Transcription
Hello everybody and welcome into Commodity Culture where our goal is to make you a better investor in the commodity sector. My name is Jesse Day. Today is March 16th, 2026 and before we dive in, standard disclaimer. Nothing here is investment advice. Do your own due diligence. Today's guest is the CEO of Energy X, a company that has developed radical innovations impacting all aspects of the battery supply chain, including brine lithium extraction. We're going to dive into it as well as discussing the lithium market today. It's Teague Egan. Welcome to the show.
>> What's up, Jesse? Thanks for having me.
>> Great to have you here. I want to kick things off with your current assessment of the lithium market and where it stands. Demand is rising and the supply shortage is very real. Can you walk us through some of the numbers and explain why lithium presents an opportunity for investors today?
>> Yeah, absolutely. I mean, uh, today's a very exciting time to be investing in lithium. Um, about five years ago, we we were at a a low in the price, kind of like the $15,000 per ton range. And then, uh, in 2020 2021, uh, we saw a huge spike, uh, actually kind of a detrimental spike, and the price of lithium went from 15,000 a ton up to 80,000 a ton. um companies that that need lithium like EV companies, battery companies were all scrambling to get their their uh supply of lithium. Um and that's obviously what caused the huge price spike. And then when they got all of that, uh, the price crashed and in 2023, 2024, even as as, um, recent as 2025, the price went down to like $8, $10,000 a ton. Uh, but now, um, that that lack of supply is happening again. Uh, so we're seeing the price start to come up and that's always when you want to look at potential investments like the the price hit the bottom uh and now it's coming up and it just passed $20,000 a ton. We as a lithium company want it to be somewhere in that 20 to $30,000 a ton. Uh, but that's that's a really good price when you're thinking about the the growth of the commodity. Um, if you're investing like into lithium as a commodity, of course, then you want the price of lithium to continue to rise. But for us, in terms of the growth of the demand today, lithium is at about 1.2 million tons per year sold and all the projections have it going over 3 million tons by 2030 and over 5 million tons by 2040. So we see this huge increase in the actual demand and supply of the commodity and that's what we're betting on as a company that that we see that growth in lithium for the use in batteries for the for the growth of electric vehicles for the growth of energy storage systems. So that's kind of how we're playing uh the game right now.
>> Well, I want to talk about some of the constraints on the supply side that have emerged recently. In February this year, the government in Zimbabwe enacted a sweeping immediate ban on the export of all raw materials and lithium concentrates. In addition, China has moved the power to grant lithium permits from local provinces to Beijing, creating a backlog and idling some mines, including the Jan Xiao mine in Dangshi, which accounts for 3% of global lithium supply. How much of an impact do you think these events will have? And do you expect more of these supply bottlenecks coming from different jurisdictions around the world up ahead?
>> Yeah, I mean when you when you say 3% like that might not seem like very much but it's a signal from China uh that more production may come offline, right? Um, same thing with Zimbabwe, like they're they're they produce uh spodumene ore, which is the the feed stock to produce um lithium hydroxide. And if they're stopping all exports of that and trying to get that value add in their country, like that um pinches supply chain. So for the countries that need lithium, the United States being one of them, you know, 5 to 10% of demand coming offline, like we're seeing it right now in in oil in the Strait of Hormuz where about 20 or 25% of the world's oil supply comes through that strait and the price of oil just shot up over $100 a barrel. So when you talk about you know three or five or 10 or 15% of a supply chain like that can have a meaningful impact on uh global supply and how how these commodities move into the next phase of their development in terms of lithium. It's going into the the cathode or the component that goes into the battery um and ultimately to the end consumer. So, um, you know, we're we're building lithium plants in Chile and right here in the United States in Texas to try to mitigate some of that global supply chain risk. Um and and I think that uh you know that we're we're bring we're looking to bring on a 100,000 tons uh of lithium by 2030, which today that would be close to 10% of of global supply. By 2030, I mentioned that we'll be at uh 3 million tons of of total global demand. So we'll be three 3% at that time. But 100,000 tons um is about $2 billion of revenue. Uh so you know it's it's these are meaningful amounts when you're talking about hundreds of thousands of tons and we need you know if we're at 1.2 2 or 1.3 million tons today. We're talking about, you know, a really substantial number of mines needing to open by 2030 to meet that demand. Um, you know, we're doing our part by bringing on an extra 100,000 tons, but there still could be a drastic supply shortage, which again is where you see that huge price spike if everybody needs lithium and there's none to be supplied.
