Gordon Stein, CFO of CleanTech Lithium, explains why CTL acquired the 23 Laguna Verde licenses. Watch the video here.
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thanks dubmaskullanga this makes sense. So presumably operating at higher temperature is beneficial as solute solubility increases
Knuttie, I've little knowledge as I stated in V markets and the drivers here. My interest is in "whats under the bonnet" of VRFBs. I don't wish to tell the BoD how to do their job, just curious to understand the strategic view of BoD and investor sentiment to pushing tech development. Frankly if you do believe me and think my interest as stated is genuine just filter me and I'll filter your nonsense.
James, probably a bit of both I'm afraid. I day job in life sciences R&D so have a natural inclination to technology and science. Hence the nature of the content I've been sharing, apologies to all BB members if this is the incorrect place to raise this. I confess to knowing little on short term cycles of V commodity pricing and the ups/downs of trolling/shorting, not that any of you would believe this anyway.
alfacomp sorry I didn't mean to cause offence, my search was a quick google search as I stated and on the first page of hits with "enerox" I found no patents assigned. It was cursory only, thanks for looking at EPO and finding some.
knuttie... spot on buddy!
Not near so much as my house!
From
For the uninformed can anyone explain the benefit of VRFB vs green hydrogen (water electrolysis/fuel cell) as a renewable energy storage vector?
To
Sorry for the flurry of messages but the VRFB has caught my interest. On the HCl option, one consideration is that water (high in HCl, low/absent in H2SO4) is an effective electrical insulator, so high water content is likely to reduce charge/discharge cycle efficiency relatively due to ohmic resistance losses. I don't suppose benchmark numbers are available to quantify this behaviour?
in a day.
Yeah ok..
Also red flags of;
'renewable energy storage vector' which no normal person would ever say and; 'ohmic resistance losses'. when one could say 'electrical resistance losses'
Either trying far too hard to appear intelligent, or just a bit strange. You decide.
Sharesaplenty does that fit their business model ? The recently set up Vanadium Investment Platform (VIP) is designed to allow BMN to invest in other companies but without directly involving themseleves in the management of those companies. They are trying to bring capital into this investment space, both their own and from other sources, thereby promoting partnerships etc in order that those enlarged companies, partners, etc benefit from economies of scale. I don't see anywhere that they wish to directly control the products, patents, research, etc. They seem to be trying to unify various strands of the VRFB industry without taking control.
The direction of research, product manufacture, patents, etc looks like it remains with the partner companies. BMN state that they are buying into the management and expertise of these companies. Love it or loathe it it is a clear strategy. And one thing we know about Fortune (and possibly Mikhail is that he is (or possibly they are) brilliant at strategy.
From the 11.11.19 interview. Quote from MN:
"We want to leave the operations to the management teams. I think that will also allow us if there are other good companies that we want to take a stake in knowing that we are not going to be involved in the operations, that the conflict of interests is not going to be there I think is very important to communicate. Strategically yes we can look and see where the market is going, we can offer some advice there because we have seen a lot, but we are definitely not going to get involved in the day to day operations."
an even quicker search of the european patent office reveals at least two patents filed by Enerox, going back to february 2016.
sharesaplenty are you deliberately misleading or just incompetent ?
Hey Knuttie, anywhere near you?
https://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/news/uk-world-news/tesco-delivery-van-ends-up-17261103
Unbelievable. Yesterday lunchtime you were expressing that you had very little knowledge. Since which you have posted voluminously culminating today in virtually telling the BoD how to do their job. Who knows you may be a genius, you may not be a troll in which case I repeat my apology. However I seen quite enough, filtered either way.
Sharesaplenty, its more to do with solubility and stability than purely pH. The more vanadium you can dissolve the higher the potential power to weight ratio/
I guess my view of the tech development potential into VRFB research specifically that BMN could/should make (in my opinion) is 2 fold. Firstly it allows VRFB to more greatly displace Li-ion where existing end user deployment is marginal in decision making based on tech benchmarks (e.g. electric automotive transport). Secondly it gives greater market exclusivity (through patenting) of new VRFB devices.
I believe this extract from the FM / MN interview on 11.11.19 sheds light on exactly how BMN intend to maximise income from the stationary energy storage business. They do seem to have most bases covered!
