So we become experts again.

Speaker 1 00:20:01 Yeah, right. And you know, you’re you’re an investor by trading. So is this a good ROI opportunity? Do you feel like there’s going to be lots of, capital poured in here with good results?

Speaker 2 00:20:12 Yeah, I think so. I think right now we’re in the early stages of it, and I think there’s, you know, a lot of it’s high risk at the moment. But I think that the critical mineral space, with processing is a generational opportunity because it is so closely tied to the rest of the technology sector?

Speaker 1 00:20:31 Yeah, it seems like it’s lined up, like, very clearly now. We feel like we wish we’d. You know, figured this out 20 years, but now everyone can see it. And, you know, the things you’re working on are to. To to create the, the conditions such that investors can invest in projects.

Speaker 1 00:20:47 Operators can create, processing in the US and complete that supply chain. How? How close are we? Is it five years away? Ten years away?

Speaker 2 00:20:58 So it’s a loaded question. in my opinion, it should only be a few years away, but it’s going to come down to the motivation of USG.

Speaker 1 00:21:10 the government, the government. And that’s why you’re spending time today working with them, right?

Speaker 2 00:21:14 correct. And I’m moving my family to D.C. to be completely committed to this effort. I believe I’m, you know, in the third inning of or the third part of my career now, and, and and I strongly believe this is worth my time, effort, and capital for the rest of my career and I will not let this problem exist. Like I said, when my child goes to school, it should not. And if it has, then I failed. I’m miserably failed and I won’t let that happen. And I am just one of many that are working on this problem. And I think there’s a deep passion to solve this problem because it’s so closely tied to US national security and so closely tied to the to the technology sector and to really the future of the country.

Speaker 2 00:22:04 so going back to your question, is there a significant ROI in this space? I think there’s a generational opportunity because of that connection to AI, robotics, manufacturing, EVs, defense. And it’s so tightly correlated. And there is no industry like those industries. There’s no there’s no EV Robotics defense without critical minerals. Unless we’re completely happy being dependent on China for for the rest of time, which.

Speaker 1 00:22:36 Well, that creates geopolitical, you know, challenges for for obvious reasons. Right. So. Sure. So the awareness is just starting. You know, you have both the investment and the mining background. So you, you know, it’s very encouraging to hear that the solutions are are possible. It just takes attention capital. what are the other elements? Regulation.

Speaker 2 00:22:59 tenacity. Tenacity. Yeah. Tenacity and being willing to knock, you know, to to, hit you head up against a wall a lot of times and, and have a lot of conversation, a lot of education. I think, as part of this and, but, you know, have an have a significant risk appetite, too, because I think we’re in the early stage of this, this transition and, and we as near Terra and other groups like us are willing to take that risk and take those and make this effort.

Speaker 2 00:23:30 But, you know, it’s bloody hard. and, and I hope that we are able to, to mobilize the government to, to run in the same direction as us and keep them accountable to what they are saying through their executive orders and through their mandates that this needs to happen. So we’re holding them. We’re holding them to their word and what they’re saying to the market. So they’re not just saying these things to, to make people feel better about this. They’re actually action is being taken as well.

Speaker 1 00:24:01 Right. And ultimately, that means that’s that’s one of the reasons you came on this podcast. We have to let the the public know. So we we demand this from from our, our government officials. Correct.

Speaker 2 00:24:12 Yeah. Correct. Correct. No, it has to be from from the white House down to, to regulators to, to the whole, to the whole market. And there also has to be a, you know, the private equity sector and the mining sector in general also has to focus on this space.

Speaker 2 00:24:30 There’s one there’s one issue here that that a lot of people, even in my sector, don’t really appreciate, which is if you look at critical minerals as a whole, the market is relatively small, right? It’s it’s high criticality, but volumes are pretty small. So hence the Chinese the Russians have an ability.

Speaker 1 00:24:51 That’s how they’re able to corner it. Right.

Speaker 2 00:24:53 Correct.

Speaker 1 00:24:54 So but it’s going to be growing. Is it going to remain small or.

