S2 E73: How to Revolutionize Rare Earth Element Recycling: Insights from Clem Chambers

Dustin Olsen (00:41)
Hi, everyone. Welcome back to the Rare Earth Exchanges Podcast. I'm your host, Dustin, joined by my co-host Daniel. And our guest today is Clem Chambers, who is the co-founder of Silex World. And Silex World is a spin out from University of Leeds, specializing in developing modular micro refineries capable of recovering and recycling rare earth elements. Clem, welcome to the show. We are thrilled to have you here. How are you doing?

Clem Chambers (01:09)
Yeah, great to be on great to be on I mean, it's a very very exciting area and as a non PhD in chemistry I'm just loving the whole the whole arena because it's fast moving and you know Lots of great stuff going on in the US and and we're getting great traction in India So and you know, the Japanese are ringing me up saying have you got any aetherium? For example, you know, no, we're all we're all out of fluorescent tubes. Sorry

So, you know, it's a real exciting area because, you know, governments are making all these documents, critical strategic minerals, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And when you look at the list, it's like all of them. mean, all right, iron's not in there. But, you know, there's only so many elements, but there's at least like 35 of them on the list of, no, we haven't got any of this, ah. So, you know, that is, for me, that is very exciting.

Daniel O'Connor (01:48)
.

Clem Chambers (02:07)
because you know that that is it's like a pinch point that's occurred in the global economy and and it's all kind of up in the air as you're seeing in the US I mean I remember years gone by driving past past mountain pass and somebody saying that was what I used to do rare earth but the Chinese dumped on America and they went bust or and they went bust and then they went bust again and it's you know we're not doing it anymore and ⁓ okay and that was before

Daniel O'Connor (02:18)
.

Clem Chambers (02:37)
I got interested in rare earth, but that kind of stuck in my head that you could have rare earth, which is not earth and not rare, but nonetheless crucial and have a kind of war going on at a higher economic level, which is, which is crucial, chronic and kind of nobody, nobody knows, nobody cares that this battle is going on. And you know, I think for the first time,

Daniel O'Connor (02:48)
.

you you

Clem Chambers (03:07)
America's woken up to that chronic battle and realized that it's getting pretty acute and and it has literally moved mountains to address that particular issue and waves are going across the globe with a realization that China for better or for worse has got everybody by the throat when it comes to Critical strategic minerals and it's not just the the source material it's

Daniel O'Connor (03:16)
. .

Clem Chambers (03:35)
The precursors it's not just a precursors. It's the equipment and it's not just that it's like they've got the whole as the word is these they stack They've got it by the throat and that's why it was so interesting With our technology, which is alkaline Because the whole rare earth stack has been for the last years acid-based and I mean perfect example

Sulfuric acid. Yeah, let's use that. that's really bad for the environment. don't worry about that It's only it's gonna happen in China. but sulfuric acid. Tell me about that. Yeah, we haven't got any anymore They cut off the stray of hormones and ⁓ Difficult to make sulfuric acid when you haven't got the precursor to the sulfuric acid and who makes it all Lot of it most of it quite a bit of it out of China. So everybody's working out it all goes back there and and

Daniel O'Connor (04:04)
you you

Clem Chambers (04:27)
So the bottleneck, the real choke point is the reprocessing and the acid process is another choke point, but the alkali process kind of fell into abeyance. It was the original process. It's how they discovered them in the first place was an alkali process. And then the acid process took over because it's faster and probably sexier and gets the job done quickly. And it took over because it was economically at that point, you know, more productive, more profitable.

But now, with China having a stranglehold over a lot of the process, the acid process, and with environmental rules that are probably, you know, let's just say a little bit more flexible, yeah, you can look at the alkali process and look at it as a, not as a re-imagining, but as a upgrade of it, of further technology, you know, take 1880 technology and bring it 100 years into the future, and all of a sudden, it's commercially viable again. And…

The the the alkalis that you you use are made by the million tons outside of China So it is actually a viable route around End run or whatever you could even run down in America and it's an end run around the Chinese stranglehold and And that's where we fortunately sit so when we showed up in India and they said we've got this yeah, we can do that. Hey, let's go

And that's beautiful, right? And it's the same thing that's happened in America, which is the let's go. Yeah. I mean, I understand that the Trump administration has been relatively ruthless in funding the rare earth rollout or reroll out or whatever you want to call it, renaissance resurrection. And that's interesting, but they've gone and they've gone and done it. And, you know, they've acted like a load of governmental private equity people and kicked the thing off.

