Member Info for Alfacomp

Well I wouldn't have gone if you hadn't been so enthusiastic and twisted my arm.

As you yourself said you can't be in the conversation if you are not in the room - similarly you can't benefit from understanding how VRFBs are going to change the energy transition if you're not invested in them. Bushveld is the way to invest in an entire industry.

ninja - I well recall that trip, it was great fun and good to get out of a freezing cold blighty. Even better to see just exactly what Bushveld is building with one's own eyes.

The trouble is that it would not be possible to do such a trip now, there's too much going on with mine developments, Vanchem processing plants, the electrolyte plant, Mokopane and now to top it off the VIP investments in Cellcube/Enerox and Avalon/Redt - it is quite literally mindblowing.

The one great pleasure I will take in the future though is that the short-term city spivs who managed to parachute in at 10.3p and who have been selling down for the last year, won't be around when we are valued in the pounds.

200 MWh is roughly 1,000 tonnes of Vanadium worth. So at least USD 30 million. Then add processing to electrolyte and that should be worth at least USD 50-60 Million.

HaleSpur, indeed the announcement from Cellcube about Stefan Shauss stepping down from their board (shared here yesterday) - so that he could be solely in charge at Enerox, reminds us that Cellcube is a Canadian Stock Exchange listed company ( https://thecse.com/en/listings/mining/cellcube-energy-storage-systems-inc ). Enerox GmbH of course is not, it is based in Austria ( https://www.bloomberg.com/profile/company/1615506D:AV )

My money is Siemens, by the way, who have clear ambitions in the Green energy space to match our own. and the scale and pockets ($100Billion) to make it happen.

RK given that Sumitomo already have their own well established VRFB plan (and in fact have been in it from pretty much the start) and they will have seen what BMN bring to the party via Vanitec I think that they are unlikely to be keen to pay to take over BMN - I think they appreciate that their Japanese way of looking at things is rather different to how the rest of the world (and BMN) works and they would rather be a part of that big party than like NGK and their Sodium-Sulphur technology who are all by themselves, sitting in a bedsit with a packet of stale doritos and a few cans of cider waiting for everyone else to turn up.

Slinkyfink - it is hardly surprising when you think about it - you are taking 1 Kg of coal which we'll assume is 100 carbon, burning it to generate 3.67 Kg CO2 (C=12 g/mole, O=16 g/mole => CO2= 44g/mole)

That 3.67Kg of CO2 is 3.67/0.044 = 83.5 Moles so occupies 22.4 x 83.5 = 1970 litres.

So 1 Kg of coal, a lump that you could hold in your hand and which would occupy just over 1 litre of volume generates roughly 2000 times as much volume of gas. So you either have to compress that gas or find a volume that is 2000 times as large as your coal mine in order to store all the output gas at atmospheric pressure.

On my way back from holiday near aachen my satnav appeared to lose track of where I should be going. This is because a few years back the A44 had been cut short and routed around the 48km2 sized garzweiler lignite mine ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garzweiler_surface_mine ) - where are you going to get an enclosed volume that is 2000 times that ?

Ahhh - but you can simply compress the gas until it becomes a solid. Yes but this inevitably uses up a significant amount of the energy that you just liberated from the solid Carbon. How much is a much longer and more complicated calculation but a 12% figure is given here:- https://www.powermag.com/capturing-co2-gas-compression-vs-liquefaction - i.e. 1/8th of the output energy of a coal plant is needed just to compress the outgoing CO2 and that's on top of the cost of all the extra equipment. And then you've got to find somewhere to put that high pressure stuff. Big tanks are just not going to be cost effective. Under the sea at the bottom of the ocean trenches is currently suggested but then you have to be concerned about the CO2 leaking out and turning the ocean to an acidic fizzing drink.

