S1 E46: Phoenix Tailings – Revolutionizing Rare Earth Extraction w/ Nick Myers

Dustin Olsen (00:40)
Hey everyone, welcome to the Rare Earth Exchanges podcast. I am Dustin, your host. I'm joined by my co-host Daniel and we have a special guest, Nick Myers, who is the CEO and founder of Phoenix Tailings, a company working to extract rare earths and critical metals from mining waste using clean and zero waste processes. Nick, thank you for joining the show. How are you?

Nick Myers (01:03)
Dustin, it's an honor to be here. Thank you so much for having me. I'm doing great today. It's an honor to be here right before Thanksgiving. We're pretty excited.

Dustin Olsen (01:10)
Yes, absolutely. And Nick, just dive right in. I'm really fascinated with what you guys are doing at Phoenix Tailings, but can you kind of give us some insight into the original thought or the problem that you were trying to solve with the company?

Nick Myers (01:24)
Yeah, absolutely. So I actually met my co-founder, Dr. Tomas Villalon, at a Bible study of all things back in 2018. And Tomas is one of those super smart people you meet, and like, my gosh, this guy is like, that's not going on, right? And he's top of his class at MIT, material science, worked in metallurgy.

crazy smart guy, but also like kind of out there in general. So we started talking about critical minerals at the time. It wasn't called that, but it was like trace metals and re-resourcing and all of what these electric vehicles or missile systems or new cell phones or what everything needed.

And at time, no one cared about rare earths, but we started seeing them more and more in these waste streams. And the fact is we looked at it little deeper and they're needed in everything. We actually ended up getting funding from the National Science Foundation to go and interview people all around the world to understand the value chain for rare earth metals. So we actually did 247 interviews with individuals and stakeholders in the rare earth value chain back in 2018.

And turns out the midstream processing was a real big problem with rare earths. And we looked at this and we said, no one's doing this oxide to metal conversion. No one's doing this separation thing. And how are people actually getting the raw material? This whole processing chain is really isolated in China. Well, let's go figure that out. So we brought together a team of the rock star scientists, engineers, and top tier folks from like MIT, Northeastern, Harvard.

and focused on building this platform of technology that underlie underpins this entire value chain focusing on that first stage of oxide to metal conversion that metalization component and that's what we built quite literally in the backyard to start off with and now we've raised 90 million dollars to date we're back by Sumitomo, BMW, Yamaha, Incutel, some of the top players in the sector and we're one of the larger commercial producers of the final metal and metal alloy really focusing on that midstream processing with the

vision to go end end from tailings or waste products is readily available all the way down to that metal to metal alloy with zero waste, zero emissions, but in a fast, rapid way to actually meet the demands of our future.

Dustin Olsen (03:22)
Wow, that's incredible. And 247 people, how long did it take to do all those interviews?

Nick Myers (03:27)
It was awful. was actually, I think it was like a four month process. We actually, so the NSF has something called I-Corps program and it's like a very, very structured process that was built by Steve Blank, who was one of the founders of like the lean startup business model campus.

and really rigorous actually. And we went all around the world. I was in Malaysia. I flew back of the bus coach to Malaysia. That's where I met Michael Rosenthal from MP Materials for the first time. And I like begged him for his time to just tell me a little bit about Rare Earths. And he was so kind and was actually gave us like a lot of insight around the sector and understood it. But we also met with all the other players like a blue line, John Blumenthal and Peter Afeni from now at the time we're reminding and now Novihan.

really

got to understand the sector in the Western world but we also talked to the Chinese producers and all the other end players that cared about the sector and there was a lot but really really educational to understand I think the output of that is that we ended up being one of very few players that saw

every part of the value chain, not just the primary value chain, right? That's the mining, the produce concentrate, the oxide and the metal, as well as the magnets, but also the secondary, which is the components going into that, right? The rare salt's going into that, the HCL that feeds separation or the caustic or the sulfuric acid, right? All of those components. And then of course, the power. fact, just China really runs pretty much all of that globally. So we understood that in depth and were able to build a business kind of around that.