Well, you know, that is kind of the level of aggression you need if you're gonna catch up with Asia. And we all know what I mean by that, with China. Because most people say, well, China's going really, really fast. When it catches up, it's gonna catch up. Well, first of all, when it catches up, it's traveling faster. So it's gonna pass you and leave you in the dust. But maybe it already did that.

I mean, Elon's gonna be building robots to make Tesla not a lame duck. Well, I can buy a robot right now from China for 18,000 bucks. And apparently he can make money for me. That'd be good. So, you know, maybe catching up is actually getting up to an equivalent velocity first. And you know, there's no dawdling really. You can't dawdle for much longer.

Daniel O'Connor (06:57)
Yeah. Yeah.

Clem Chambers (07:11)
and America isn't dawdling and that's great, that's exciting, that's what needs to happen. Because it will all feed into a massive economic boom, if it's done right. And what could be better than a massive economic boom? Because all this stuff goes into all the AI stuff. And that's a massive economic boom all on its own right. And then onshore in the American economy, bringing back the bottom of the pyramid that it's kind of gave away, reclaiming its kidneys.

You know that's going to involve massive economic activity and funding so that's going to boost the economy massively in America You know the the on shoring is a big but then it all feeds into AI which is on its own right another massive rollout economically So we're in fabulous economic times if the people whose job it is to play the game right play it,

Dustin Olsen (08:05)
Absolutely. So Clem, you talked about a lot of things which are truly, I would love to get into each one of them. But first, let's let's dive into Silex world really quick. I want to hear just a bit more about this concept of micro refining or s solutions that you've come up with and most notably how it's different from others in the industry essentially doing the same thing.

Clem Chambers (08:33)
Okay, what we see out there is pretty much everybody's still basically relying on the acid process. Yeah, there are some people who are going the way of alkali. Okay, now when you think, what is the challenge? Right, the challenge is making a strategic output in a short supply chain. Yeah.

If you don't mind having a long supply chain, you can take it all the way back to China like it is right now. Yeah, but ultimately there's this problem, which is America and China are having a conflict, or whatever you want to call it. Yeah, and therefore you've got to have a short supply chain because you can't be cut off from your strategic minerals and critical minerals because your industry or whatever's left of it will just stop, or your ability to defend yourself.

will just stop. And ultimately, if you could talk here strategically, what do you want to do? you're, let's say you're Europe or Britain, do you want to build one dirty grape factory that takes, you know, one Shahad drone to fly into it to knock it out? Or do you want five? Yeah, because mate, there's going to be a lot of money to be made by people who are going to go round and harden infrastructure.

Daniel O'Connor (09:30)
Yeah.

Clem Chambers (09:56)
A lot of countries do not simply have the ability to be in the middle of the desert somewhere, far away from any trouble. Yeah. So if you're going to make these plants, you can make a decision. You're going to build a big one and no one's going to cause you any trouble or, and you've got problems with shipping waste. If you're, if you're dealing with waste, you're not really allowed to ship it. Not in Europe and not in most of the world. There are major, treaties that say you're not allowed to ship waste. Okay. So.

Daniel O'Connor (10:16)
you

Clem Chambers (10:24)
There are issues with shipping around your feed stock in Europe and in the UK and I'm sure in many parts of the world. So it's better to build small facilities that produce N tonnes and you've got seven of them in your country. Then you have one big one, have a shipping problem and then maybe if the bad things happen…

which they were thinking that it was gonna happen next year because of Taiwan, but now that seems to have gone into abeyance. But next year, that was close. And if you're expecting there to be an issue over Taiwan, which again is all back to tech and AI and ensuring, because if it happened, if you leave it 10 years, then maybe Taiwan never comes home. But if you go now, who's gonna be able to say no?

Who's going to be able to stop you because you've got them by the throat, haven't you? So that hearts and minds must follow. So from strategic point of view, our view is many small plants and particularly in Europe, everyone goes, no, you can't build it over there. There's a load of ducks. you can't build it there. There's some pondweed that's rare, right? Easier to build a small plant, the small footprint with an environmentally friendly

Daniel O'Connor (11:21)
Right.