I'd like to talk about two different aspects of the lithium market. One is the electric vehicle story and the other is battery energy storage systems because you know we're hearing that the narrative on EVs things aren't quite working out as projected. However, we are also seeing things like China ramping up their EV production with those BYD vehicles which are very cost effective. Um, and then we're also seeing the fact that some estimates are placing installation growth of battery energy storage systems up by 40 to 50% this year. Now, notably, these systems use almost exclusively lithium iron phosphate. So, I'd love to get your thoughts on both. How do you see the trajectory of the EV market and that impacting demand? And also battery energy storage systems.
>> Yeah. Well, look, um, Jesse, you said it yourself. Energy storage systems which are like these big utility scale battery backups and you know what data centers need to ensure that they don't have lapses in power um are up 40% and that is massive. That's like adding an extra million tons of lithium demand uh to to the industry and we're only going to start to see that increase. Um, data centers are like one application of energy storage systems. Uh, but there's there's heavy industry, there's commercial, there's industrial, there's even residential like people putting, you know, these power packs or or home batteries in their houses, which help mitigate some of those some of those spikes uh during the daytime of high energy. And man, my my energy bill for the past couple months uh was much higher than usual, right? And a battery can help uh even that out. In terms of the EV story, honestly, I think that's a huge misnomer that it hasn't necessarily met projections. I think that I think that it's it's uh natural um human instinct when something comes and is new to think it's just going to like oh like every electric vehicle or or every vehicle on the road by 2030 is going to be an EV, you know, it's it's easy to say that in 2020 when like Tesla is booming and all the all the other uh car companies like General Motors and and Ford and that's just US. Uh but even in Europe like Volkswagen and BMW, oh every car by 2035 is going to be electric. Like that's that's an unrealistic expectation. Um the the facts though are that electric vehicles have increased substantially every year. And in 20 okay can't like 2012 or 2015 um the total number of EVs on the road globally was like a 100,000 last year in 2025 20 million new electric vehicles. So, and each year it's gone, you know, not 1 million, 2 million, 3 million, but like the the growth has been well, 300,000 in 2016 and then 600,000. And like it can't double every year. It can't go from 300 to 600 to 1.2 to 2. You can't double every year, right? Like at some point the CAGR, the compound annual growth rate has to come down. And now we're seeing, you know, 15 or 10% increase. But if you're at 20 million, a 10% increase is now 22 million, right? And then, you know, so so and then the next year it's 24.2 million. So we're seeing that that growth in electric vehicles and adding 2 million new electric vehicles is a lot, right? Um, but it's especially happening in China. And you can go online and watch some of these interviews from the CEO of Ford, uh, what's his Bill Farley, and he's he's scared for the future of Ford because these Chinese EV companies like Xiaomi and and BYD are just kicking our butt. And again, the fact of the matter is is that electric vehicles are better cars than ICE than than inter not not not the other ICE, but you know, the internal combustion engine cars. They're faster top end speed. They have faster pickup. And now BYD just announced that they have uh cars that can go go a thousand kilometers and charge in 7 minutes faster than a gas station. So the the technology is is innovating and growing so much faster. And I mean we see it with Tesla. Like Tesla cars are better. like there's less parts which means that they break down a lot less which means your maintenance and repair cost is substantially lower. Like I got my Tesla in 2013 and I've had to bring it in like one time in 13 years. Like you know the there there's I don't know the exact number of fewer parts, but there's far less parts because you're not you don't have this like super sophisticated complex engine, right? It's just a battery and a motor. Uh, so China is building a B by is building a factory to produce millions 5 10 million EVs a year that's bigger than the city of San Francisco. Mexico already has BYD cars. Canada just announced they're importing BYD cars. Like the US is getting left behind. And if these company like and and we're so cyclical with administration to administration like under Biden it was like oh all gung-ho like EV transformation and now under Trump it's like Ford writes off their whole EV investment. GM is you know slowing it down. That's the wrong move. That is the absolute wrong move. And we're going to be sitting here in four years and China, you know, we're talking about how China beats us in everything, beats us in critical minerals. They're going to be beating our ass in auto. And if we don't innovate and continue to invest in the future, which is EV, we're going to be sitting here with our horses and carriages and it's going to be pathetic. So, I don't think that that's going to happen. I think that in 3 years uh we're going to be back to like major investment and may maybe we lost a little bit of time but as it relates to your original question with the projections and expectations of the EV story like there's a blip in in the transition but we are going to fully or near fully transition to EVs because they are better cars across the board.