Slinkyfink - well 'clean coal' is easy - it doesn't really exist at any sort of scale and nobody in the world has got CCS to work at a price that is cost effective. The article from forbes ( https://www.forbes.com/sites/energyinnovation/2017/05/03/carbon-capture-and-storage-an-expensive-option-for-reducing-u-s-co2-emissions/ ) shows that adding CCS to a coal power station increases US electricity costs from around $90/MWh to $150/MWh as compared with onshore wind which can yield electricity at less than $60/MWh.

That article was from 2017 so both wind and solar PV are less than $50/MWh hour now - so less even than the EXTRA cost to add CCS to AN EXISTING coal power station.

Ahhh but what about the costs of energy storage for when the wind isn't blowing etc etc. Well cellcube are quoting CAPEX of $200/kWh - use that capex over 10,000 cycles and it works out at an additional $20/MWh - however for each MWh of wind or solar PV electricity you generate you don't need to store 1MWh (probably 1/2 you can use immediately and 1/2 can be stored for use when you want it) so the extra cost per MWh of providing useful storage for generated renewables may only be around $10 per MWh.

A much more interesting interview is the recent one with Fortune here:- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V_uMw4wmdjw

you can see exactly what he is aiming to achieve and the scale of the opportunity that we have sitting right in front of us.

that interview is actually very interesting because it reveals the point where he is coming from. He is still viewing things through the post-colonial/ post-apartheid lens and this comes through when he says he doesn't want to simply dance to the west/europe's renewables tune.

When the answer to the request 'can you have more renewables and storage' becomes 'yes we can and would you like to buy our storage systems' people like Gwede will finally get it. Normally this never happens because the technology is controlled by western companies and the host countries feel like they are being forced to take technology and pay for the privilege. BMN's approach is novel because it has manage to turn this status quo on its head. South Africa needs more like it.

if you read that then you should also read the followup:- https://mybroadband.co.za/news/energy/339743-here-it-is-the-available-renewable-energy-which-minister-gwede-mantashe-said-does-not-exist.html

and it looks like I am not the only one.

yes Stefan Schauss is CEO of Enerox. He has to go and run that now so he clearly cannot stay with Cellcube.

just had my first 50K of the day

Great finds Floyd - so we have over 600 employees now - if you compare that metric with many other aim listed companies of a similar Mcap you can see how our scale outstrips almost all.

Of course those of a negative bent will immediately jump on this as proof of something or other but they forget that we make more profit than Tesla !

go back to school and learn the difference between Vanadium and Vanadium Pentoxide ShearTw*At

Show me a trader on AIM who can get 10% 70 times over and I will show you a liar. Traders are simply canon fodder for the Market Makers. Only those who have the patience to stick around to watch a real miner-to-energy storage technology partner will win in the long run.

Whilst the traders are looking for the next NCYT to gamble on minute by minute we patiently sit and watch the BoD deliver a masterclass in business development. You won't see this again on AIM for some time as AIM just doesn't cut the custard any more.

After a very enjoyable holiday away from the time wasters and artistes de BS that appear every time there is a day with a 3% drop in SP. I see that there are the usual sorts of nonenties sniping at long term holders and trying to relieve newcomers of their understanding or their shares. Why don’t you guys try the old ‘junior miner of single commodity’ line because this is the last chance you are going to get. Once the BMN led VIP consortium acquires Enerox and sets Avalon/Redt up as the hottest new thing in energystorage you will find the world a very different place. As the relative newcomers from the freetrade platform have already discovered BMN is then going to be viewed as the most exciting perfectly hedged play for the next 20 years of the decarbonisation transition. Remember that you were told about this many times.

Indeed Sanchez you have hit the nail on the head. South Korea got seriously burned with over two dozen major Lithium-Ion based Battery Energy Storage System fires in the last couple of years. Japan got equally burned by high Sodium-Sulphur fires about a decade ago.

Only Vanadium based flow batteries can provide the battery energy storage at scale safely.

Only Bushveld is standing to capitalise on the recent Vanadium price spike to facilitate this Industry.

RK - well if anyone from rio tinto wishes to talk to fortune they only have to walk 50 yards from their head office to ours.