Dustin Olsen (04:48)
I was gonna say, how would you describe Phoenix Sealing today and where you guys fit into the industry? Because you're not a mining company, you're not on the other end of that. how would you describe that?

Nick Myers (04:59)
The way always position us is a technology first producer of the final metals. We want to be the fuel to this future society, right? We're not looking to be the magnet players producing end components. Like that's not our goal. We want to be able to fuel all the people doing that type of amazing innovation, but we build raw technology at the ground level.

but are producers of the metal. So we operate in that midstream processing. We're never going to mine proper material, but we will do recovery from mine waste. For example, we just got awarded 1.6 million from US Department of Energy to be able to go after waste waters to recover trace metals in there and pull that out. But really where our strength is, is feedstock agnostic, meaning we could take material from anyone.

processing that, doing the separation and doing the final metallization stage, which we just opened the new facility in Exeter, New Hampshire to be able to produce that at commercial levels and shipping those products out to magnet companies or alloying companies who are putting it into aerospace alloys or for wind turbine blends as another application for like Yttrium metal, for example, one of the other metals we produce.

Daniel O'Connor (05:56)
So I had a question, Nick. First of all, ⁓ we're big advocates and fans of what you all have done. It's a big, big deal. It's important. The technology. without going into details that you can't talk about, mean, what's unique or novel about Phoenix tailings at a high level to the extent you feel comfortable? Why are you so confident that not only can you

Nick Myers (06:04)
Thank you.

Daniel O'Connor (06:20)
produce what you produce today, but you can scale up to tens of thousands of tons in the future.

Nick Myers (06:25)
Hmm, Fundamentally speaking, we took a different approach than the rest of the world at the problem of rare earth processing. If you look at why China has adopted all the rare earth processing in the world, like they have 97.6 or something percent of the global supply chain for rare earth metals, it's because they use the traditional process. They use something called unstable chemistry.

meaning they're pumping in electricity, they're pumping in energy, they're pumping in whatever it is to be able to produce the final metal as fast as they can in an unregulated way.

I don't mean regulation from a governmental standpoint, but I mean from an actual technical standpoint. You can't really do that in the Western world because you're discharging HF fumes into workers' faces. That is a huge Chinese process. Yeah, there's ways to mitigate it. There's ways to protect against that. But at the end of the day, you're still dealing with that type of thing and you have to spend way more on capital expenditures to be able to build the safety features in place so you don't have that exposure. We fundamentally looked at the problem and said, well, we can't do this, right? Let's reinvent how we

actually

do this under the underlying way, we found the underlying core chemistry that focuses on the system. We saw the errors in the initial models that were created back in the eighties on how you actually do the chemistry of the system and designed something called stabilized chemistry. This is Dr. Tomas's bread and butter. This is really his field of chemistry that he developed from scratch, part of his PhD and what we've really taken out of this ecosystem.

to really pioneer and scale. And this is our third generation system that we're operating here in New Hampshire. We acquired the technology from a company called Infinium Metal. We bought a bunch of their equipment, combined that with our novel chemistry, and that's really what we've been able to really develop and show. And we produced that today at commercial volumes. We're looking to scale it even further, but the fact is we took really, really smart people.

looked at a problem in a creative approach and spent the past eight years combining old technology with our new approach to be able to demonstrate and de-risk that. And thankfully, God bless us, we're at the right stage now with the right time in the market. So we're not only scaling, but we're already producing at commercial volumes. We're one of the largest producers of the metal and we're looking at being able to help the world actually make an impact, you know.

Daniel O'Connor (08:29)
So I would say, you know, if we look at refining, this is the major bottleneck, as you know, as we report about, report on. Would you say that Phoenix Tailings is the number one refiner, midstream refiner in the United States today?