>> Yeah, and that that was a great summary. I think a lot of the narrative also is being driven by social media where everything is either pictured as the most bullish amazing thing ever or doom and gloom and it's about to fall apart tomorrow. And so I I like your thought process of looking at it more on the long term. And I want to talk about Project Vault now, a $10 billion initiative to establish a strategic critical minerals reserve in the United States. This includes lithium and of course this is in addition to the US government taking a direct stake in Lithium Americas last year showing a strong domestic push for the sector. Do you expect more favorable government policy ahead and how could it help drive companies like Energy X particularly in regards to your Project Lonear in Arkansas?
>> So a few things there. One, I think Vault is 12 billion actually. Okay, better better for us critical mineral companies, but many billions and Project Vault is an initiative by this administration to shore up and secure critical minerals uh in the United States. Like critical minerals ultimately are the foundation for you know the the AI and we'll call it the AI and electrification revolution. Like all call it Industrial 4.0 revolution starts with these critical minerals that make semiconductors that make robotics that make magnets that are the foundation of EVs or uh nuclear reactors or you know chips etc. Like uh and that's what Project Vault is doing so securing our lithium, our nickel, our cobalt, our rare earths both heavy and light, our copper um, our cobalt. Like these these these critical minerals are foundational to uh staying ahead with innovation um and ingenuity and we're putting 12 billion into it. I think we need a lot more. Um, but but that's key. Uh, as far as Lithium Americas, uh, that was actually the Biden administration who, uh, originally invested. Uh, they did a $2.3 billion loan from the Department of Energy. Uh, this administration said, "Hey, that's a pretty big loan. We actually want a little bit equity in the company, too." Um, but but you know, a a cornerstone anchor kind of showcase to say, hey, we're actually going to invest in critical mineral production here domestically in the United States and Lithium Americas has a huge deposit in Nevada. Uh, you know, while I think that that their that project has uh pretty high costs in terms of the CAPEX and OPEX, actually I don't think that I you can look at what their costs are and compare it to other projects' costs. Uh, they were they were leading edge and they've been working on that project for 10 years. Uh, so the government said, "Hey, we're going to support this because they're going to produce, you know, 40,000 tons of lithium from that project." Uh, to compare it to Energy X, their CAPEX per ton is $72,000 as compared to our project in the US, that's about $21,000. Uh, so like if they're building a 40,000 uh ton plant, you multiply that times $72,000, you're looking at $2.8 billion to go build that plant. For us, we're building a 50,000 ton plant at $21,000. You're looking at a $1.1 billion plant to produce 10,000 tons more lithium. Same thing with the OPEX, which is how much it costs per ton to produce per year. Uh, so like my input, my labor, etc. They're at about $6,000 and change. I can't remember the exact number per ton. We're at about $3,500 per ton. So, if the price of lithium is high, sure, everybody makes money. It doesn't matter. When the price of lithium comes down to like what we just saw um, you know, a few years ago, 2 years ago, and it was $8, $9, $10,000 per ton, their plant needs to shut down and go on care and maintenance because they're losing money because their OPEX is, you know, $6,000, $7,000 and then you have to amortize that CAPEX, whereas we can still stay alive because we're still profitable. Um, so the economics of projects obviously really matter, especially when it's a commodity. You want to be on the bottom of the cost curve in terms of how much it costs to make the commodity that you're that you're selling. Uh, because those prices do fluctuate. And uh, so but overall, Project Vault, super positive thing for uh, America and our industry, and I'm excited to see how they deploy some of that money.