Clem Chambers (11:44)
Process which the alkali process is much less Environmentally unfriendly as it as the alkalis is is not as harsh as the acid process And then it is to build one whacking great product one whacking great factory that everybody can you know, We'll make a fuss because when you put it in a lot of countries There's simply not that much room to do it. America is obviously blessed with large areas of

to be able to do these things, but you know, Belgium, Germany, France, well France has got a bit of room, UK, I mean, you know, there's nowhere in the UK you can get a not-here motorway. So, you know, small plants makes a lot of sense, both environmentally and strategically. So that's our view. And I got in some trouble saying that, you know, a few months ago, because obviously everybody wants to say, hey, give me half a billion pounds, I'll build something big.

And you know, I say, well, give me 20 million pounds. I'll build something small and I'll build another one and I'll build another one and build another one. Some guys out there that are cracking magnets out of this over here and it's going to be, you know, thousands of tons of magnets over the next 10 years, set up a plant, deal with that. There's got somebody that's got an output of, you know, a germanium or whatever, we'll build a plant for that, near that source material. So, you know, I think in Europe,

It makes a lot of sense to make small, focused processing plants for strategic and critical minerals. And as we've got a bench of rare earth technology, it makes sense for us to focus on that rather than say, hey, 500 million. Yeah, we'll do one here and everybody will complain and there'll be planning and problems for the next decade. Yeah, it's build one there. It's fine. Very easy to define. Output is easy to define. Finance is easy to get.

rather than all these huge mega projects, which of course, governments quite like, because they wanna write 20 checks in a year, not 500. But at the end of the day, our job is to navigate that reality. And what's turned out is that in India, they go, yeah, sure, let's go. We're already building it. okay. So it's that.

Daniel O'Connor (13:48)
Right.

Clem Chambers (14:00)
I do get the feeling that that is a similar environment in America. They've already in the last year gone from nothing to quite a lot. So, you know, that is great. And, you know, there's all to play for because it's still really early days. And so many people are saying, well, it's all too late. You can't break that stranglehold. It will take two decades to do it. I don't think that's right. It can be done at speed, at scale.

and is being done at speed and at scale in America. And India's getting their speed up really fast. And Europe is kind of going, ooh, and they will do it.

Dustin Olsen (14:41)
quick question. So you're you're operating in India. It sounds like they're validating the business idea, the concept of this micro refining plants. Is what are you learning? Are you moving into the US with this same concept or where where are we at in the process?

Clem Chambers (15:01)
Well, what we're experiencing, we'd love to do something in the UK. We'd love to do anything anywhere. But you know, we are, our capacity is going fast. Yeah, so we've got one plant being built, another one at specification stage, and a third project being offered to us, not offered to us, but a very, very, very large company specializing in minerals and…

refining has a source of a very large amount of waste stream where we can potentially take out quite a lot of rare earth. So that will be project three. And we've got, you know, project four in the UK, if we, and when, and things are starting to move for us in the UK. So I think within a year, we will have something being made. You see, you use the interesting word and I'm not a fan of it.

Daniel O'Connor (15:33)
you

Clem Chambers (15:57)
In fact, I've had it taken out of our documents, validate. We don't need to have it validated. We just need to do it. Yeah? Going around holding meetings and putting up PowerPoints and flip charts and all that stuff. You just gotta do it. And I've been in through many, many industries where people just have meetings until they go bust and have no intention of doing it. They just talk about it until the money runs out. Well, we're not interested in that.

We don't need validation. They were doing it this way in the 19th century, but in a much more primitive format. We just gotta do it. That's it. Just gotta do it. Yeah. We believe from our modeling, which we've spent a bit of money on, that it's cheaper than the Chinese way of doing things. Yeah. And at the end of the day, what America's done, which I think is, I mean, you could say brilliant, but also just necessary.

America's gone, we'll pay you 70 % premium over whatever the Chinese says their price. Having, taking cheap, buying champagne and caviar at the price of a hamburger is not sustainable because you're not getting it that cheap. That's not in your interest. It is in the short term, but in the long term, you're dead, right? Because they're just pulling, they're just rucking you as the crypto people say.

Daniel O'Connor (17:03)
Ha. Ha.

Clem Chambers (17:16)
And that's what the Chinese did to Mountain Pass. They rubbed them. Hey, you're going to go past if we do this for two years, aren't you? Yeah, let's do it then. you've gone past. well, you know, we belong to the government, by the way. You guys, you couldn't raise the money on the stock market. dear, bye. Yeah. So, and that's a reality. Strategic materials. That word's important, strategic. Yeah.

