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Once you have an understanding of the supply chain of the cement/concrete and construction industry and link with energy industry it’s simple case of dot to dot.

Firstly, California is reliant on energy from coal power stations from Utah and Arizona. There are no coal power stations in California, so construction companies must source Fly Ash elsewhere but ideally from neighbouring states of Nevada, Arizona and Utah. California, which has mostly quit coal to achieve its green energy targets and other states will follow.
Boral acquired a 4.5 million tonne natural pozzolan source in 2018 in central Utah. Why? Because of coal power station closures in 2018 (brought forward from 2020) and with the largest coal power station in Utah schuled to close 2025.

https://informedinfrastructure.com/41725/boral-resources-acquires-natural-pozzolan-source-for-fly-ash-blending/
https://kutv.com/news/local/utah39s-oldest-coal-fired-power-plant-shut-down
https://www.spglobal.com/marketintelligence/en/news-insights/trending/w2taftmxcpiudwnogpalyw2

Then last year the Navajo Power station in Arizona closed and later this year the Cholla Power station in Arizona will also close. So with fly ash sources dwindling there Boral went into partnership with Kirkland Mining to begin production at their natural pozzolan mine in Arizona.

https://eu.azcentral.com/story/money/business/energy/2019/11/18/navajo-generating-station-coal-plant-arizona-closes/2567154001/
https://eu.azcentral.com/story/money/business/energy/2020/01/07/pacificorp-close-generator-cholla-power-plant-northern-arizona/2829342001/
https://eu.azcentral.com/story/money/business/energy/2020/01/07/pacificorp-close-generator-cholla-power-plant-northern-arizona/2829342001/

In Nevada where SRES pozzolan mine is located, the last coal fired plant in the State is due to start closure end of 2021. So where are Boral and other cement/ construction companies going to source their fly from then? Nevada is a key state in supplying fly ash and raw materials to California – it’s closer than Utah and Arizona. Anyone who works in the construction industry knows having local sources is key to keep costs down. You don’t source cement, sand, aggregates from the other end of the country – it’s too expensive and the Co2 footprint is massive.

Boral will be all over Sunrise natural pozzolan mine like flies around s***.

https://www.powermag.com/nv-energy-accelerates-retirement-of-one-of-nevadas-last-coal-units/

THIS IS A BIG DEVELOPMENT AS IT SHOWS SRES POZZOLAN MINE LIKELY TO BE DEVELOPED IN PARTNERSHIP WITH BORAL RESOURCES. Boral are one of the largest construction companies in the US and THE largest supplier of Fly Ash in the USA.

https://kirklandmining.com/PDFs/BORAL-Kirkland-Newsletter-8-20-20.pdf

Boral Resources—America’s leading manufacturer of fly ash products—has partnered with Kirkland Mining Company (KMC) to develop its natural pozzolan mining operation near Kirkland, Arizona, 90 miles northwest of Phoenix. As the partners prepare to commence operations, this newsletter will keep stakeholders fully informed about development plans at the Kirkland Mine.
ABOUT THE PROJECT
Boral Resources will excavate and grind natural pozzolan in a facility to be constructed on KMC private lands. Production is expected to ramp up to approximately 500,000 tons per year in accordance with the approved mining and reclamation plan for supplying markets surrounding Phoenix; Las Vegas, Nevada; and Southern California.
WHY NATURAL POZZOLANS?
Natural pozzolans are a critical component in modern concrete production. Natural pozzolans have mechanical and chemical properties that make them a valuable ingredient in a wide range of concrete products. Roads, bridges, buildings, concrete blocks, and other concrete products commonly contain natural pozzolans. Concrete made with natural pozzolans is stronger and more durable than concrete made with cement alone.
In addition to improving concrete quality, natural pozzolan use results in significant environmental benefits. Each ton of natural pozzolan used in concrete effectively eliminates the production of 0.8 to 1.0 tons of carbon dioxide emissions through direct displacement of the production of portland cement. Pozzolan use in the United States today annually reduces greenhouse gas emissions by more than 12 million tons.
WHY NOW?
For the past several decades, fly ash produced by coal-burning power plants has been the dominant pozzolan used in concrete production. But as these power plants close in response to environmental consideration and competition from other energy sources, demand for pozzolans from other sectors is increasing rapidly. The Kirkland high-quality natural pozzolan may be used as a direct substitute for fly ash.