>> Well, let's pivot to discussing how Energy X fits into this whole picture. Why don't you start by giving us an overview of the company?
>> I started Energy X back in 2018. Um, been at it for seven, eight years now and uh it's been it's been a fun ride. Uh, we started with developing what's now known as direct lithium extraction technology or DLE is the acronym. And uh that is the the concept of replacing these big um evaporation ponds, these big like saltwater ponds. If you ever flown in San Francisco, you see these huge salt ponds. There's salt in water, obviously. Uh, ocean water is about 3 and a half% salinity. The brines that we get the lithium from can be as high as 30% salinity. Think like the Dead Sea. It's so salty you float in it. But the the salt that makes up that percentage is a mixture of all these minerals. Or the Great Salt Lake, for instance, is like eight or nine% salt. And that's you know, everything from your table salt, sodium chloride, to potassium chloride, which is fertilizer, very important for growing food. Uh, to magnesium, there's sulfates, uh, and lithium. Um, lithium is a salt, uh, as a lithium chloride or lithium carbonate, lithium hydroxide. And what we do is we said these evaporation ponds are a really inefficient way to extract lithium. Uh, because it takes 18 months, you're literally using natural sunlight to evaporate water and it goes through a series of ponds. They only recover 30 to 40% of the original lithium that's there because you lose some to it co-precipitating, etc. We said get rid of all that. Let's build like a chemical refinery plant and extract it using 21st century technology like membranes that you have under your sink or solvent extraction or absorption like you put it through a column and we have beads that absorb the lithium. Um, so we spent four years developing that technology and looking to license it to companies that have these existing salt ponds. We thought that would be a smart way to go about it. Um, and then none of them wanted our technology and we're, you know, sitting there kind of scratching our heads and then we realized like, oh, of course they don't want to adapt new technology that potentially threatens their business. Um, and two, they've already spent billions of dollars on these huge evaporation ponds that are, you know, 10 square miles, like the size of New York City, um, hundreds of football fields and and it's expensive to go build, you know, I talked about numbers earlier, like building a billion-dollar plant, like that's a big investment decision. Ultimately what ended up happening was uh it forced us to uh vertically integrate um because we couldn't keep beating a dead horse and putting the future existence of our company into hoping to get a technology license from you know, a handful, a small handful of groups that were otherwise pretty resistant. Um, so we had to go acquire our own lithium resources and vertically integrate to control our own destiny. So in 2023, we acquired our first lithium resource in Chile. Uh, in Chile, there's this area known as the Lithium Triangle. It's uh, northern Chile, northern Argentina, and southern Bolivia in the high Andean mountain range. Um, and you typically see these like desert salars in high mountain ranges like the Great Salt Lake uh in Utah, you know, that's at height. Um, that are evaporation uh through the natural formation of these big mountain ranges. Uh, lithium salt flats have formed. Um, but we acquired 100,000 acres in Chile in 2023. Uh, a great lithium resource uh and started developing that project using our own in-house proprietary technology. Then in 2024 2022 um our board decided that it would be prudent to have a resource in the United States to um mitigate some of that foreign country risk. While Chile um is, you know, a first-world country and a partner to the US, there still is some risk in terms of permitting and and things like that. And, you know, we wanted a project uh domestically. So, we've accumulated 50,000 acres of lithium deposits uh in the Smackover Formation, which is between Texas and Arkansas, and we're developing uh Project Lonear there. Uh, so now we're we're building uh demonstration plants which are larger than pilot plants, smaller than commercial plants, but each of these plants costs roughly $30 million. So not by any means a small investment. Uh, but obviously smaller than a billion-dollar commercial plant, right? Uh, so we have great lithium resources. Uh, we're sprinting towards commercialization. Um, and now finally that we have kind of scaled up improved our technology on a reasonable level. These demonstration plants can do about 250 tons per annum of lithium. Now all the big boys that once doubted us and didn't believe that DLE uh would work or was a real thing are coming to us trying to license our technology. So, um, it's kind of, uh, we're in a really good position now. Um, and, you know, over the next two years, we'll be commercializing