You know the the Chinese have been brilliant at being strategic and they've just got to a scale now where it's you know, they might flip the script in terms of of you know client and and master So that is what America's waking up to what's their solution? Well, the real price is this we pay you the real price for that and you know, we will basically underwrite you to not go bust and You know, that's what's necessary. You either roll over and die

or you radically look at it and boil it down to what the reality is. And the reality is that pretty much all strategic minerals and critical minerals have, belong to China. They have the stranglehold and they have it multiple levels, but the big level is processing. Yeah. And people are just waking up to that. They think, we need the minerals. there's some Australians digging that up. Great. Let's go. Okay. So how are you gonna…

How gonna process that then? ⁓ I mean, it's interesting. I spoke last year at a big recycling conference in Frankfurt. I can't pronounce what it's called, Messe, it's Euro and recycling world. So I was so excited about speaking there and I go there and there's gonna be lots of scientists and chemists telling us how to split the atom and turn coke cans into rockets and all that good stuff. No, none of that there. All it was,

was machines for munching up waste and putting it in cans and sending it to China.

That was recycling world. Grind it up, collect it, sort it, crunch it, crush it, grind it, put it in big drums and ship it to China. And I thought, oh, I saw this guy, it's a German guy, and I went over to him and oh, so what are you doing? He said, I work for a company XYZ in Shenzhen. I thought, yeah, everybody here does. And you know, that is the state of the game in Europe. You could say, if you wanted to be unkind, why not?

Daniel O'Connor (19:12)
Mm. Mm. Wow.

Yeah.

Clem Chambers (19:44)
They can't do it anymore. It's not doable anymore There's nobody that can do it anymore In Europe and they've got to get it back if they don't get it back They're gonna have to buy off America America don't get it back. That's it game over I mean literally game over because what cleverly China has done is it's hollowed out the base of the value chain Yeah, so everything all we do computers and we do cover chips Oh, yeah, and all our pyramid of values like that and then it's it's hollow

It's held up by sticks. And the people that own the base of the pyramid have shipped it off and all they have to do is knock the sticks out and it's game over. And that is the reality. And when you peel it back, I mean, it goes a long way back, but at the base of the pyramid is commodities. Hunting, fishing, land, commodities. That's primary, right? And that has been monopolized, cleverly, by Asia.

and unless Europe and America get it back, you know, they'll be held hostage and they are being held hostage right now, right? You can't, no, we're not shipping you that. What you mean we can't have it? No, you can't have it. that means we can't make that. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, we can make it for you. So that's the point.

Daniel O'Connor (21:01)
So, Clem, if

I could ask, so basically, can you talk a little bit about the university and the company that you've set up and how long you've been around, your focus areas? I think it's important that the audience get this holistic view of what you're doing.

Clem Chambers (21:21)
Sure,

sure. Look, if you look at the UK universities, they have deep, deep benches of IP and know-how. Okay? And I love know-how more than I like IP, because if somebody steals your IP, it's kind of 10 years worth of chasing to get anything out of it, if you're lucky. But know-how can't be copied because it's the front, it's the tip of the spear. And the UK…

has a tradition of industrial research and development, it's just that they lost the industry. They're kept on in the, know, quinternaery level of research and development. And, you know, from my position as what I was doing many years ago, I just saw it as a treasure trove of exciting things that were going to come to pass.

Because when I was a child, I started a computer game company and it took 20 years for the computer game business to take off. And then after 10 years of that, I went into the multi-user game online space. And I was 10 years too early for that. And then I went into financial ⁓ information platforms. I was five years too early for that. And when we kicked off Silex, we were three years too early for that. But now it's what we saw coming, which was…

the necessity to create rare earth processing outside of the Chinese stranglehold is here, here right now. And a lot of people are trying to do it. And you can have an acid process and then not tell anybody all your equipment comes from China. You can have wonderful, clever technology, but it's very slow, or very expensive, or not quite worked out.

