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Select Quotes From This Episode:
“Our goal is really to produce a refinery... to mine a rock and turn 100% of the rock that we mine into revenue, just like an oil refinery does.” –Cody
“Capitalism doesn’t intrinsically reward moral outcomes. Capitalism rewards growth and lower cost things. If you want a moral outcome... you need to align that moral outcome with the economic outcome.” –Cody
“Government money is icing on the cake. You have to have a business that stands on its own two feet.” –Cody
“Limestone is just bad geologic luck. The highest concentration of calcium happens to have nothing you can make a co-product from.” –Cody
“We had a $189 million award from the DOE... and then in May of 2025, the Trump administration announced that they were going to cancel it. It was certainly not our preference, but it was also not catastrophic.” –Cody
From Zero-Emission Cement to a “Rock Refinery”
When Cody Finke last came on the podcast in 2023, Brimstone was focused on one massive goal: making zero-emission Portland cement at cost parity. Now, they’ve expanded that vision into something much larger: a Rock Refinery.
For over a century, the oil industry has survived by extracting every possible cent out of a barrel of crude—from kerosene to gasoline to lubricants.
The cement industry, however, relies on limestone, which fundamentally limits co-production because its byproduct is useless, low-value CO2. Brimstone bypasses this bad geologic luck by using calcium silicate rocks, allowing them to co-produce cement, supplementary cementitious materials (SCM), smelter-grade aluminum, and critical materials like magnesium and vanadium.
By turning 100% of the mined rock into revenue, Brimstone is creating an economic engine that doesn’t just match the cost of traditional cement—it beats it.
In this episode, Cody breaks down the physics of scale, the history of co-production in heavy industry, and Brimstone’s genius strategy for eliminating technology risk while maintaining an impenetrable patent moat. He also shares the wild story of securing a $189 million DOE grant, only to have it canceled by the Trump administration in 2025—and why his strict fundraising philosophy meant the company didn’t miss a beat.
If you want to understand the brutal realities of scaling hardware, the intersection of critical minerals and geopolitics, and why “lower cost” is the only climate strategy that scales, this is a must-listen.
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📝 Show Notes:
Topics
Here are some key timestamps from the episode:
00:00 – Intro: Cody Finke returns to the podcast.
04:30 – The “Rock Refinery”: Moving beyond cement to co-produce aluminum and critical minerals.
05:39 – The Physics of Scale: Why cost parity is impossible with small reactors.
08:12 – The History of Co-Production: From whale oil to Standard Oil’s catalytic cracking.
12:39 – “Bad Geologic Luck”: Why traditional limestone cement plants can’t co-produce.
18:54 – De-Risking Deep Tech: How Brimstone uses off-the-shelf components to build a massive patent moat.
28:33 – Fundraising Strategy: Raising ~$90M and executing pilot plants.
33:44 – PR for Founders: When to stay in stealth and when to reveal your grand vision.
38:18 – The $189M DOE Grant: Winning the money under Biden, losing it under Trump, and why it wasn’t a disaster.
45:54 – Geopolitics & Manufacturing: Why critical materials and heavy industry must return to democratic countries.
50:28 – The Ultimate Climate Strategy: Why capitalism only rewards lower costs, not moral outcomes.
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