our first plant. Uh, actually both kind of at the same time. Project Black Giant in Chile and Project Lonear in the United States. And each of those, uh, as I mentioned earlier, will will target to produce 50,000 tons. So, 100,000 tons in total. And if lithium stays above, you know, $20,000 a ton, let's just say $25,000 a ton, um, you know, we're looking at $2.5 billion of revenue, uh, from those two projects. And we're looking to add more projects as well. Like, like I said, lithium demand will be at 3 million tons by 2030. We want to produce as much of that as possible. So we have a a nice pipeline of discussions we're in to acquire more resources both in North and South America. Um, and we also are looking at additional critical minerals uh that are relevant for the energy transition. So other critical minerals for the battery supply chain as well as critical minerals for the nuclear material supply chain. I believe that nuclear is going to be the biggest source of power generation uh over the next 20, 40, 50 years. And similar to you know, EVs or energy storage systems that require batteries that require these critical minerals, nuclear reactors have a comparable uh necessity for critical minerals whether it's uranium, actually lithium uh is necessary in certain types of nuclear reactors, uh thorium, um as well as a handful of others. So that's Energy X in a nutshell.
>> Great summary and you're preaching to the choir on nuclear. I'm extraordinarily bullish on the future of that sector as well. Uh, let's talk about the team behind the company and how you plan to leverage their expertise. Let's start with your own background and why you're the right CEO to take the helm at Energy X.
>> I think that uh our team is incredible. Um, and the the way that I judge a leader, including myself, is predominantly two things. One is the vision. Like, is this person visionary in terms of making long-term bets that prove to be accurate for the most part? And I think that you know the the insight of hey lithium demand is going to skyrocket over the next 20 to 40 years uh was accurate like in 2018 when I started the company um the total demand of lithium was 300,000 and today we're at 1.2, 2, 1.3 million and projections have it, you know, so so you're looking at a 10x in you know, 10 years or 12 years, right? So which has exceeded even my expectations uh so then like, you know, like you just said with you're you're bullish on nuclear, like well, so am I, right? So I see uranium being a critical mineral that will have the same type of demand curve as lithium uh did now 8 years ago. Uh, so as the CEO of the company, like yeah, we could just stay a lithium company, but like I'm trying to grow Energy X into a hundred billion dollar company, and that won't happen just by being in lithium. So what is my 10-year master plan? Like how what what are these growth areas? How can we enter into other critical minerals while being laser focused on developing and commercializing our first lithium plant? So what what kind of vision does a leader of a company have? Right? And and ultimately that correlates into the belief in your team to stand behind you and execute, help you execute on the vision. Right? Second is building that team. Right? There there's not a single story in history of a one a one-man show who does it all. Right? And being able to build a team that a has the the expertise that you need um to execute on that vision and b kind of can make decisions with the same type of accuracy or at least then you've built a really good team. And with Energy X as it pertains to lithium, we have a group of some of the foremost world experts. Like our our president of lithium came to us from SQM, which is the biggest lithium producer in the world from brine-based resources, worked there for 28 years, led a team of 1,700 people and was there before they were a lithium company and then turned them into the biggest lithium producer in the world. Like some having somebody like that on the team is invaluable. Like we we wouldn't we probably wouldn't be in business today if this person wasn't on the team. So being able to bring him onto the team and having him believe that in my vision and that I'm the right leader is the sign of being a good leader. Our Chief Technology Officer comes to us from Rio Tinto, which is either the number one or number two largest mining company in the world. Uh, they do copper, they do iron ore. Uh, they've recently become the biggest lithium resource holder, hoping to pass SQM in terms of production. Uh, and he was the first author on the first patent that Rio Tinto ever filed for lithium. So he has four degrees. Is like this guy is an absolute genius when it comes to developing the actual technology and the processes that we're using that are replacing the evaporation ponds, which our guy from SQM had into what is 21st century breakthrough technology. Then we have, you know, a whole list. I could I could go on and on