Or you can have something that is ⁓ a development with a history going back 150 years almost. From the very discovery of rare earth, which is the alkali processes. And what has come out of the University of Leeds, Chemical and Technology Department, Chemistry and Process Technology Department is the latest generation.

of that lineage and that is what we are commercializing. I'm no chemist, I used to love chemistry when I was a kid but I failed the exam. But I love it, but I see the necessity for it, I see the opportunity for it, I see the fact that is, the technology is there and I see how hard it is to take process out of an invention and make it into a factory.

which is why it's so exciting to be working in India where they just get on with it and they don't beat around the bush and they don't hold 50 meetings and go to Wimbledon. They just do it. And that is very, very exciting. And therefore we're going with the energy, but we'd love to do it in the UK. We'd love to do it in Europe. We'd be happy to do it in America because the problem is way deeper than just…

critical and strategic minerals and metals. It's foundational, absolutely foundational. The bottom of the pyramid which has been hollowed out has to be rebuilt. All the good things that coming that will make such a huge difference like AI, it all depends on this stuff. And other metals, know, copper. I what are they gonna do with copper? How they gonna get by? It's gonna need a whole set of technology. Minerals.

technology, metal technology, chemistry, to be able to pivot into the needs of copper and electricity. And you know, it's just this huge, huge shift from commoditization of things like rare earth, which I mean, always were commodities essentially, but it's almost like, it's something happens,

Happens quickly they're going to turn into luxuries like we saw with silicon chips or with memory chips over the last sort of 18 months Oh, yeah cheaper cheap as cheap as memory chips all of sudden 500 % rise in price Yeah, and that is supportable, but it's painful So all the good things coming down the pike there has to be some backfilling a lot of backfilling at the level of things like rare earth and At the level of you know resuscitating

Mountain Pass and everything that goes along with it, on-shoring this, shortening the supply chains, localizing the supply chains, basically securing the ability to run a modern economy without having to worry about the counterparty and what they're up to.

Daniel O'Connor (26:13)
Right, right. So basically, the University of Leeds has this portfolio of intellectual property that you get to sort of cultivate, represent, and try to go put deals together, right? Is that sort of your? Right.

Clem Chambers (26:27)
Yeah, it's a legacy. It's absolutely

a legacy. And if say two years ago, you'd come to me and you said, can you do something with thorium? I would have gone through the filing cabinet and pulled out something on thorium. Yeah. But, you know, our idea was always rare earth because it was clear that was gonna reach a point at some time in the not too distant future when everyone would go, ouch, this is time to do something.

Daniel O'Connor (26:39)
Mm-hmm.

Clem Chambers (26:55)
that's a little bit more than going back 20 years and making it a little bit bigger. Yeah, so that's what we saw coming and it's here now. And in Asia, where they see this problem much more acutely, because I suppose they're closer, yeah, that's where we get in traction. But yes, we have all sorts of technologies that are exciting. But right now, and that's

since we started, our focus has always been on rare earth because we have some great technology for it and we can also solve various other problems at the same time. So for example, things like monazite, there's a big opportunity in monazite and some people are taking it up on that. But we have good technology for cracking monazite and we have some very powerful titanium technology. So,

Daniel O'Connor (27:48)
How

about the thorium and if there are radioactive elements that would trigger ⁓ in the UK and France, how are the rules?

Clem Chambers (27:51)
Not so sure.

Well, with all radioactive materials, everybody loses their minds. Did. But you see how that narrative has changed dramatically. Yeah. So all of a sudden, you know, there's a big, gonna be a massive need for uranium. And right now, China has got a thorium reactor.

Dustin Olsen (28:20)
Yeah.

Clem Chambers (28:26)
So all of a sudden people are saying, yeah, this this thorium that that is is so dangerous if you wrap it in paper, it's safe. You know, maybe maybe we should be maybe we should have some of that. So, you know, it's it's radiological material is very difficult, very, very, very difficult. But again, it's a technology question and we have a good bench of that kind of technology. But nobody's asking for

So we're not selling that, we're not promoting it, but we do have technology for it. And if people want uranium, and God forbid they wanted thorium too, monazite's your answer and you get rare earth. So there's no way you're gonna be shipping that around. So again, you would go and you build a small plant on site and deal with the issues there.

Daniel O'Connor (29:16)
Right.

Clem Chambers (29:16)
for example,

that is the kind of model that you apply. But of course, you know, it's all hypothetical. And, you know, even now, even now, there's people, know, uranium hasn't got the traction that it's going to have to get. Because all these nuclear, small modular reactor people, they're growing like weeds in the US, because all the AI people need at least as much again

in terms of electricity then America creates within like four years. Yeah, and that's only the beginning. So, you you'll make some people's hair stand on end when you say, maybe you're need 10 times as much electricity generation in the next 10 years than you've got now. So, and maybe that's wrong, but even twice, you know, what metals go into that? Copper, aluminium, you know, uranium. So at some point uranium,

is going to be a real issue, a real, real issue in terms of supply. And then what are they going to do? Well, they're going to say, you know, find someone.