"In some ways we aren't in direct control. Let's take an example of a project like our minigrid. There we are the developers so we get a development fee when that project .....? close. We are an investor co investors so we get the return in equity or dividends from the power purchase agreement that is signed to pay for the energy that minigrid produces. By the way we are supplying a battery into so if we want to we charge a mark up on somebody else's battery. If we are invested in that company we get an additional benefit because our investment has now appreciated in value because that company has now got more deployments.we are supplying electrolyte so we get a fee for manufacturing the electrolyte into that project. We mined the vanadium so now we've got a sale on the vanadium. This integration allows us really to capture the value sometimes 4 or 6 different activities on just one single project. Now I want to be honest we are not going to develop every single vanadium project every vanadium battery project in the world but if it's in Africa then it's extremely active. If it's somewhere in let's say Australia yes we are probably not involved in the development, but we may be supplying vanadium, electrolyte, possibly having equity stake into the company that invested there. Possibly having a stake into the rental product company that is supplying electrolyte for rental. So there's a lot of different ways and it can be extremely active. I don't know who is getting 6 ways to make money on one project. To some there might be only 2 or 3. But in either case it's more than just vanadium and that's what integration allows us to do."
A quick Google patent search not picking up any filed patent apps assigned to Enerox
Thanks Pdub, in a perfect world you'd hope Enerox establishes a intellectual property portfolio based on VRFB patent applications. I don't know if they have typically patented technological advances, but certainly getting marketing exclusivity of future VRFB device improvements should be considered as key to extracting maximum future value in the growth here.
I am by no means an expert on this but isn't the investment in Enerox through the VIP already an example of investment in VRFB research?
"Enerox is one of the world's largest researchers, developers, manufacturers and distributors of vanadium redox flow batteries ("VRFB"), headquartered in Wiener Neudorf, Austria. It has installed VRFBs at over 130 sites globally"
https://www.lse.co.uk/rns/BMN/potential-investment-in-enerox-gmbh-x9rhivg9uj9ev43.html
I do believe FM and MN way ahead of most in this game. Expect lots more to come from them.
Sorry for the flurry of messages but the VRFB has caught my interest. On the HCl option, one consideration is that water (high in HCl, low/absent in H2SO4) is an effective electrical insulator, so high water content is likely to reduce charge/discharge cycle efficiency relatively due to ohmic resistance losses. I don't suppose benchmark numbers are available to quantify this behaviour?
I'd be interested to hear views on whether investors consider allocating an increase portion of BMN resource into R&D activities for improvements in VRFB devices is worthwhile. I would consider this would be indicative of the transition from commodity supplier to technology/VRFB product supplier. This is where I'm hearing the BMN growth story will come from.
Certainly weight is one of the negatives against what is otherwise a large array of positive performance criteria vs rival battery tech. I'd like to see investment into VRFB addressing this weakness to increase breadth of applications for VRFBs. Choice of acid is a clear one to me, but perhaps there are other design criteria beside weight (e.g. viscosity of electrolyte such that high viscosity is less efficient due to pump having to work a bit harder)
No problem, but having the BB welcome new investors like this will if anything hinder the growth of BMN so is counterproductive to many LTH hopes. On the acid question composition on electrolyte, I'd be interested to hear what degree of investments (i.e. %of profit) is being allocated into R&D of VRFBs. I would hope its relatively high to reflect the corporate ambition to grow the market through identifying new end user applications for VRFBs. I would assume this R&D being directed through one of BMNs recent VRFB subsidiary companies as BMN have other fish to fry in Vanchem development and V extraction/mining
sharesaplenty, I didn't join in the chorus of naysayers yesterday but I have to admit my initial impression was sceptical. However it is quite clear from your questions that you have deep and highly relevant knowledge that will be very beneficial to the readers of this board - even if I suspect this knowledge will go over the head of many of us - so a belated welcome to you and I hope the initial frosty responses of yesterday are soon forgotten.
and by extension if low pH acidity is the only requirement for VRFB then have other acids with superior weight/proton ratios be potential superior, e.g. phosphoric acid (trivalent) whereas sulfuric is divalent and hydrochloric monovalent?
that's is for HCl as carrier the weight/power deteriorates in VRFB due to the additional water required over sulfuric acid?
Hopefully this starts to dispel the naysayers on the BB who have told me to "Foxtrot Oscar" as I'm a Troll - LOL! Thanks AlfaComp for the referral to BMN corporate presentations, if anything it reaffirms that BMN are indeed at hot ticket worth backing. I had a question on the carrier acid in VFRB which in BMN info states it can be sulfuric or hydrochloric acid. I note that industrially sulfuric is typically prepared as 98 v/w% whereas HCl is 35-37% v/w% in water (as pure HCl is gaseous @RTP). Presumably from a technical perspective in VFRBs its the proton/H+ requirement (i.e. low pH) therefore is sulfuric acid preferred over HCl in VFRB since presumably in lowers the net weight kWh density potential of the given electrolyte?