Speaker 2 00:24:58 No it will. It will. It will definitely grow. But when I say small it doesn’t mean that we it you know, it can be it, it won’t take $100 billion to solve this problem. It’s my point. Okay. Right. These problems can be solved with private equity and large institutional investors coming in with ten, 30, $40 billion. This problem can be very much solved very quickly, as long as it’s aligned with the US government interests. interest, but because of the market being relatively small. Large institutional players, number one, they don’t understand that.

Speaker 2 00:25:30 Number two, they don’t have the risk appetite. Number three, it’s of a size which they don’t care enough. But in my opinion they lack seeing the importance of this in other sectors that they are investing in the technology sector, the the robotics etc., etc., etc.. There is no AI without solving this problem, first of.

Speaker 1 00:25:50 All. So. So the leaders in AI and robotics, you know, the Elon Musks of the world, are they getting active and are they your allies like, you know, who are the some of the, the the big tech leaders that are aligned and helping you drive this message?

Speaker 2 00:26:04 Yeah. So our focus right now is first and foremost defense sector. so the defense primes the Lockheed’s the the Boeing, etc.. And we’re focusing on them first because they are, they have the highest criticality, they have most exposure and at least price sensitive. And and, you know, if you look at this from a purview of, we might be going into war with China in the next decade, that’s very possible.

Speaker 2 00:26:30 I think we can all recognize we’re in a Cold War right now. If it becomes hot through directly or through a proxy via Taiwan, etc., that that remains to be seen. but they are in a position right now to really inflict pain on the US defense sector. I read something the other day and I haven’t verified this, perfectly, but I read that the US defense supply chain is close to 50% dependent on China. Think about that.

Speaker 1 00:27:00 That that doesn’t sound like strategic planning.

Speaker 2 00:27:03 No it doesn’t.

Speaker 1 00:27:04 That sounds like an unintended outcome.

Speaker 2 00:27:07 It is definitely an unintended outcome. And that is a major problem that we need to fix ASAP. So that’s why we as neo terror and and my group, we’re focused on defense sector first because we think is the highest criticality. Gallery. the Elon Musks of the world definitely is aware of the issue. He brought this up the other day about the criticality around the rare earths. certainly the the many of the technology companies are aware of this, but I also have to admit that they either have their head in the sand a little bit, or they’re concerned about saying this too loudly to their investors and their stakeholders because.

Speaker 1 00:27:46 Because it’s kind of scary.

Speaker 2 00:27:48 It is scary. Yeah. And it makes them and it makes people ask, where the hell were you?

Speaker 1 00:27:54 What happened? Well, that’s that’s true too. Interesting. Yeah. Well, this is a big problem. I’m glad we have some of our best and brightest and smartest people like you working on it. is there is there a place where people can go for more information? Or like, if, you know, if you want to tell the audience, like what they can do to to support you and others who are trying to solve this problem. Any any advice?

Speaker 2 00:28:17 Yeah, that’s a good question. I think that there is now a lot of the bigger banks, a lot of the bigger financial institutions are starting to come out with research on this space. So you can start educating yourself to actually just sort of. Morgan Stanley came out with a new research report this morning on on rare earths in a magnet space. I think it’s important to advocate, through your congressman, Congresswoman, you know, through the through the government, local, state, federal government, to ask questions around this.

Speaker 2 00:28:51 What are you doing?

Speaker 1 00:28:51 Yeah, this is part of our national security. It’s a foundational element.

Speaker 2 00:28:55 This is not just deeply connected to national security, but it’s also deeply connected to the energy space as well. Energy? if you want to transmit, that’s the.

Speaker 1 00:29:04 That’s another leg of the stool, isn’t it?

Speaker 2 00:29:06 Correct. and if you look at the demand for energy over the next ten years, it is far beyond what we’ve seen in the last hundred years. We have a, poorly we have very old grid. We have, we have brownouts and blackouts often. and we need more energy infrastructure, so we need more copper wires. We need more, lithium to store power. We need a lot of these critical.

Speaker 1 00:29:36 It’s not just the energy production, but it’s the rare earths that you’re describing to to to create the infrastructure for energy production. And that’s and that that probably is a little further ahead in terms of the awareness. People are talking about energy now a lot because of AI. And maybe, maybe it’s just the last 36 months of, of of acute awareness around.

Speaker 2 00:29:56 Well.