Stunbled across Kirkland Mining in neighbouring Arizona, who are also just starting out mining natural pozzolan. They had their mining license approved in 2018. Lots of info on their website. https://kirklandmining.com/index.html

Their website also mentions the actual mining process and no doubt will be very similar how SRES will do also.

"WHILE THE KMC PROJECT has identified more than 39 millon of tons of HQP reserves, a combination of market, logistical, and community factors has led to the estimated maximum production of 500,000 tons per year identified in the BLM permitting process. These volumes, and the expected final processing off-site, mean that the KMC project will look much smaller and simpler than the typical large, hard-rock mines many people in Arizona are familiar with. To better understand the expected development and operation of the mine, we have summarized all expected operating activities.

MINING NATURAL POZZOLAN - DUE TO THE RELATIVELY SOFT and uniform nature of the native material, it is not anticipated that drilling and blasting will be needed in any phase of the recovery of raw pozzolan. Instead, the site will operate more like an aggregate (construction sand, gravel or rock) quarry where raw materials are recovered in smaller layers or sections by bulldozer, excavator, scraper and/or front end loader. As recovered, raw material will be stockpiled to later be fed into a crusher for processing. The decisions on where and how to mine will be guided by the Mining and Reclamation Plan of Operation, which has been developed by KMC and must be approved by BLM as part of its permitting process.

PROCESSING - BECAUSE THE RAW POZZOLAN will be taken off-site to undergo the final grinding process, the only processing to be performed at the KMC site will be the crushing of mined material to a consistent size of less than 2 inches. Equipment for this process will be selected based on the natural size of coarse raw material that is generated in the mining process and also based on optimum setup for energy consumption, production rate, dust and noise control, and size gradation of the output product. All equipment under consideration (impact, jaw and cone crushers) is of the type commonly used by aggregate producers throughout Arizona and the US and is readily sourced and serviced by local Arizona vendors. Additionally, because this equipment has more production capacity than is needed to meet projected demand, total crusher operating time is estimated to be no more than 1,400 hours per year for maximum production and likely 300 to 500 annual hours in the early years of operation. This lends itself to the use of portable crushers that can move in and around the site periodically to build stockpiles for ongoing shipments while isolating actual running time to just a handful of months throughout the year and to the most amenable times of the day and week.

So it is a very simple process from source to customer with low cape

Also to add - countries in California and around the West Coast are slowly making it MANDATORY all construction projects are built using low carbon cements - that means using SCMs such as pozzolans.

In November 2019, Marin County, California became the first county in the United States to require that all construction projects in development within the city and county of Marin use a “low carbon concrete” (using pozzolans). Other municipalities that are considering or enacting low carbon concrete requirements include the cities of Portland (Oregon), Alameda (California), Berkeley (California), and San Francisco (California).

Within the Marin County low carbon concrete code is the regulation of the Upfront Embodied Carbon, which measures the greenhouse gases emitted during the material extraction, transportation and manufacturing of the concrete.

https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/purebase-receives-astm-certifications-for-new-eco-friendly-next-gen-scms-1029572773#

Below is the actual declaration for for Marin County showing a build is complying which the regulation and using low carbon cement. Note it says in the first paragraph:

Notes for user: The intent is to minimize the greenhouse gas emissions of concrete, measured by the global warming potential, or “carbon footprint”. This is commonly achieved by substituting one or several pozzolans, such as fly ash, ****, or natural pozzolans, for Portland cement, and/or relaxing strength/time requirements wherever practicable (e.g., minimum compressive strength at 56, not 28, days), and/or using carbon-absorbing technologies for aggregate and curing. The project engineer (or concrete specifier) is urged NOT to specify minimum cement content, water/cement ratios, or anything else but the project's performance requirements; let the concrete ready mix supplier design the optimal mixes.

https://www.marincounty.org/-/media/files/departments/cd/planning/sustainability/low-carbon-concrete/10212019-update/draft-sample-residential-specification.pdf?la=en

So they you go. The use of pozzolans now written into law in some areas of the West Coast of the States and a regulation that will spread more and more fairly soon.

