Recorded on Monday 2nd March. We discuss the first energy market reactions to the escalating Middle East conflict and what it reveals about global supply chains. We also explore Google’s new data-centre energy strategy, Form Energy’s push to commercialise 100-hour batteries, and how distributed storage can help free up capacity to bring more capacity online faster.

• Initial energy shocks from the Middle East escalation – what the conflict could mean for global energy and commodity markets.
• War-risk premiums and shipping implications – how insurance markets are disrupting global energy and commodity flows
• The overlooked commodity that links energy to food – why sulfur shortages could ripple through fertilizer markets and push up agricultural costs.
• Connecting load to the grid - why it's often harder than building new generation.
• Google’s new strategies for powering data centres – 2 projects in Minnesota and Texas each show different combinations of colocation, storage, and interconnection strategies to speed up interconnection.
• The rise of multi-day batteries – why LDES can reshape how grids handle extreme weather and renewable volatility.
• Form Energy – how iron-air batteries store electricity by turning iron into rust and back again.
• Why 100 hours matters – the multi-day grid stress events that this technology is built to solve.
• Batteries vs grid expansion – how distributed storage could defer hundreds of billions of dollars in transmission upgrades and bring more capacity online faster.
• A growing policy divide – why the US is subsidising energy manufacturing while Europe focuses on lowering electricity prices.

Recorded 22 February 2026

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.