about the qualities of our of our team, but being able to lead and leading from the front, like, you know, being being on the site, being in the detailed engineering meetings, like, you know, like it's it's it's uh being able to execute and doing what you said you were going to do, not only for your team, but also for your investors is what makes a good leader a good leader. And I think that second to that is being a founder leader is incredibly important. Like nobody cares more about this company than me. This is like my baby. And I have the I I also have the most to gain, right? Like I'm also still the largest shareholder, right? So, so my my future depends on this company as opposed to, you know, a CEO that um has been a lifetime CEO and uh can probably go get another CEO role after this, you know, has the experience, right? And you you see that with the biggest companies in the world. They're essentially all founder-led companies. Uh, and and the all those founders relatively had zero experience in whatever it was before they started doing that thing, whether it's Jensen from Nvidia who worked at Denny's before he started Nvidia, or Zuck who was a college kid, like, you know, or Elon, like what what makes Elon an astrophysicist, right? But they all they all are founder-led companies and they're able to take risks. They're able to, you know, they obviously all work their ass off and they all have executed continuously. Um, Bezos, you know, all these companies executed. So, the day that I stop executing on the vision or the day that the vision isn't a good vision anymore, uh, is the day that I won't be the best leader for the company. But, you know, we've we've made it this far and I think that we're on track to be like I think the first like true large-scale commercial direct lithium extraction producer in the world. Um, and I think that through this energy transition, you know, I was looking at some ridiculous numbers from the IEA on how much investment needs to go in to like be carbon-free by 2050. It's like trillions and trillions of dollars. But within that, we will see multiple hundred billion dollar market cap companies be created uh from the opportunity of the energy transition. And where Energy X wants to play is in the supply chain, like I mentioned, of these energy storage and energy generation. And that largely falls to batteries for energy storage and nuclear for energy generation. And we will produce the raw materials uh and maybe some of the refined materials that help power those two categories. And within that, there is a hundred or multi-hundred billion dollar market cap opportunity for Energy X. So, we're marching towards that. And it just comes with execution and commercialization. And I hope to be talking to you in two years. Uh, well, we've already we've already built our demonstration plant that's producing lithium. But in two years, I hope to be talking to you when we have our first commercial lithium plant. Uh, so, yeah.
>> Well, I am definitely looking forward to that day as well. In a couple years' time, we'll have to follow up. Um, I would like to dive into the main catalysts, news flow that's coming up for the company that shareholders can look forward to and that you expect to drive performance for Energy X for the rest of 2026 and into next year.
>> At Energy X, like we we just keep crossing milestones. That's how we've raised money. That's how, you know, I continue to inspire the team and investors. And the next big milestone uh is commissioning our 250 ton demonstration plant in Texas uh which is actually happening this month. We've actually hot commissioned it already, but we're throwing our big uh unveiling of our demonstration plant on March 26th. And uh the the event is called Get Lit at Lonear. Uh, Lonear of course being the name of our project up there and Get Lit actually being the name of our DLE technology platform. Uh, that might not be what you were thinking, but uh, Get Lit actually stands for Get Lithium and um, you know, this this is going to be an awesome event. We have hundreds, I think we have 500 people coming, but we're also live streaming uh the event. And I wanted to I wanted to make it kind of like one of these awesome Tesla events where they do AI Day or uh Robotics Day or Battery Day. And so anybody will be able to tune in uh to the live stream uh and see the biggest direct lithium extraction plant in the United States to date. Um, albeit our demonstration plant, 250 tons per annum, will be the biggest lithium plant for direct lithium extraction in the United States. So that's like the next huge huge milestone for us and a catalyst. Then uh after that um I have a lot more exciting stuff but I I can't tell you yet. Uh, but yeah, if people if people tune in, we're making a lot of announcements at this live event on March 26th. Uh, so maybe if you share the link or something, uh, your your audience can find out some of the stuff coming up further in the year.
