Brimstone and its one-stop process for making cleaner cement and critical minerals

Brimstone 及其生产清洁水泥与关键矿物的“一站式”工艺

Brimstone is making strides on two industrial problems: reducing the emissions from cement and providing a way to produce more critical minerals within the US. If the company can do both, with the same rocks in the same plant, it would unlock a cleaner and more efficient process for manufacturing building materials, aluminum, steel, and more.

Brimstone 正在工业领域的两大难题上取得进展：减少水泥生产的碳排放，以及在美国本土提供更多关键矿物的生产途径。如果该公司能在同一家工厂利用同一种岩石实现这两个目标，将为建筑材料、铝、钢等产品的制造开启一种更清洁、更高效的工艺。

Brimstone is a code-switching climate tech company for these polarized political times. The US-based startup—part green cement company, part critical mineral producer—is well positioned to sustain its momentum no matter which party is in power. During the more climate-focused Biden administration, the company’s primary pitch was its ability to produce cement while generating about 60% less greenhouse-gas emissions. It achieves this by switching to silicate rocks instead of standard limestone, which releases carbon dioxide when it’s heated. The conventional process for creating cement, the binding used to produce concrete, contributes about 8% of the world’s carbon dioxide pollution.

Brimstone 是一家能够根据政治环境“切换频道”的气候科技公司，非常适应当前两极分化的政治时代。这家总部位于美国的初创公司既是绿色水泥企业，也是关键矿物生产商，无论哪个政党执政，它都处于保持增长势头的有利位置。在更关注气候变化的拜登政府时期，该公司的核心卖点是其生产水泥的能力，同时能减少约 60% 的温室气体排放。它通过改用硅酸盐岩石代替传统的石灰石来实现这一目标，因为石灰石在加热时会释放二氧化碳。制造混凝土所需的粘合剂——水泥，其传统生产过程贡献了全球约 8% 的二氧化碳排放量。

Under the protectionist and climate-denying Trump administration, however, the company is now stressing the secondary benefits of its process: the ability to extract other valuable materials from those same silicate rocks. The company has said for years that its process could also generate materials that can be used to strengthen cement. But in early 2025, Brimstone highlighted that it would be able to also produce smelter-grade alumina, the raw material used in aluminum. It then revealed it had another trick up its sleeve late last year: the ability to make steel, magnesium, titanium, and other critical minerals from the same rock in a single refinery. The company’s CEO, Cody Finke, said those materials represent a $2.4 trillion global market. Brimstone’s approach promises to provide a domestic path for goods mostly produced today in China, the subject of Trump’s harshest trade policies and rhetoric.

然而，在奉行保护主义且对气候变化持怀疑态度的特朗普政府治下，该公司现在开始强调其工艺的次要优势：即从同样的硅酸盐岩石中提取其他有价值材料的能力。多年来，该公司一直表示其工艺还能产生用于增强水泥性能的材料。但在 2025 年初，Brimstone 强调它还能生产冶炼级氧化铝（铝的原材料）。去年年底，它又透露了另一项“杀手锏”：在同一家精炼厂内，利用同一种岩石生产钢、镁、钛及其他关键矿物。公司首席执行官 Cody Finke 表示，这些材料代表着一个 2.4 万亿美元的全球市场。Brimstone 的方案有望为目前主要在中国生产的商品提供一条本土化路径，而中国正是特朗普最严厉贸易政策和言论的针对目标。

Key indicators

关键指标

Industry: Heavy industry
Founded: 2019
Headquarters: Oakland, California, US
Notable fact: In 2023, the company earned third-party industry certification for its process for manufacturing Portland cement, allowing its product to qualify for standard manufacturing projects.
行业： 重工业
成立时间： 2019 年
总部： 美国加利福尼亚州奥克兰
值得注意的事实： 2023 年，该公司为其波特兰水泥制造工艺获得了第三方行业认证，使其产品有资格用于标准制造项目。

Potential for impact

潜在影响

The company made a very big deal of its newfound ability to produce all these other goods, arguing its process would bolster national security and usher in the “next generation of industrial refining.” The basic environmental promise is that generating all these materials from the same rock and a single mining process would require dramatically less energy and produce far less waste than manufacturing them separately. “I think that we have one of the generational companies that’s actually able to create an industrial revolution,” Finke says. To which we would say: Well, we’ll see.