Nick Myers (08:44)
I never try to claim like number one or number two or specific things like that. But I will say is right now the market needs everyone to produce at full speed. And I would say that we're one of the top players, if not the top, but I think one of the top players able to produce actually at large volumes and specifically focusing on this oxide to metal stage, which is a very, very key often overlooked stage. That's an area where we really thrive. And I would say that oxide to metal conversion. Yeah, there's really not a question that one were the best in the world.

Daniel O'Connor (08:48)
Mm-hmm.

Nick Myers (09:09)
But as refining operations, know, MPE, UCORE, USA Rear Earths, a lot of these players are producing material. I don't know if we're better or worse than them, but I think all of us need to be successful to really have this whole market.

Daniel O'Connor (09:21)
100%. Can you talk a little bit more about the oxide to metal process? Very clear for any, know, there's lay people that come on too. I think it's very important. We agree with you on that.

Nick Myers (09:27)
No, it's not.

Absolutely. So just to put things in simple terms with how we see the rare earth value chain, right? You have concentrate production that's digging the hole in the ground. These are mining operations, whether it's traditional mining or it's recycling magnets. You really all produce the same thing, which is a concentrate. We produce, well, our grand scheme is long term to be able to produce that from tailings or mining ways, but it's still concentrate. That's a mixture of all 17 different rare earth elements, all of course with their impronounceable names, but in carbonate or oxide form.

And the next stage of that is you have to take that concentrate and split it to the individual rare earth oxides.

Daniel O'Connor (10:02)
Yes.

Nick Myers (10:03)
Now,

oxide is great, but it's not the final form. You can't make a magnet with oxide. oftentimes we loop them together with magnet production because it's a complicated stage, but you need to actually convert the oxide into a metal, which then goes into strip casting, which eventually goes into the magnet production itself. And that oxide to metal stage is one of the key areas that China's really dominated this global marketing because of its environmental impact, because of its worker safety concerns, because of the energy consumption and the cost

be able to produce, they've really controlled that oxide to metal stage. And that's what we double down on with our technology is saying, hey, look, if we want to have a global supply chain, someone has to solve this problem of oxide to metal conversion. And that looks like a pure raw technical problem that we, when we started, could bring in the best and the brightest from MIT to actually solve this problem. And that's what we did. And of course, we do separation and we do the concentration as well. But many players are looking at those sectors. But really where we differentiate is our ability to really deliver that oxide to metal stage.

very

clean economic and scalable fashion that actually delivers value for the world. And that's what we have to have solved if anyone wants to have a value chain operating.

Daniel O'Connor (11:09)
100%. Now on that note, I know on the separation side, sometimes at least in China, there are different processes for separating the different rare earth elements. When you're going, Nick, oxide to metals, is it similar or can you consolidate it into one technological process? Or are there different processes for different rare earth elements?

Nick Myers (11:31)
I am so sorry. I could not hear you.

Dustin Olsen (11:32)
Yeah, you were breaking up, Daniel.

Daniel O'Connor (11:35)
sorry, let me try that again. You know, Nick, how with separation there are different processes in China for different rare earth elements, correct?

Dustin, go ahead and take it over and let's reconnect. Yes. Yep.

Dustin Olsen (11:47)
Hey Daniel, will you turn off your camera for a little bit? You're

a bit behind.

⁓ okay. While we're waiting for him, could you talk about where you get most of your feedstock from?

Nick Myers (11:58)
with pleasure. We actually source all of our feedstock ex China from US, Canada, Australia, and South America.

Dustin Olsen (12:04)
Wow, and what of that feedstock is probably the most common?

Nick Myers (12:08)
Well, you have mining. So we have a split between mining and recycled material. And we generally source oxides. I'd say it's split between US, Australia and South America quite extensively. Canada has some, but it's not fully online yet. And you're starting to see more and more from these regions. We obviously try to prioritize the United States as much as we can because we are a US company, US DNA, American citizen.

