Green Zone Fortunes' 'America's Secret New Power Grid' — The Four Stocks Behind the Lithium Reshoring Pitch

The Hook

Adam O’Dell opens his latest Green Zone Fortunes pitch with a sobering number: “We produce less than 2% of the world’s supply. The most powerful grid this country has ever built runs on a resource we have almost no ability to produce ourselves.”

The resource is lithium. The hook is a USGS report confirming one of the largest lithium discoveries in modern American history, massive spodumene deposits running through the Appalachian mountains, including Plumbago Mountain in Maine, where lithium-bearing crystals up to 36 feet long have been found at 4.68% purity.

O’Dell says three Trump executive orders, including one invoking the Defense Production Act to fast-track mining permits, will unlock this domestic supply. He calls it “the biggest mining and mineral story I’ve come across in two decades” and positions three companies as the way to profit, plus one freebie.

But none of those three companies actually mine lithium in the Appalachians. The narrative opens in Maine and ends up in Nevada, Oklahoma, and the grid storage business. Let’s walk through what’s actually being sold.

The Big Claim

O’Dell is selling a three-link supply chain play on American lithium: the miner (ALB), the refiner (SDST), and the grid storage builder (FLNC). He also gives away a fourth pick, Standard Lithium (SLI), as a freebie. The pitch promises 10-20X returns, comparing the opportunity to Rockefeller’s Standard Oil empire in its earliest days.

The subscription is $297/year with a 30-day refund, relatively affordable by newsletter standards, and with a standard refund policy. That’s the same Banyan Hill ecosystem that Alexander Green’s Oxford Club pitches operate in, though this is a much more resource-focused play.

The Mechanism

The Freebie: Standard Lithium (SLI)

O’Dell gives this one away: Standard Lithium’s Smackover formation project in Arkansas, which he describes as holding “the largest brine-based lithium reserves in North America.” They’re partnered with Norway’s Equinor and have a 10-year offtake agreement with Trafigura.

The project is real. SLI does have meaningful lithium reserves, solid partners, and a path to production by 2028-2029. The issue is valuation. At current lithium prices and an 8% discount rate, SLI’s 55% share of the mine has an after-tax net present value of roughly $700 million. The company’s market cap is about $500 million. That leaves limited upside, unless lithium prices rise considerably.

The final investment decision is expected by the end of 2026, and they still need to finalize roughly $1 billion in debt financing. These are solvable problems, but they mean the stock is more of a lithium-price call option than a guaranteed winner.

Pick 1: Albemarle (ALB), The Miner

O’Dell describes this as “America’s only operating lithium producer” running a Nevada mine since 1966 with a major expansion just approved. That’s technically true: Albemarle’s Silver Peak mine in Nevada is the only producing lithium mine on US soil.

But Silver Peak represents roughly 3% of Albemarle’s total lithium production. The other 97% comes from Chile’s Atacama desert and hard-rock mines in Australia, with much of it processed through Albemarle’s facilities in China. Albemarle is a global lithium giant, not an American pure-play — and it would be hurt, not helped, by tariffs on imported lithium, which is the policy catalyst O’Dell’s entire pitch depends on.

That said, Albemarle at roughly $131 per share with about $12.50 in expected earnings trades at less than 11x forward earnings. If you believe lithium prices are going up, it’s objectively cheap.

Pick 2: Stardust Power (SDST), The Refiner

O’Dell calls this “The Standard Oil of American Lithium”, an Oklahoma-based company building “one of the only domestic lithium refining facilities in the country.” He frames it as accessible: “you can take a real stake for as little as $100.”

That’s true because the stock has collapsed. Stardust Power was a SPAC that went public in 2024 with a market cap around $400 million. The promo references that “$400 million company” framing, but today SDST trades around $0.69 with a market cap of roughly $20 million. It has lost 99% of its value.

The company has done early engineering work on a lithium refining project in Oklahoma, but they haven’t made a final investment decision. At their current size, raising the capital needed for a refinery, which costs hundreds of millions of dollars, would require extraordinary government support or a rescue by a larger partner.

Pick 3: Fluence Energy (FLNC), Grid Storage

Fluence builds grid-scale battery storage installations. The numbers O’Dell cites are accurate: $5.6 billion contracted backlog, order intake doubled to roughly $2 billion year-to-date. They’re positioned in a genuinely important space, as AI data centers strain the grid and renewables need storage, battery installations are growing rapidly.

But Fluence has been “about to turn the corner” for years. The company went public in 2021 backed by Siemens and AES. Both have been steadily selling down their stakes. Fluence has never turned a profit. Analysts forecast the first earnings, about 20 cents per share, in 2027, with 40 cents in 2028. The backlog is growing, but converting that backlog to profitable revenue has been the persistent challenge.

