Roundtable Discussion; The Future of Mineral Sands. Watch the video here.
Not sure exactly what the point is with the post? There are activists for everything in the world, how the media portray them often depends on public opinion or any other agenda.
As I've said previously, I thought extinction rebellion were a bunch of nutters, though I now think at least they stand up for what they believe in, unlike many of us who sit behind a keyboard and complain or sign a petition.
One thing this year has shown us is that if the world is united in a common goal, anything is possible. We've had many scientists work with unlimited budgets and resources, and no questions of which country needs to claim glory, and look what they have achieved. If we really want a greener future, it is achievable sooner than we think. Of course there is a balance, we can't shut everything down, though the more the government gets on our side, the more big investors don't want to be seen supporting oil or other now dirty industries, the more we will see companies such as AFC thrive.
The irony is at the end of the article in that the action was non violent, as if this group of modern day hippies can actually cause harm. Meanwhile we are discussing here whether or not it is beneficial to drill in the Arctic for oil, and other areas of incredible natural beauty. Who are the real criminals? We can all make a difference.
Funny you mention fuelcell, my young aunt brought him up 2 days ago, she also said she missed him. I should also take the opportunity to say thanks to my mother now who has read the board for how ever many years, attended the AGM's, though never posted. She is too very happy of course, and is the one responsible for my original purchase of AFC, which subsequently escalated to a far larger holding. Funny to remember all this at Christmas, where previously at this time we would have had a few drinks and have already touched on the subject of AFC and how, yet again, we had not got to where we thought we would be.
Also well spotted Southerhay on that Norwegian company earlier, I didn't know they had now listed on the Norwegian equivalent of aim.
Annoyingly, most of the coverage so far seems to focus on how much % rise they've had over the last 12 months, they don't stipulate any fundamentals of the company. For people that invest without researching, the numbers can paint a picture that may not be realistic.
I will never forget your 46 shares purchased in honour of your mother who was born in 1946 Der Sack, I hope to be sipping on a 1946 vintage of some kind of alcoholic beverage laughing about your antics that evening, I will say prost to you and your mother :)
We have similar laws in Norway, if I sold any afc shares today, I would pay 25% tax on the profits next summer, any losses I also receive a 25% tax rebate. Congratulations on your investment strategy, thank you for your words on here, and all the best for the future.
And thanks to you too Haggis for all the articles. I used to pride myself on searching for clues regarding AFC, now it's more about which country is reporting on the latest news. I even saw someone say AFC news came up on his wife's recommended Google feed. No more clues, no more speculation, it's all suddenly very real.
First excellent AFC Christmas! I'm sitting on the sidelines as we are in such a good position now, I'm just waiting to see what will happen. The SP movement is always interesting, though let it move as it will, maybe we have people building a holding, any more unexpected news and none of us know what will happen.
I hope bananaman takes a Christmas break, you've been very active giving good information on here. To add to what you've repeated, for me AFC have a product that is required today, this is confirmed by ABB. We are still no wiser about DeNora, though we are seeing them involved in projects AFC are in, I think we will eventually hear some excellent news on this front.
We've gone from being sceptical about the ev market to seeing the product requested by big players. We know there is so much going on in the background. In fairness, Adam Bond told us all we needed to know after the road show. Also in fairness some of us were sceptical. As I said earlier, AB may have done everything correctly, at the right pace and in the right order. 2021 will be very interesting indeed.
Happy Christmas.
The chief executive of the independent Climate Change Committee, Chris Stark, told The Times recently: “You’d need something like 300GW of offshore wind if you wanted to produce the amount of hydrogen we’d need to straightforwardly replace natural gas, and that doesn’t seem like a practical solution.” The UK has 10GW of offshore wind capacity and plans to increase that to 40GW by 2030.
Johnson is keen on carbon capture and storage — trapping carbon from steam-reformed hydrogen and pumping it into depleted gas and saline caverns beneath the North Sea, hence the moniker “blue” hydrogen.
Then there is storing and transporting hydrogen. The gas must be compressed under intense pressure to be used in cars such as Toyota’s Mirai, as it is much less dense than fossil fuels. Transporting it as a liquid requires freezing it to -253C. The gas is prone to leaking and can make steel pipes brittle. It is also highly explosive.
“On the surface, hydrogen looks like the answer to every energy question,” said Michael Liebreich, founder of Bloomberg New Energy Finance, on Twitter. “Sadly, it displays an impressive list of disadvantages. Even so, it holds a vice-like grip over the imaginations of techno-optimists.”
S&P said that to make hydrogen viable, the cost of producing it from renewables must fall more than 50% to $2-$2.50 per kilogram by 2030. Even then, it would require a market price almost three times the current price of natural gas in the UK.
None of this deters the gas’s advocates. The EU has made it a pillar of its post-Covid recovery and envisages spending as much as €470bn (£426bn) on hydrogen production by 2050, claiming that it could meet 24% of world demand by then.