>> Yeah, and I'm assuming you're going to have it on your website as well. I'll make sure to put a link to the website in the description so people can follow along and and look out for that announcement. Now, a couple things I want to close on. One is that Energy X isn't a publicly traded company. So, how can investors get exposure and the other is just any additional thoughts you have? Anything we haven't covered yet that you think people should be focused on when it comes to Energy X?
>> So, so number one, we are a private company still. Uh, but we have utilized um an exemption under the SEC that allows everyday investors to get in to Energy X at the early stage. Uh, similar to what was only restricted for like venture capitalists or high net worth individuals. Uh, you can go on our website and in the top right corner click invest and read all about our company. Uh, we have a very informational website. Uh, this is also a regulated thing. So we have SEC filings, so you can go click on our offering circular. It's very comprehensive, as it is required to be. You can see all of our financials, like all of our, you know, plans and contracts and things like that. Um, but anybody can invest. I think it's like a thousand or $1,200 is the minimum investment. And Energy X actually proudly has over 40,000 investors in the company to date. Uh, which I think is cool. And you talked about, you know, just that belief in me and like that didn't happen overnight. That's been over 5 years of continuously hitting milestones and making announcements and growing the company and acquiring resources and building the team and doing all these things. But that goes alongside some of our major institutional investors like General Motors. Uh, POSCO, which is a big Korean steel and battery company that does like $70 billion in in revenue a year, and ENI, which is the big Italian energy and oil and gas company. They're the equivalent of like Chevron and Exxon but over in Europe, they do a hundred billion. So, we have huge institutional investors to go alongside these 40,000 retail investors, but literally anybody can invest in Energy X. And uh, it's um a pretty pretty cool thing that uh the the Securities Exchange Commission allows startups and private companies to do. Um, in terms of anything that that you missed, I mean there that was a very comprehensive uh discussion and I think that you know we we covered a lot. Um, one other thing that I would mention is that in addition to being a lithium company, like Energy X has a lot of different lines of revenue. So, we talked about selling lithium, like that's the main thing for us today. Um, we talked a little bit about uh potentially other critical minerals um like uranium or thorium uh or polymetallic nodules. I'm a big believer in. We talked about licensing our technology to third-party lithium resource owners. Uh, there's also additional projects in the pipeline. The one thing that we didn't discuss that's that's pretty cool is so we have vertically integrated not only our resources and our technology but also our upstream supply chain. So like people that are watching this might wonder like well how how does DLE work? Like we use membranes but we actually make our own membranes. So or absorption. So like you have a huge column that's filled with these beads or resin that absorbs the lithium and it lets everything else pass by. We actually make our own resin. So we have a security in our supply chain where where there's no single point of failure or we're not relying on any underlying technology or or material or consumable to to affect our success. And that's really important. But it's also created opportunities where like we have this commercial membrane manufacturing line uh in our Austin headquarters and we have excess membrane more than we need for our own plants, right? So a we'll license that or sell it to lithium companies, but b other industries need these membranes. So, we're selling these membranes into industries like carbon capture, for instance, and these are these can be multi-hundred million dollar contracts. So, we have a lot of different lines of revenue that are all part of this energy transition um that that I think is going to make uh Energy X a very attractive business over the long term as the energy transition continues.
>> Great. Well, I'm going to put a link in the description as mentioned to the Energy X website as well as social media so people can follow along with the company. Teague, this has been a blast. Thank you so much for coming on the show.
>> Thanks for having me, Jesse.
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