Everything was US. We're New England where America was founded. Like, let's be America all the way through. But we also like to work with many, as much with parties as we can and believe that, you collaboration is key to success for this industry.

Daniel (12:43)
Yeah, Nick, my question was, you know, with separation, we know in China that they've developed processes to separate different rare earth elements in different ways, and that's part of their proprietary advantage. the question is, when it comes to oxide to metals, is it similar in that

you have different processes for different rare earth element base metals or is it one process once you consolidate it to that point?

Nick Myers (13:09)
Yeah, it's great question, Daniel. So functionally speaking, oxide and metal conversion has underlying differences in chemistry per oxide. There are similar aspects to it, like some parts the equipment stays the same. We've developed a system where the equipment is pretty much identical for most of them. There's two different types of equipment and we match them accordingly to the metal as well. But we produce dysprosium ferroalloy and NDPR alloy.

the same cell, for example. Not at the same time, you switch out the chemistry underneath it, but you can produce it in the same cell given the different parameters. It's all about optimizing your economics when you choose which metal. But some metals like terbium you need to optimize for energy usage and for yields, whereas other materials that are lower value in price you're focusing more on throughput. It just depends a little on how you want to operate it. But functionally speaking you can swap in the cells quite easily using our type of technology, not with the Chinese technology. The Chinese technology is

Daniel (13:37)
Mmm.

Nick Myers (14:01)
beholden to the individual.

Daniel (14:03)
Right, yes. That's very helpful and that's very exciting as well. It's exciting that you can produce terbium, dystrobium. mean, these are the heavy rare earth elements that China has basically a monopoly over. And I know the US government is looking with MP materials, for example, for other sources. If you're able to refine this, I mean, that's very exciting. Are there enough…

Dustin Olsen (14:07)
⁓ So with that, what would you say is harder right now? Is it the technology development of your guys' process or is it securing the long-term off-take agreements to keep going?

Nick Myers (14:20)
Well, our technology is pretty much done from an iteration standpoint. Like, yeah, we always come up with new tech every day, but that's what happens when you have a team of 50 different, well, now it's like that's almost 100,

Dustin Olsen (14:28)
huh.

Nick Myers (14:30)
but 50 of them are MIT scientists. They come up with new stuff every day. That's what happens. So, ⁓ but I would say that in general, we're focused more on scaling our capacity of our production. So we have very solid demand on output, right? That's really good. Like there's no one saying in this rare earth market today that anyone's lacking in

Daniel (14:31)
feedstock in the tailings to produce the heavy rare earth elements that we need in the United States.

Dustin Olsen (14:35)
Yeah.

Nick Myers (14:50)
demand from a customer. It's finding the right partners to scale with that will work with you on the capacity constraints and how to best build this market X China because this is a whole industry requires the end customers at the end of the day to drive most of the engagement. That's a key thing. But really for us, it's about increasing capacity, finding the right partners to able to do that with.

Dustin Olsen (15:08)
So when you say increasing capacity and partners, is this like physical space, like you need like additional warehouses and all that and get them to like, okay.

Nick Myers (15:15)
Well, part of it, right? So it's

about building more units. There's a lot to it, right? Building capacity, I use that term as an overarching term, but remember you're building a whole industry here. It's not just…

like me turning on one thing and then magically the whole market works, right? There's been no rare earth processing in the United States. So you have to build a whole industry that's the primary, secondary and tertiary parts of the value chain have to come together, right? So for us, we have a facility in New Hampshire, right? It's currently producing a 200 metric tons per year of metal output, dysprosium, ferro and NDPR. We'll be adding in additional DYTB, yttrium, germanium, gallium and a few other materials into that processing as well. But that'll go from 200 metric tons to over a thousand tons of

Dustin Olsen (15:30)
Yeah.