该公司大肆宣传其新获得的能力，即生产所有这些其他商品，并声称其工艺将加强国家安全，并开启“下一代工业精炼”。其基本的环保承诺是，从同一种岩石和单一采矿过程中提取所有这些材料，比分别制造它们所需的能源要少得多，产生的废物也少得多。Finke 说：“我认为我们拥有一家真正能够引发工业革命的时代性公司。”对此我们想说：好吧，让我们拭目以待。

Caveats

注意事项

Brimstone has yet to produce anything at a commercial scale, and it faces numerous financial and technical challenges. Some observers are dubious that the company will be able to economically extract sufficient quantities of so many materials from a single type of rock—or overcome the cost and labor issues that make mining and refining minerals a tough business in the US. Brimstone also suffered a major stumble last year, when the Trump administration revoked a $189 million grant intended to subsidize its next plant, a planned commercial demonstration project in Reno, Nevada. Finke says the company continues to have fruitful conversations with the administration about restoring those funds, in which Brimstone has emphasized its potential to boost domestic production of critical minerals. He has previously said the company will be able to proceed with the development of the plant, even without that grant or other subsidies.

Brimstone 尚未实现任何商业规模的生产，并面临诸多财务和技术挑战。一些观察人士怀疑，该公司是否能够从单一类型的岩石中经济地提取足够数量的多种材料，或者克服在美国从事矿物开采和精炼所面临的成本与劳动力难题。Brimstone 去年还遭遇了一次重大挫折：特朗普政府撤销了原定用于补贴其下一家工厂（位于内华达州里诺的计划商业示范项目）的 1.89 亿美元拨款。Finke 表示，公司仍在与政府就恢复这些资金进行富有成效的对话，Brimstone 在对话中强调了其提升关键矿物本土产量的潜力。他此前曾表示，即使没有这笔拨款或其他补贴，公司也能继续推进该工厂的开发。

Next steps

下一步计划

The company expects to begin operating the Reno facility, which will only produce cement, supplementary materials, and alumina, in 2028. That means Brimstone will still need to finance and build its first full-scale factory to deliver the steel, titanium, and other critical materials, likely pushing the timeline for doing so into the next decade. Based on its progress so far, though, the company has already lined up several commercial deals. That includes agreements to supply cement to retail giant Amazon and alumina to Century Aluminum, one of the US’s largest producers of its namesake metal. Even if Brimstone doesn’t bring about another industrial revolution, the company is equipped to slash emissions from cement, which is reason enough to pay close attention. If Brimstone also manages to dramatically reduce the energy, pollution, and costs associated with extracting and refining rock to produce all—or any—of those other goods, that would represent a big corporate and climate win as well.

该公司预计将于 2028 年开始运营里诺工厂，该工厂初期仅生产水泥、辅助材料和氧化铝。这意味着 Brimstone 仍需融资并建造其第一座全规模工厂，以交付钢、钛及其他关键材料，这可能会将实现该目标的时间推迟到下一个十年。不过，从目前的进展来看，该公司已经达成了一些商业协议。其中包括向零售巨头亚马逊供应水泥，以及向美国最大的铝生产商之一世纪铝业（Century Aluminum）供应氧化铝的协议。即使 Brimstone 未能引发另一场工业革命，它也具备大幅削减水泥行业排放的能力，这足以让我们密切关注。如果 Brimstone 还能成功大幅降低从岩石中提取和精炼上述所有（或部分）商品所需的能源、污染和成本，那也将是企业界和气候保护方面的一大胜利。