One of my summary posts from the other day...

The investment case for SRES is quite compelling.

All concrete producing companies across the globe are using less cement to reduce costs as the price of cement continues to rise due to increase production costs. Cement production is extremely energy intensive as it’s produced in huge kilns that can never be turned off. Therefore, the Co2 footprint is massive. The cement industry is one of the largest culprits to Co2 emissions globally, so with every government committed to reducing their Co2 footprint the concrete industry is always under pressure to contribute. And many are.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/cement-producers-are-developing-a-plan-to-reduce-co2-emissions/

Demand for pozzolan material whether it be PFA, GGBS or naturals are increasing YoY as an alternative to standard cement. Pozzolans are used in CEM 2 and CEM 3 cement blends. CEM 2 is 70% grey or white cement with 30% pozzolan or another material. PFA is usually favoured because it’s cheap - byproduct from coal power stations. However, PFA is rapidly running out globally and within a few years won’t be available. Concrete product manufacturers I supply here in the UK are now sourcing PFA overseas because it’s still cheaper than sourcing grey cement from down the road. There isn’t enough PFA left in the UK to satisfy the demand as there are now only 4 coal power stations open in the UK. These will close by 2025.

http://www.powerstations.uk/coal-countdown/

The same pattern is also happening in the USA.

https://pv-magazine-usa.com/2020/06/23/global-demise-of-coal-fired-generation-driven-by-idle-and-unprofitable-plants/

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/coals-decline-continues-with-13-plant-closures-announced-in-2020/

With PFA availability declining rapidly natural pozzolan use is increasing as an effective and cheaper alternative to cement. SRES is sitting on a huge resource and about to go into production. And only a £10 mil MCAP? Absolute peanuts.

Me personally with the way the market is going I believe it’s only a matter of time before one of the big boys like CRH, LaFarge Holcim or Cemex buy out the pozzolan business in order to meet their growing demand.

Great article about the increasing use of pozzolans and decreasing source of fly ash published in the Independant two weeks ago. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/long_reads/science-and-technology/concrete-eco-friendly-carbon-emissions-reduced-a9681761.html

(exerts)

"Concrete, it turns out, has a serious pollution problem.

The most widely used construction material on the planet, it has given us sculptural buildings, sturdy bridges and dams, parking garages and countless other structures that surround us. But concrete is also responsible for about 8 per cent of global carbon emissions. If concrete were a country, it would rank third in emissions behind China and the United States.

In the United States alone, 370 million cubic yards of concrete were produced last year, with nearly 40 per cent of it going into commercial real estate, according to the National Ready Mixed Concrete Association, a trade group.

“People are getting smarter about where global-warming impacts are coming from,” says Amanda Kaminsky, the principal of Building Product Ecosystems, a consulting firm in New York. “Concrete is responsible for a disproportionate chunk.”

Fiddling with concrete’s recipe is not new, however. The Romans used a formula involving lime and volcanic rock. In the early 19th century, an English bricklayer invented Portland cement, still the most widely used type, whose production involves combining limestone and clay and heating it to blistering temperatures. Each construction project today has its own concrete mix, designed by structural engineers to take into account how and where it will be used.
Before the climate emergency became a pressing issue, concrete producers sought to reduce the amount of cement in their mixes for the simple reason that it tended to be expensive, in part because of the energy-intensive heating in producing it.

Decades ago, they began substituting some of the cement with cheaper fly ash, a byproduct of coal-burning plants, and ****, a byproduct of steel production. Using such materials had the added benefit of diverting them from landfills, and they were also found to improve concrete’s performance. Only in recent years has concrete with fly ash and **** been promoted as a greener product.

But now there’s a hitch: with coal plants being retired, fly ash is not as plentiful as it once was. The decline of steel production in some parts of the country has made **** scarcer. The shortages have set off price increases for these materials, adding to the urgency of experimentation with alternative concrete mixes"

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