Nick Myers (15:55)
output in that building. Now to do that, have to increase power output, like power infrastructure to the facility itself. You have to build more cells. All of that requires capital, partners to do each part of it, Different people coming together. And it's really that ecosystem that really comes together. I think people often forget that no one can do this on their own. That's insane. It requires a whole industry. So we work as much as we can as possible with the whole industry and sometimes convincing people

that don't operate in the sector, please, please, please, will you start providing material in this sector? Will you start operating here? Will you work with us to scale it up and thinking creatively about how to do that, right? For example, most of our equipment is machined and built in New England. And I'll tell you, they didn't build rare earth processing stuff before. They built different types of systems, oftentimes for medical devices, which has no relationship to rare earths at all. But they're really, really smart. They know how to build a system. They understand how temperature controls, how you need to be very, very tuned.

into very fine specific motions because medical device pharmaceuticals are very regulated and we're taking that type of technology and saying hey please shift your approach and build it for us in rare metals. They ask what rare metals are but outside of that it's going pretty good.

Dustin Olsen (17:03)
Yeah, I think you made an interesting point and one that's probably often overlooked or not given the credit that it needs is when it comes to the rare earth industry, the entire supply chain is required to make it work. know, mines don't function if they don't have people who can take this stuff, know, processors don't have a job if they don't have a mine.

Nick Myers (17:18)
Yeah.

Dustin Olsen (17:27)
or a decline on the other end to buy it. Like it all just comes together in a beautiful harmony in a way, but I think we get so caught up in one segment of the supply chain where we're just like, we have a mine here in the United States, we're good. Or we have someone who's doing the recycling, we're good. But that's not necessarily true because we need everyone to play and participate.

So I think that was a good point that you brought up.

Nick Myers (17:55)
Thanks so much. It's really true.

Like you have so many parts of this value chain. It's just, you have to build an industry, right? Like that's the thing. And it's an exciting opportunity because folks like ourselves, right? And like, the MPs and new cores and USA for Earth and all the other players, right? Like, we get to build something from nothing. Like how many times in your life do you really get to do this and actually make an impact for good on the planet? Like, this is awesome. We're pretty excited about this opportunity.

Dustin Olsen (18:18)
Yeah,

absolutely. So on that note, so we're building an industry. We've talked here on the show many times that we need industrial policy to kind of help create a path, remove the roadblocks that exist. From your perspective at Phoenix Tailings, how impacted are you by the lack of industrial policy or is it more of everyone else in the

⁓ value chain that is impacted by the lack of that.

Nick Myers (18:45)
Hmm. You know, it's a thought-provoking question, Dustin. Though I probably wouldn't phrase it that way, though, if you don't mind me saying so. I think the reason people say, hey, we need industrial policy around rare earths in the United States is because the free market isn't quite operating effectively.

You're expecting to operate at a full massive scale of a fully grown market while you have what's called negative externalities by a foreign government. This is a term used in econ very often when you talk about macroeconomic policies. Negative externality means there's something outside of the free market that's factoring in here. Obviously, with the current administration, they're very laissez economics or high-axe principles of economics, free market economy. But you need to have intervention to be able to prevent the negative externality.

So China intervening in the market and manipulating pricing, for example, on metals. So what they do oftentimes is the oxide price is higher than the metal price. And basic economics tells you that's not physically possible. So that means Jesus can't make a margin because you're going to have a negative processing capability. So obviously something's wrong. Now, when you have that…

That's where you say, US government, maybe we step in and say, hey, let's come together and say, hey, no, let's not do dumping regulations. Let's impose anti-dumping regulations on China. Let's be tough. Let's make sure there is an actual functioning economy here in the United States for rare earths. That's where I think the gap is today. And I think everyone's impacted by perhaps not having that, but I think it's more impacted by the fact that China is actively intervening from a governmental level on private markets. And that's the

where we would say, maybe we do need some support because Phoenix tailings here in New Hampshire and Boston, Massachusetts is probably not strong enough to go up against China every single day. Now I'll tell you right now, we will try. We will go fight the fight as much as we can for the American people. But I would tell you it'd be probably pretty helpful if the US government and other partners, not just the US government, but like, and customers come and help and say, hey, let's go lend a hand in this fight.