Speaker 1 00:29:57 There is a need for energy for chips, for, for AI, for Bitcoin, you name it. Right? We’re all we’re all hearing that.

Speaker 2 00:30:03 Sure. But if you look at the energy demand from the AI sector itself, I can tell you people are delusional if they think this is going to come to fruition. So all because there is not enough energy on the system. There’s not enough natural gas, solar, etc. to make this happen. And if we don’t start focusing on this, it’s going to be an issue. And that’s why you see the metas and the Microsoft world investing into nuclear. Nuclear is not economical, but they are just doing anything to fund baseload power, for their AI, supercomputers and Nvidia chips, etc. it’s critical for them. They’re making billions of dollars investments, but it’s.

Speaker 1 00:30:44 Only that’s how it’s becoming. You know, it’s becoming in the news we’re reading about these private sector investments in energy, which we really haven’t had much before. And it’s because people are becoming aware of this.

Speaker 1 00:30:55 Yeah. So so not only do we need the rare earths, but we need the energy. And they’re related.

Speaker 2 00:30:59 Correct? Correct.

Speaker 1 00:31:01 So if you were talking to, a, a young professional or a student going into college, you know, you feel like this is going to open up a, a 20, 30, 50 year career path for engineering, mining. Some of these. Some of these skill sets. What are the skill sets? We need that you think are going to be promising based based on that. But you started the podcast with someone said you’re entering, what was it, a golden era or something? What was that? Yeah.

Speaker 2 00:31:31 Well that’s right. Look. Process engineers, chemical engineers. Mechanical engineers. Engineering groups certainly will have, engineering, I think, has a strong, you know, future in, in this space. I just as a side note, and obviously, we’re all talking about how AI is disrupting the the world at the moment. I saw a friend of mine, talked about, friends he has for all the kids are, coming out of Stanford as computer engineers.

Speaker 2 00:32:04 right.

Speaker 1 00:32:04 So they should they be shifting towards, you know, mechanical vehicle. They. Earth science. Engineering.

Speaker 2 00:32:10 They definitely should be. They definitely should be. Because those are things that because.

Speaker 1 00:32:14 The AI is going to be working more of the code, but they’re not going to, you know, they might participate, but they’re not going to build build these real things. The I can’t mine right. It can help us explore.

Speaker 2 00:32:24 Perhaps they can help us explore, become more efficient and create new IP around the space, for sure. And I think it’s going to be an important part of of the future of mining and processing and national security for the United States. But, you know, there’s there are things that cannot be solved through ones and zeros. It’s as simple as that.

Speaker 1 00:32:43 Well, it’s back to what you started with, right? Everything comes from farming or mining. Correct.

Speaker 2 00:32:48 You have to grow it or you have to mine it.

Speaker 1 00:32:49 And these are real things. These are real, rare.

Speaker 1 00:32:52 Rare elements and rare earths. And, and energy is going to be powering that, so it couldn’t be more relevant. Carl. I’m sure it’s satisfying, personally, for you to be, well, devoting your your skills and efforts to something that’s so important to the future of our country. I thank you for what you’re doing, and I wish you the best of luck.

Speaker 2 00:33:11 and, Julian, it’s very sweet of you to say, but the truth is that I’m doing my bit. But there’s a lot of talented people around me and around other companies that I know that are doing great work and, and, and if I can just make a small impact on this, something I’m super proud of. But I am super lucky to have some incredibly talented people around me and my team that are, that are going to be big drivers of this. but I’m happy to be a talking head in it and and being able to be, you know, someone who, someone who will scream from the top of the rooftops about this problem.

Speaker 1 00:33:49 I think this we’re in the stage where that’s what we need. We need communication. We need awareness. We need action. Right?

Speaker 2 00:33:54 Yes. Correct.

Speaker 1 00:33:55 Correct. Well, I’m glad you’re doing it. I’m glad we’re able to share this morning with with our, our audience. And, let me know how I can help you in the future. I’ll look forward to to to following your progress and helping wherever I can.

Speaker 2 00:34:06 Thank you, Julian, I appreciate that.

Speaker 1 00:34:09 All right. Terrific.

Speaker 2 00:34:10 Thank you.