The stock trades around $12.65, roughly where it was in March 2024. Sector activity is real, Brookfield just bought Aypa Power (6.5GW battery storage) for $7 billion, but Fluence competes with Tesla, Stem, and others in a space where proprietary advantages are hard to maintain.

The Real Picks

*Freebie, not a paid pick

Does the Math Check Out?

The average return across the three paid picks since tease: -21.0%. ALB alone is positive. SDST has been catastrophic.

The deeper issue is the mismatch between narrative and picks. The promo opens with the Maine lithium discovery, Trump’s executive orders, and the Defense Production Act, implying these picks will ride a wave of Appalachian lithium development. But ALB mines in Nevada. SDST might someday refine lithium in Oklahoma. FLNC doesn’t mine or refine lithium at all, it installs battery storage systems.

The Maine deposit that anchors the urgency narrative isn’t owned by any public company. It’s privately held, and the owners have publicly stated that Maine’s mining regulations make extraction economically unviable. Even with the Defense Production Act, building a mine in Maine faces years of environmental review and likely litigation. This is a similar dynamic to what we saw in Dylan Jovine’s geothermal pitch, a real resource opportunity framed through an urgency narrative that doesn’t quite hold up to scrutiny.

SDST at $20 million market cap is essentially a lottery ticket. The “you can buy a real stake for $100” framing is technically true but obscures that you’re buying into a company that needs to raise hundreds of millions of dollars it doesn’t have. ALB at roughly 11x forward earnings is genuinely interesting if you’re bullish on lithium, but it’s a global commodity play, not a reshoring story.

What They Got Right

1. The lithium supply chain concern is real. The US does produce less than 2% of global lithium supply and is heavily dependent on Chinese processing. This is a legitimate national security concern with bipartisan attention.

2. Albemarle is reasonably priced. At less than 11x forward earnings, ALB is one of the more accessible ways to bet on lithium demand growth. If electric vehicles and grid storage continue to expand, lithium prices should eventually recover.

3. Grid-scale battery storage is growing. FLNC’s $5.6 billion backlog and the recent Brookfield/Google investments in the space confirm that battery storage infrastructure is being built at scale.

4. The Smackover formation is a real resource. SLI’s Arkansas project has genuine lithium reserves, credible partners (Equinor, Trafigura), and a realistic path to production by decade’s end.

5. The Section 232 tariff authority is real. The president can impose tariffs on materials deemed critical to national security without congressional approval. This is not a fictional catalyst.

What They Got Wrong

1. The Maine narrative is a bait-and-switch. The entire promo builds urgency around the Appalachian lithium discovery and Trump unlocking those deposits, then pivots to companies that have nothing to do with mining in Maine. The deposit O’Dell spends paragraphs describing is not investable through any of his picks.

2. SDST is presented as a “$400 million company.” It was, briefly, in early 2025, but pitching it that way today when the market cap is $20 million is misleading. Investors buying now are not getting a small growth company; they’re getting a near-defunct SPAC.

3. Albemarle is miscast as an “American lithium” play. Three percent of production is in the US. The company would be harmed by lithium import tariffs, not helped. It’s a fine global commodity company, but it’s not the reshoring story the promo sells.

4. The FLNC turnaround hasn’t happened yet. The backlog numbers are impressive, but Fluence has been promising profitability “next year” since 2021. The stock is flat over two years while insiders keep selling.

5. Maine mining regulations are fundamentally prohibitive. The Plumbago Mountain owners themselves have said extraction is uneconomical under current regulations. Overriding state environmental laws via the Defense Production Act would face years of legal challenges.

The Verdict

There is a genuine investment thesis around US lithium independence, but O’Dell’s picks don’t line up with it. If you want to bet on domestic lithium, Standard Lithium (the freebie) is actually the most direct play, it has real US reserves, solid partners, and a near-term production timeline. But at $500 million market cap against a $700 million NPV, the upside is limited unless lithium prices rise.

Albemarle is an interesting value play on global lithium at 11x earnings, but it’s not the reshoring story being sold. SDST is a lottery ticket at a $20 million market cap, the odds are long. FLNC could eventually work if battery storage demand materializes, but it’s been a patience-testing holding. As we’ve seen in other critical mineral pitches, the narrative around national security supply chains tends to be more compelling than the near-term stock performance of the companies involved.

For $297/year, you’re getting a subscription to Green Zone Fortunes, not a direct stake in any of these companies. The picks are a mixed bag, one lottery ticket, one global commodity major, one grid storage stock that’s been treading water, and one freebie that’s fairly priced. The narrative is more compelling than the portfolio.

NewsletterVetter is an independent publication. We receive compensation from some of the services we review through affiliate links. Nothing on this site is investment advice. Always do your own research. The Green Zone Fortunes promo’s own disclaimer acknowledges that “past performance is no guarantee of future results” and that resource-sector investments carry above-average risk including commodity price volatility and regulatory uncertainty.