Dustin Olsen (20:37)
Absolutely. so speaking of, you know, US intervention or help, this year has been pretty remarkable in terms of change that's happening. Has any of those changes been pretty monumental for you guys at Phoenix tailings?

Nick Myers (20:49)
Yeah, I think honestly, when the MP deal happened with USGov, like that galvanized the whole sector. Now all of a sudden, the whole world's looking at RearUs. I think I have my grandma calling me and asking about RearUs now. It's great. I think there's obviously challenges I don't want to highlight or say positive or negative things about specific policy movements and how the government does things. I couldn't tell you, I leave the policy to the policymakers. That's not my thing here.

But what I will tell you is from a layman who goes and fights the Chinese government every day and to build an economy here in the United States to make sure the American people have access to the raw materials that they need to function on a daily basis.

I am very excited to see what's going on in the sector and we've been waiting for it for a while because now everyone is at least focused on the sector and now it's an opportunity to really make a long lasting impact. I know the world has had a few chances at doing this in the past where Chinese have shut off supply and then brought it back on again back and forth. But now I really do feel that the world is looking at this and it's our opportunity to really make an impact.

and do something for good for the world and do this in the right way that has a long lasting sustainment for our global society. We're pretty proud to be least one of players fighting that fight.

Dustin Olsen (21:53)
Yeah,

absolutely. And I love that. Cause when we've done research and we've read a lot about what goes on in the process and a lot of it's not sustainable or healthy for the environment. Like finding alternative sources to get the same thing is just paramount. And it like you guys are doing a great job at fighting the good fight, which we love here.

So looking, I mean, with, you know, we're talking about policy and things like that, you know, and the MP materials deal definitely sparked a lot of interest from investors, retail investors. Are you guys looking to capitalize on some of that? Is it, or do you need more investment from other people? Or are you guys, you're set and you're just, you're ready to go with your existing partners?

Nick Myers (22:37)
Honestly, so we've been debating that for a little while. We're not raising capital right now just for full client transparency. However, we're looking at it and saying, look, we really need to make an impact on this world. So likely speaking, we're going to go out in a big way is one of the things that we're thinking. So we're just trying to think about how do we go as fast as we can now? Look, the technology's proven, the operations proven, we can produce. Let's find the partners that can help scale and go to that massive level where we can really make an impact at a global stage. And that's, think, one of the things that's coming up.

We're still evaluating how best to do that with the right partners and who to do it with and how to structure it and all the different details. But look, the market needs players making metal and there are not that many people doing it the other day. And I believe with our technology and our approach and our mindset, we're one of the top leaders in the sector. again, with the right partners, not just investment partners, but customer partners, the right supply partners, with the right collaboration partners. Look, I think it's important for us to go as fast as we can.

Dustin Olsen (23:26)
So speaking of going fast, I do feel like there's a misconception that can be put out there that things just happen in an instant. And in this space, it's just absolutely not true. mean, to get a mine operational is like 18 years. get a permit takes three years. ⁓ Like, it takes a long time. So when you're talking about scaling and building out the infrastructure that you need,

Nick Myers (23:42)
Yep.

Dustin Olsen (23:50)
What kind of timeline are we looking at? What is your runway for this?

Nick Myers (23:54)
Yeah. So you have to remember our DNA is in startup DNA. I don't think in terms of 15 years, like that's not even in my mindset.

I think up until last year, we only ever had a runway for 12 months of life ever. So I'm not thinking in that many years, right? That's just our nature. So I think there's a term that someone threw around the other day and I really liked it. The Chinese move at Chinese speed, which everyone refers to as fast. I'd like to say that we here in the US, we move at American speed, which is faster, right? So we're trying to move as quick as we can. I'm talking the next two years, we'll have major operations at global level where we can beat the Chinese at their own game.