Daniel O'Connor (30:23)
Well, a question for you, Clint. Like, if you look at it, it's sort of mind boggling that ⁓ sort of ⁓ government, corporate, academic elites justified where we're at today over the last 30 years, let's say. How did that happen? Is it just greed? Was it just greed? Hey, there's shorter term profits in, you know, private equity carving up companies and selling off their assets and outsourcing to China. Was that the main

you think imp driver for all of this?

Clem Chambers (30:51)
Well, it's Richard Nixon,

isn't it? It's Richard Nixon. It goes back to him. What could possibly go wrong? But I mean…

Daniel O'Connor (31:00)
Well, mean,

yeah, yeah. But no, there was a whole theory of globalization that they were taught in London business schools, right? mean.

Clem Chambers (31:03)
I mean, I think…

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It's a great, it's a great idea. It's a great idea to the people that are, ⁓ you know, pushing their stuff out to these developing economies, realize that developing economies are catching up a bit too fast for their liking. Yeah, because you, I mean, the idea is the world's full of human beings, and why should they live in abject poverty and die in their forties?

when you're living high on the hog and living into your 80s, you should push out some of that goodness down there. And then everybody rises and everybody wins and it's a win, win, win, which it should be. But then if some of these countries go, actually, we don't like win, win, we prefer win, lose like it used to be. And we know how we can have some of that win, lose because, look at them, they're just big happy bunnies trying to help us. Ooh, we show them, we show them. And at the end of the day, the versus

Look, X versus Y, The Chicago Bulls versus whoever it is, Boxer versus boxer, tennis player versus player, football team versus football team. Well, that's something that everybody seems to think is a good idea, right? But actually it's predatory, yeah? And if you go around and countries think that their versus their next door neighbor or another country, we're versus them, we're versus them, then you'll always end up in this mess.

If people think everyone should cooperate and all rising tide rises or boats, then it makes perfect sense to have a globalization world. But if suddenly everyone starts getting versus, that starts to come unglued, right? And so I think that's what you're seeing. You're just seeing this attitude that has to be competition. It's about competition and competing and winning. You have to win, win, win.

Daniel O'Connor (32:39)
Yeah.

Clem Chambers (32:54)
Well, if you have that mindset, it leads down a very dark road and we're off down that dark road. Yeah, and that's why the supply chains have to get shorter because when the people who are growing your grain start to say, no, no, can't have it this year. Well, you're in trouble. And that's what is happening in critical strategic minerals. And that is the disease and we are the solution.

Daniel O'Connor (33:12)
Right. Yeah.

So the processing technology that you have, is it in use in at least even in a pilot environment anywhere? Refining, processing.

Clem Chambers (33:37)
Well, mean, there's two technologies we have. One is basically a highly optimized version of the standard process of roasting and leaching and washing and all that good stuff. Second process, which is something that we will maybe will need a little bit of validation. Yeah. I mean, one way to look at it is we've got this alkali process that doesn't

Daniel O'Connor (33:51)
Right.

Clem Chambers (34:05)
have to go through the choke point of China. Pretty much anybody could do it. We can do it better because we have some ⁓ IP which enables us to optimize the process and make it faster and cheaper. And there are places in the world like India with every year, I think it's 5 million tonnes of e-waste that they're generating, which they're not shipping out, which they're storing up cleverly as a strategic stockpile effectively, which is absolutely what America should do.

Daniel O'Connor (34:16)
Mm-hmm.

Clem Chambers (34:32)
Absolutely what what Europe is about to do and what the UK will probably do too. Yeah, so they want a process need a process which doesn't involve and Chemicals that can only come from China equipment that can only come from China source material that can only come from China Yeah, because the the Chinese go in there and I say can we have it and they say no, it's against the law We can't send it to you. ⁓ please Yeah

Daniel O'Connor (34:51)
Right.

