Webinar
The War Below: The Global Battle to Power Our Lives
In this compelling discussion, host Drew Wandzilak from Alumni Ventures welcomes esteemed author Ernest Scheyder, whose book, The War Below, is longlisted for the National Book Award for Nonfiction and the 2024 Financial Times and Schroders Business Book of the Year Award.
See video policy below.
Scheyder provides an unprecedented look into the global battle over essential materials like lithium and copper, which are critical for powering our lives through electric vehicles, solar panels, and other technologies. He delves into the complex tensions surrounding mining, revealing the struggles between industry leaders, conservationists, and local communities, all while painting a nuanced picture of energy independence. With illuminating writing, Scheyder shares the human toll of this conflict and explores why recycling and newer technologies face challenges in achieving widespread adoption.
Don’t miss this opportunity to understand the stakes involved in the race for energy resources!
“The War Below: Lithium, Copper, and the Global Battle to Power Our Lives” by Ernest Scheyder delves into the complex global struggle to secure essential minerals like lithium and copper, which are vital for technologies such as electric vehicles and renewable energy systems. Scheyder examines the intricate conflicts among industry leaders, environmentalists, indigenous communities, and policymakers over mining operations that often threaten sensitive ecosystems and cultural sites.
Reasons to Join:
- HomeGain insights into the complexities of the energy transition from a seasoned journalist.
- HomeUnderstand the implications of mining on climate change and local ecosystems.
- HomeExplore the challenges and potential solutions in securing materials essential for a sustainable future.
Alumni Ventures is America’s largest venture capital firm for individual investors.
About your presenters
Overview:
Drew Wandzilak invests in breakthrough technologies that matter to the real world—systems that generate power, move hardware, secure nations, or decode biology. He focuses on companies operating in high-heat, high-speed, high-stakes environments where technical performance is existential and strategic value is measured in megawatts, meters per second, or mission success. Across aerospace, energy, and defense, Drew backs founders who don’t just pitch vision—they bend atoms, trajectories, and supply chains to make it real.
Funds actively worked on:
Yard Ventures
Green D Ventures
U.S. Strategic Tech Fund
Investment Areas of Focus:
His investment lens prioritizes platforms over point solutions, scale advantages rooted in physics or manufacturing, and mission alignment with long-term public interest. That includes nuclear reactors that deploy like data centers, orbital vehicles that reshape access to space, hypersonic systems built for rapid iteration, and genetic tools that bring diagnostics to the edge. These aren’t just technical moonshots—they’re foundational bets on how the next century will be powered, protected, and personalized.
Drew led Alumni Ventures’ investment in Impulse Space, which is building the in-space logistics layer for a high-frequency orbital economy. He backed Aalo Atomics, a small modular reactor company designing standardized, factory-built nuclear power for grid-scale deployment. He also invested in Astro Mechanica, which is reinventing hypersonic aerospace testing for the modern battlefield, and Acorn Genetics, which is miniaturizing genomics to enable low-cost, distributed DNA testing anywhere.
These companies reflect Drew’s broader strategy: to invest in enduring platforms that serve strategic industries and unlock decades of downstream innovation. He believes the next great venture outcomes will come not just from apps or algorithms, but from reengineering the physical world—and the infrastructure that underpins it.
LEARN HOW TO INVEST IN COMPANIES IN THIS SECTOR WITH ALUMNI VENTURES:
U.S. Strategic Tech Fund >>>
Ernest Scheyder is a senior correspondent for Reuters and the author of “The War Below: Lithium, Copper, and the Global Battle to Power our Lives,” which has been longlisted for the 2024 National Book Award for Nonfiction and the Financial Times/Schroders Business Book of the Year. Fortune, The Wall Street Journal, BBC World, the Financial Times, Forbes, Science, the Christian Science Monitor and others have praised the book, which was named one of the Best Books of 2024 So Far by Amazon’s editors. Daniel Yergin, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of “The Prize,” said the book “vividly captures the physical and political landscapes over which the future is being fought.” A native of Maine, Scheyder previously covered the U.S. shale oil revolution, politics, and the environment. His interest in journalism and writing began when he founded his high school newspaper. He is a graduate of the University of Maine and Columbia Journalism School. Visit him at www.ernestscheyder.com.