I think we could do it this year if we can get the right support and right approach, but hey, I'll be conservative and say two years we'll be able to crush them.

Dustin Olsen (24:37)
Wow, two years, that's, I would say that's pretty fast. And it's a lot faster than we've heard from a lot of other people. You know, there's just a lot of roadblocks and red tape that they've got to overcome. So. ⁓

Nick Myers (24:47)
Yeah, but it's about building

the right path through those roadblocks, right? I'll give you an example, For us, we looked at the refining stage of the business. If you were to take Chinese process and try to get a permit in the United States, A, you'd probably never get a permit in. And B, if you did, it'd only be in certain jurisdictions and would probably take you a few years. From the time we signed the lease in our building in New Hampshire to the time first metal came out the door, under six months. And that's the beauty of investing in technology.

Now, I will comment, Dustin, that I'm not talking about the 20 years of technology development took to get there. But the six months was very good. So we're pretty confident.

Dustin Olsen (25:19)
You

Yeah,

okay. When you put it in perspective, yeah, the 20 years to even get to where you're at today. Yeah. That's awesome. So what you guys are building is novel. It's a zero emissions approach. Are you licensing any of this to other people? I mean, are you trying to help other businesses kind of level up their game as well? Or is it just, we have the solution, contract with us.

Nick Myers (25:45)
Yeah, I I always phrase this. I'm not smart enough for licensing. I don't really know how that works. It's very confusing. So we're a technology first producer. Like, we look to be the end game producing the final metal and metal alloys. That's what's exciting. That's our goal.

We have novel technology, right? That's what we do. We invest very heavily in technology. But I think that you need to be a major tech focused company in order to be successful as a producer in the sector. And that's why we're able to be at the level of some major players while being substantially originally substantially smaller and now growing substantially faster. That speed comes from the technology, just like SpaceX and Tesla, Amazon and those players, right? You need to be able to operate like that. And that's the key thing with the sector. If we bring that startup mentality that Elon brought to Tesla to the

Rarer supply chain will be in good shape.

Dustin Olsen (26:25)
Sweet, I love that. So with that, the mentality of a startup, feel like you said you've got about 100 people on payroll right now, give or take. Okay, is it just like a hive of energy? everyone just like excited about what's happening, new technologies that are maybe enabling more things? Like, what's it like day to day there at the office?

Nick Myers (26:32)
Yeah, give or take a little bit,

very fast-paced.

think…

Folks that come in are pretty shocked a little, like when they see the space, when they see what's going on, because you think metal is processing, right? You're not thinking rapid startup, top, top, top technology leaders, right? People that don't sleep at night. Like we're talking, generally speaking, you think like old school, industrial, you know, you go home from work at 3 PM, you know, you take, there's your shovel back to the house, right? That's what you think, right? It's definitely not what we are, right? We have the best in the world, the way. Like we got people working every day from 6 AM to 8

long hours, long timeframes, fast pace, crazy deliverables that you'd see put in front of us, right? We bring the same mentality you have at Google, Amazon, or Tesla and SpaceX. We try to bring it to the sector and that's really what it's like. We've been able to use that to recruit some top tier folks. We just had a CFO join from Draper. So she went from building missiles over at Draper to now Phoenix and taking that knowledge and…

mindset to this sector. We have some other top folks that will be able to publicize relatively soon coming on board with this radical new mindset to really bring this approach to the rarest sector and that's how we're going to be successful.

Dustin Olsen (27:49)
That's awesome. And it's really exciting. I think as we've been talking, it sounds like there's just a lot of energy. There's a lot of passion for not only what you guys are doing specifically, but for the industry as a whole. And as the saying goes, know, all tides lift all boats, right? And so I just can only imagine that the work you guys are doing for the industry and as a company, we'll just kind of elevate everything around it. ⁓

Nick Myers (28:03)
100%.

