Critical Minerals: Microgrids, Rare-Earths, Copper recycling, and European Industrial Policy for Iron & Steel

Recorded 15th February. Delivering the energy transition increasingly depends on the inputs required: materials availability, processing capacity, & the industrial policy that determines what actually gets built.Rising demand for critical minerals is driving supply-security concerns, strategic stockpiles, recycling scale-up, & copper innovation. It’s also increasingly shaping industrial investment decisions, particularly in Europe. This week’s headlines illustrate that:· Policy signal - Project Vault: The US proposed a strategic critical minerals reserve with $12B of financing to reduce reliance on foreign suppliers, mainly China. It could work if treated as a resilience stockpile, but $2B of private investment signals returns expectations, which may push it to act like a market instrument not insurance.· Rare earths - geopolitics most concentrated & recycling as a hedge: Cyclic Materials $75M Series C to scale rare earth recycling & diversify supply beyond primary mining. RE magnet supply chains remain highly concentrated, especially in heavy’s where China has almost a complete monopoly & has tightened export controls since 2023.· But in battery recycling, a pivot: Redwood Materials $425M Series E, for a growing stationary energy storage business using recovered & second-life batteries. Originally focused on circular battery supply chains, the move reflects tighter recycling margins, rising storage demand & benefits of vertical integration.The story extends to copper, the metal of electrification. Without significant new supply coming online soon, net-zero risks being short-circuited as it’s highly conductive, durable & recyclable, with few grid-scale substitutes:· Cu processing: Two biomining deals - Transition Metals Solutions ($6M seed) & Endolith ($13.5M Series A) to improve Cu recovery from lower-grade ores using microbes. The promise; lower energy & access to stranded resources. Challenges; speed, control & industrial scale-up.· Cu recycling: Recuperate Metals $6M seed to mechanically upgrade Cu scrap & industrial waste into higher-quality secondary feedstocks. If scalable, it could accelerate capacity with lower capex & energy intensity, but impurities, input variability & qualification timelines remain hurdles.· Cu substitution: DexMat $5M seed to scale production of carbon-nanotube conductive fibre. It won’t replace copper broadly, but could be used in weight-sensitive or high-performance niches like aerospace or satellites.Materials pressure doesn’t stop at clean-tech supply chains, it’s reshaping heavy industry as carbon policy tightens:· European steel: ArcelorMittal confirmed a €1.3B EAF project at Dunkirk - currently its only new-build investment. Using scrap steel, DRI/HBI, & some hot metal, it cuts emissions 3x cf. the traditional BF-BOF approach.· Policy driver - CBAM now operational: Europe is extending carbon pricing to imports making C intensity a real competitiveness factor. It’s creating investable conditions for industrial decarbonisation by narrowing the cost gap between EU producers & higher-emissions imports - favouring lower-emissions production, particularly scrap-heavy EAF steel backed by low-C power.