Hayden Wood, chief executive of energy supplier Bulb, said: “It might be useful for things like shipping and heavy industry, but the real challenge will be competing with the likes of electricity for residential heat.”
On a former RAF base in Cumbria, three new terrace homes have been fitted with boilers made by Worcester Bosch that are designed to run exclusively on hydrogen. Worcester began developing a hydrogen-powered boiler in 2015. “They have been driven to destruction in our laboratories,” said director Martyn Bridges. When mass-produced they will be “roughly” the same price as a gas boiler, he said.
“We know we’ve got to get rid of gas in its present form,” added Bridges, who said it was “hard to see” the downsides. Worcester’s boilers are hydrogen-ready: they will run on natural gas until converted with parts costing about £75.
Proponents of the fuel argue that it can be injected into the grid without requiring a huge replacement of gas infrastructure or rebuilding the electricity network, which would be required if homes were to be powered solely by electricity.
Experts reckon a mix of up to 20% hydrogen with natural gas could be pumped into the grid to begin that process. A trial is under way at Keele University in Staffordshire.
In a lab outside the spa town of Buxton in the Peak District, scientists are experimenting with scrap sections of steel, plastic and copper piping.
Researchers from the Health and Safety Executive are testing to see how they react when hydrogen is pumped through them rather than natural gas.
Hydrogen, touted for years as the holy grail of energy, is going mainstream as governments and companies try to curb carbon emissions. Last week, it was given extra impetus with the release of a white paper on energy, which mentioned hydrogen 133 times and unveiled an ambition to “decarbonise gas supplies” with five gigawatts (GW) of low-carbon hydrogen production capacity by 2030.
Ministers want a “hydrogen neighbourhood” by 2023, a large village powered by hydrogen by 2025 and a town by 2030. “We will turn water into energy with up to £500m of investment in hydrogen,” said Boris Johnson last month.
A hydrogen gold rush is under way. Alongside huge lobbying, vast sums are pouring into research projects, sending the price of companies involved soaring.
Shares in ITM Power, which makes electrolysers, are more than six times higher than a year ago. Shares in fuel-cell companies AFC Energy and Ceres Power are up almost four times and five times respectively.
Hydrogen’s appeal is not new: it is the most abundant element in the universe. When burned it emits no carbon — its only by-product is water — and it generates a similar temperature to natural gas. It can be isolated by passing an electrical current through water.
However, hydrogen has made little headway as a replacement fuel for heating or transport, remaining a niche for refining, chemicals and ammonia fertiliser. Much of the reason lies in two issues: practicality and cost.
Hydrogen does not exist freely on the planet, and separating it requires serious amounts of energy. This is done either via electrolysis, hailed as a way of producing “green hydrogen” from renewable electricity, or splitting methanes such as natural gas. That means blasting hydrocarbons with steam at 700C–1,000C, an energy-hungry process which releases huge amounts of CO2.According to the ratings agency Standard & Poor’s, hydrogen production last year accounted for 830 million tons of CO2 — almost 3% of energy-related emissions.
Song is white wine in the sun. I'm more enjoying reading Mr Haggis' numerous links to world news mentioning AFC. I'm also despairing over the fact that despite world attenion shifting to future renwables/hydrogen (as it did early 2020, some big media outlets dedicated 2020 to talking about climate change, we know what happned then), we probably still spend more money on designing things like hypersonic weapons in the background.
Great you are enjoying yourself Jhonboy! We all deserve to be a bit pleased with ourselves now, and as BB put it, AFC has, in the past, managed to ruin Christmas... Well not this year!
We should enjoy profits by putting them to good use and doing what we enjoy, money only represents wealth as much as a menu represents the meal, or something similar. As corny as it may sound, I will take some joy in the future when seeing an AFC charger/generator or whatever else, knowing that I was and probably still am a small part in picture. Many of us have held against the odds, for believing in the ideas of AFC, and it looks as though we may have been right!
Cheers to your success, and enjoying life as you like to. And a greener future!
Hi Qualia, I wouldn't get swallowed up by fomo. If you are determined to invest here, why not start with a smaller investment and you can always buy some more after monitoring for a while?
I believe we are soon to hear more from the company, though when and what no one can say. Next expected news is of delivery to Extreme E, though these big gaps you've seen are due to the (incredible) ABB news plus an over due re-rate of the companies position.
There is a lot going on with AFC now, and interest is high. We do of course have Christmas next week, end of month/year which can always cause some erratic movements in markets.
Good luck with your choice.
Hi Garry, you've got some good answers. Norway I use as an example, the grid here is excellent and almost all from renewables. I meant to point out that when you, wherever you may be start to see ev busses "en masse", the potential for ABB and AFC is there. Also, power to ships, this must be a huge business. ABB couldn't roll out what they've done here in many other countries.