Hope you start off

the day cool.

Dustin Olsen (28:13)
which

is really exciting. to kind of just wrap this up, to put everything into perspective, what would you say, what are you most excited about Phoenix tailings? What are you looking forward to over the next five years? I know you just said you don't think much more beyond 12 months, but like, what are you excited about over the next, ⁓ yeah, several years?

Nick Myers (28:27)
Very hard.

Look, I'm really excited. Over the next 18, 24 months, our whole goal is to build ⁓ additional factories and expand up the value chain to get to the tailings.

The way I see it is once you're processing material from tailings, right? So right now we do primarily oxide to metal conversion at the commercial scale. That's what we do. Yes, we have technology. We have pilot operations on separation. We have pilot operation with extraction. We have the full stack. Yeah, of course. But that oxide and metal conversions are a big commercial operation. The next phase will be to expand separation to be able to take concentrates from many different mining operations, not just one. That's a big key differentiation of what we do and be able to process that all the way to metal. That technology has been de-risked and we're scaling it out right now with key partners. But that will be really exciting when that happens in the near future.

But once you get the tailings, once you can process all this waste material that's just sitting all around the United States and get those trace materials, that unlocks huge amount of value. Not just rare earths, right? We're talking copper, nickel, cobalt, lithium, zirconium, like all these different materials that historically have been just supply chain restricted because you just can't get access to it. The processing is tough. They're high cost. They're in places that don't make sense like the Democratic Republic of Congo, right?

It's just tough. And once you get to tailings, you could unlock this for the whole world in a way that takes mining from being one of the worst sectors on the planet to being a net positive where you cleaning up things. Like that's amazing. That's what I get excited about. That's why I, generally I did this job for two years for free. Now I get paid. That's great. But like, that's why, that's what gets us up in the morning every day, you know?

Dustin Olsen (29:52)
That's awesome. And Nick, can, your energy and your passion is just like palpable. Like I love it. I love talking with you. It's, this is so fun. So for those who want to learn more, connect with you, how should they go about finding you? What's a good place for them to go?

Nick Myers (29:57)
Well, no.

Absolutely, so our website, redesigned website, very nice, it was great job, my team did a great job on it, I very excited. It took like six years for us to actually do that. But anyway, there's a contact us link. I assure you, we have a human being looking at that, every single message you send. So reach out to us on that, follow us on LinkedIn, we do have people monitoring and looking at this. If you just send any note, I assure you we'll get back to you. And someone real will get back to you, not just a robot somewhere, shape or form.

So we'd be honored to collaborate, whether it's new hires coming on to look to join Phoenix, whether it's potential partners on sales side, fee stock side, partners that want to trial new technology with us and they have an idea that they want to partner with. Like we always love working with new tech players and finding ways to collaborate. It's very exciting. Or industrial producers that are saying, hey, like let's find a way to be in on how the next generation of Earth processing or investors that are looking to scale or anyone in general, like, just reach out. We'd be honored to chat collaborations.

part to what we do and we're excited to be around the sector.

Dustin Olsen (31:02)
Perfect, yes. Like I said, I was just saying, like all tides lift all boats. like, yeah, that's exactly what you guys are doing. I love that. So for those who are listening, if you've liked this episode, please give it a thumbs up. It'll help expose the show to more listeners. If you don't want to miss a future episode, like and subscribe. You'll get an alert the next time an episode comes out. So Nick, thank you so much for joining us here on the Rare Earth Exchanges podcast. Truly insightful and

Nick Myers (31:08)
with us.

Dustin Olsen (31:27)
and very exciting to listen to all that you guys are doing. Hopefully we'll have you again on the show for an update, see how things are going and hopefully we'll have another 12 month roadmap to hear about.

Nick Myers (31:38)
Yeah,

absolutely nothing. It's an honor to be here. Thank you so much and happy Thanksgiving to everyone.

Dustin Olsen (31:44)
Absolutely. Thanks.