Clem Chambers (34:58)
because they'll just take it and do the work with the acid process that they've got the choke hold on. So the economics of what we do is good enough. The process is tried and tested. You can go back to the 1880s and see the legacy or where it comes from. But the next stage is to take metal to metal rather than metal to oxides to metal. And that's something else that we've got IP and know how to. And once our initial plant is running in India,

we will then go metal to metal recycling, which will cut out by dropping it from metal, burning the magnets and putting all the energy back in to make them a magnet again, ⁓ a block of metal. So we have the ability to cut that process out and that will be the next generation after what we're doing initially in India is running up to speed, which will probably be Easter next year. Because again, we're not.

running around trying to find people to give us 200 million dollars so that we can give it a go. Yeah, we're just doing it. We're past that stage. We don't need to talk about why it works. We don't need any validation. We're just going to do it because it's been done. It's been proven. The only thing that hasn't been proven is that someone hasn't written us a big check and they ain't going to be writing any big checks in Europe for this stuff.

It's not America.

Daniel O'Connor (36:21)
Right, right. And I wanted to ask you, mean, has Europe gotten, when did Europe start getting worse from a regulatory standpoint? Because I think of like Germany, I think of pretty healthy manufacturing, export-led manufacturing sector. UK is more, you know, the Anglo countries, whether it's UK or US, at least in the 80s and 90s got more into high finance and

slicing and dicing assets. But Germany, you know, kept an industrial base. And now we're hearing they're struggling. Are you seeing that too?

Clem Chambers (36:59)
Okay, I think one has to be very careful about this ongoing propaganda war that you'll hear from all angles. So people will say that every other country but them is in a terrible state. Japan is bankrupt and they're all 90 years old. know, Germany, they're stuck. France, they can only make cheese and handbags. You know, it's not strictly true. Yeah. And what's happened in Germany is their socialistic wing

Daniel O'Connor (37:12)
Right.

Yeah.

Clem Chambers (37:27)
of their political system has decided that energy is bad. Yeah, energy is the root of all evil because nobody believes it's money anymore. Right? So they've gone around and they've wrecked the energy infrastructure of Germany. Now, as we all know, as we will know, energy is life. And if you your energy, you are up the creek and looking for a paddle. And Germany is up that creek and is now looking for its paddle. And

thing is, once a government gets it, understands it has to do something, they can move real fast. It's the consensus that needs to be made. Or the consensus was, for example, not that long ago, nuclear energy was the spawn of Satan. Well now everybody's saying it's better than cornflakes. Because the underlying dynamic has changed. And everybody realizes China ain't building 70 of these things because they don't want to crush us economically.

Daniel O'Connor (38:13)
Ha

Clem Chambers (38:23)
Yeah, so everybody's woken up to that because governments have to have economic growth if they're to deliver and and they lost sight of that. And now they've got it back. It's a few years ago before Covid they were they were working out the numbers. They were going, hold on a minute. How are we how are we going to pay everybody's pension? How are we going to do this? Oh, we've got to get growth. How do we get growth? Very difficult because there's so many people who can stick their oar in and and, you know, come up with their own crazy ideas that

Daniel O'Connor (38:32)
Yeah.

Clem Chambers (38:52)
we move really slowly because we've got to have a consensus. America suffers from the same problem, So that consensus is now forming pretty quick. once, I think the consent, you know, I talk with people in the UK government, they get it. They know it's there. Moving the ship of state to point in the right direction, this is massive, massive amount of effort. Really, you just have to get.

Somebody that runs your government who's a complete wild man. I mean that can work maybe So, you know if you if you get you have to have a very dynamic leadership To move fast, but once you're moving fast then then things start happening you're seeing you're seeing the pace of things the tempo of of this is is is quickening So and that's very very very positive. I mean the current word that everybody

Dustin Olsen (39:25)
Mm-hmm.

Daniel O'Connor (39:43)
Right.

Clem Chambers (39:47)
users at the moment which drives me nuts is at scale. But for me it's not about scale, it's about tempo. It's better to have a small plant in India running by after Christmas for us than to go around with a begging bowl saying give us 500 million we want to build a know a SpaceX takeoff platform in Scotland.

Daniel O'Connor (40:08)
Well, know, to

that point, you know, the Chinese, do a lot of reporting that more than any other media on the Chinese and, they don't have big refineries. They like them smaller because they like to iterate and, you know, when they like to fail because they can learn quickly. And so, yeah, I agree. I think you're on to something there about that.

Clem Chambers (40:31)
JFDI used to be a consultancy phrase in certain ruthless consultancies and just flaming do it has a strength a small small a diversified portfolio of risk a diversified portfolio of output and input that that is a very strong way of going about things and you know, we came out have come out of

of 50 years almost now, not quite, nearly, of bootstrapping businesses that have got a great idea that there's a market need for. And you just do it. You just find somebody who wants to do it, can do it, will enjoy doing it, is committed to doing it, and you work with them and you get it done. You don't hold, you don't go around.

