This week, we are introducing Endurance Capital, the next chapter of Firstime Credit. The business, investment discipline, and core focus remain the same, but the new name better reflects the platform we are building: an asset manager focused on direct lending and complementary capital solutions across energy, infrastructure, industrials, and sustainability. Endurance Capital provides tailored credit and structured capital solutions to companies and projects with proven technologies, visible commercial demand, and substantial capital needs – opportunities often underserved by conventional financing providers. The name reflects our long-term approach to capital, our commitment to disciplined underwriting, and our focus on supporting companies and infrastructure projects through critical stages of commercial deployment, growth, and scale.
Visit our new website to learn more about Endurance Capital: www.endurance-capital.co
The Brief | U.S. Military Bases Become Critical-Mineral Infrastructure
The U.S. Army’s selection of Titan Mining and REalloys to develop critical-mineral processing facilities on domestic military sites marks a shift from supply-chain policy to hardened industrial infrastructure. The exposed systems are graphite purification, rare-earth separation, battery inputs, grid equipment, defense electronics, and advanced manufacturing lines that still depend on China-linked processing capacity. By moving mineral refining onto Army-controlled land, Washington is treating processing nodes as strategic infrastructure rather than commodity supply, using military bases to reduce permitting friction, secure physical sites, and stockpile output for defense and energy systems. The operational consequence: U.S. electrification, AI infrastructure, and defense continuity now depend on domestic refining capacity, offtake structures, and secure logistics, not just new mines or trade agreements. (Reuters)
Strategic Moves | Capital flows in energy, infrastructure, and policy
Energy Systems & Grid Reliability
- Base Power is entering PJM Interconnection’s Illinois territory with residential batteries starting at 25kWh, offering electricity rates 25% below ComEd while operating more than 500MWh of storage in Texas, using behind-the-meter capacity to bypass PJM’s interconnection queue and support grid reliability as data-center demand pushes wholesale power prices nearly 2x higher.
- Honda and LG Energy Solution have redirected Ohio battery-cell production from canceled U.S. EV programs into stationary energy storage for data centers and grid assets, following Honda’s $15.7 billion EV-strategy write-down, as U.S. storage installations reached 9.7GWh in Q1 and are projected to hit 110GWh annually by 2030, preserving battery-factory utilization while supporting AI power demand and grid stability.
- Chevron, Microsoft, and Joulent will build a 2.7GW on-site natural-gas power campus across more than 2,000 acres in Reeves County, Texas, under a 20-year electricity agreement, using Chevron’s Permian Basin gas production to supply one of the largest U.S. AI data centers while shifting compute reliability from the grid to dedicated fossil generation.
- Walmart signed a long-term PPA with Constellation Energy to source emissions-free nuclear power for its U.S. retail operations starting in 2029, adding one of the largest non-tech corporate nuclear commitments in the U.S. to improve power-cost visibility, reduce emissions exposure, and harden store and logistics continuity against grid volatility.
- Amazon signed a 600MW PPA with BlackRock-owned Skyborn Renewables for carbon-free electricity from the 976.5MW Gennaker offshore wind farm in the German Baltic Sea, enabling construction of 63 turbines and supporting Germany’s 30GW offshore wind target by 2030 while strengthening Baltic grid supply, energy security, and corporate clean-power continuity.
Resilient Infrastructure & Materials
- Amazon is investing in GranBio’s biomass-to-fuel platform to convert forestry residues and construction debris into drop-in sustainable aviation fuel, renewable diesel, and renewable gasoline, using its Thomaston, Georgia R&D facility and planned U.S. pulp-and-paper mill conversions over the next decade to expand lower-carbon fuel infrastructure for aviation and long-haul trucking while supporting Amazon’s 2040 net-zero target.
Resilience Finance & Policy
- The Trump administration’s permitting delays, led by Interior Secretary Doug Burgum’s August 2025 order, threaten 92GW of clean power and more than $121 billion in energy investment after 7GW of federal-land generation was already canceled in 2025, exposing U.S. grids, data centers, solar, wind, and storage projects to supply shortfalls as AI-driven electricity demand rises.
- Amazon will purchase 1.95 million tonnes of carbon removal credits over more than a decade from a South African spekboom restoration project planting 180 million shrubs across more than 50,000 hectares, enabling the World Bank’s Spekboom 3Outcome Bond while creating 11,000 jobs and channeling more than $500 million into local land, labor, and restoration systems.
- Deep Sky delivered North America’s first Isometric-certified direct air capture carbon removal credits from its Deep Sky Alpha facility in Innisfail, Alberta to Microsoft and RBC, permanently injecting atmospheric CO₂ underground 18 months after construction began and establishing verified DAC offtake supply through 2034 to support corporate carbon-removal procurement and long-duration storage infrastructure.
- BloombergNEF estimates airline environmental compliance costs will reach $48 billion by 2035, quadrupling from 2026 levels, as EU SAF mandates and ETS carbon pricing push easyJet and Ryanair costs above 2.1 cents per seat-kilometre, exposing European airline networks, hub airports, and long-haul routing systems to margin compression, fare increases, capacity cuts, and non-EU rerouting risk.
Omer Agadi, Research, Endurance Capital