Holding meetings to your heads fall off. I mean, I remember back in the dot-com days There was this company that was trying to do something and they got 20 million, which is a decent amount of money in those days and They meeting that 20 million dollars away with lawyers and consultants and and and meetings and and salaries and flash offices never did any of it and you know, we bought that business and What was left of it and we knocked it out in four months?

We did it in four months. We made it happen. And I remember as one of my old days in the computer business, when we used to see these companies sending out press releases about equipment and you go try buy it, it didn't exist. And the ability to actually crack on and do it, that's how you get it done. And it's not hack a road with Facebook and move fast and break things.

But a diversified portfolio of operations is definitely a very strong way of doing it. And as you said, they iterate. They do it in China, they get it done, they make some money, they iterate it, and they organically build out rather than trying to make some Napoleonic plan that will map out the next three years down to the nearest minutiae. And that's what's so invigorating about working in India.

because they have that go for it gung ho attitude, which we come out of that. We understand that. We have always self-levitated and we've got beyond, we are now flying, are now levitated. And there's nothing better than seeing a video of a furnace blowing huge jets of fire in your about to be new factory.

Daniel (42:51)
.

Yeah.

Clem Chambers (43:17)
and people

just standing there going, yeah, look at that. I mean, you'd get arrested in Britain if you did that. They would lock you up. So, you know, it's invigorating to be able to crack on in a place like India with people that are totally enthusiastic.

Daniel (43:22)
No.

Yeah.

Dustin Olsen (43:34)
Absolutely. And so Clem, we're definitely at the end of our time here, but with all the the work that you're doing, and if somebody wants to reach out, maybe get involved, where can we send them?

Clem Chambers (43:46)
Well, just send them to me. mean, Silex World, I think it's got my blooming phone number on it, if you look at the website. know, clem at silexworld.com will get me. And I'm always on 24 seven, three, six, five. Again, it's how you get it done. I won't be going to Wimbledon this year, or ever. And, you know, and, you know, it's exciting times. mean, the phone is ringing with people that want to buy our out.

That's nice. And we are allowed, we can't export e-waste from India, thank goodness, but we can export metal or whatever is coming out the end of the plant. So, you the demand is there, the supply is there too. What isn't there is the processing and that's where we sit and we're not waiting. We're not, know, please sir, can you give us a large amount of money? ⁓ please sir, you, for pinch of capital, can you kick me around the room and tell me I'm a fool before you write me a small cheque?

We're on our way. And we think that we're going to be doing a lot of work in India. We'd love to do something in the UK just for, the motherland. Yeah. And, you know, Europe, it's all opening up. It's all opening up. And that's very, very exciting. And it's opening up so much, we're not even looking at America, because I think America's doing it right. It's got, you know, it's got its great rare earth companies. It's, you know, it's got the mines, it's got the land, it's got the…

Daniel (44:56)
.

Clem Chambers (45:11)
drive but obviously you know if if ⁓ if president trump wants to ring us up and ⁓ rights are very very very large or even a very very small check or even just say hello we would we go where it where it where it is because we it's all about making it happen because what you know if we if we if iceland said come over here and sit on a volcano once we've done it everyone will want it and that's kind of what we're doing in india because everyone you say ⁓ validate the process well

We're doing it. We don't need it validated and when people see it as they will be able to probably around Christmas or what's nearly it Yeah, they will they will they will want it and will give my license. We might help them build it There it will be so, you know that Yeah, you can't prove it on paper You can't you can't talk it into existence. You can't hold meetings and make it happen. You just gotta do it and and we're well on our way now, so so that's

really exciting because you break out of that bog of mud that holds you back, of nobody getting it and nobody wanting it and nobody caring. And then suddenly there you are in the lush green grass beyond that horrible reality.

Dustin Olsen (46:32)
Absolutely. Well, Clem, thank you so much for being on the show and sharing your insights and perspective for sure.

Daniel (46:35)
⁓

Yeah, thank you, Clem. It was a real pleasure. We'll keep an eye out on your organization and any deals you do and the process and tech, the alkaline processing technology you all are working on. So we very much appreciate it.

Clem Chambers (46:54)
That's my pleasure.