Member Info for Alfacomp

Metalysis and Titanium :- https://worldclassbritain.com/wcb-list/metalysis

"Aluminium was once more expensive than gold. Then along came aluminium distraction through electrolysis, turning it from the world’s most precious metal into one of the world’s most disposal. Wait, let me just finish this can of Coke. Right.

Metalysis has come up with a process that will do that for pretty much any metal across the periodic table - and they have started with titanium."

Those who have been here for some time will recall that Mkango had established a relationship with the UK based company Metalysis who were formed to further develop and bring to market the FFC (Fray-Farthing-Chen) developed in the Cambridge group of Derek Fray ( https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11837-017-2664-4 )

Metalysis went into administration in 2019 but the administrators have been hard and work and earlier this year appear to have arranged a sale to a company called Power Resources Group. ( https://uk.reuters.com/article/us-prg-m-a-metalysis-woodford/mining-company-power-resources-buys-woodford-backed-metalysis-idUKKCN1U01QP ) :-

"Power Resources Group mines in Rwanda for tantalum, used in mobile phones, and niobium, needed for high-strength alloys. It also has a refinery in North Macedonia and says it is a good fit for Metalysis, which it says can be strategic for Britain.

One of the challenges for Metalysis was its reliance on externally sourced minerals, whose prices can be volatile."

The attentive amongst you will notice that the FFC process was originally developed precisely for the processing of Titanium, because, as it was pointed out to me by one of the members of that research group "because the US military would like to make all their tanks out of the stuff"

Will the reborn Metalysis be interested in a guaranteed supply of high quality Titanium dioxide, will the US military ?

You betcha.

here's the reference to that - I forgot to put it in https://cleantechnica.com/2020/10/05/tesla-megapack-powerpack-powerwall-battery-storage-prices/

dubmaskullanga - yes it's all very California and Tesla-centric isn't it. Greentechmedia is rather reminiscent of cleantechmedia who were the ones who recently pulled an article by StorEn technology because Elon Musk didn't like it.

Troajan Horse, Drama, what are they making a fuss about ?

"Long-duration storage fits in with what utilities, independent system operators, and regional transmission operators understand. “Most utilities seem to want much longer-duration storage systems, with 6 to 12 hours discharge, to do serious load-shaping over the day,” suggests an analyst at a U.S. energy think tank. Some of these expectations are being driven by the performance of pumped hydro, once the only source of grid-connected storage.

Economically viable long-duration energy storage could accelerate solar and wind penetration, grid resiliency, and serve to stabilize volatile energy prices."

They cannot even report what utilities want without chucking in the snidey suggestion that its all the fault of the pumped hydro lobby can they ? The whole article sounds like it is written by a short duration battery manufacturer who doesn't like the idea that they can't do what people really need to solve the duck problem. Or more precisely they can if you are prepared to buy their 3 lots of their 2 hour batteries.

jogj99 - ohh I think it will be more than that ...

Paul - it won't be in the regular shareholders updates because they only show the largest 10 holders.

https://energynumbers.info/gbgrid

wind is currently twice Closed Cycle Gas Turbines (the most efficient ones that are hardest to turn up and down), but still we're importing almost 3 GW from both Belgium and France

Macanman - I believe that the only reason they got into grid storage in the first place is to try and get additional throughput on their battery production. As you have pointed out this does not earn them the big money that making and servicing/charging electric vehicles can get them.

somtam - basic operation of a VRFB is here:- https://www.thebushveldperspective.com/blog/public-articles-1/post/what-is-a-redox-flow-battery-219

Potential for large scale grid energy storage is here:-

https://www.thebushveldperspective.com/blog/public-articles-1/post/energy-storage-europe-2019-414
https://www.thebushveldperspective.com/blog/public-articles-1/post/energy-storage-europe-2019-415
https://www.thebushveldperspective.com/blog/public-articles-1/post/energy-storage-europe-2019-416

Macanman and VauxhallViva - coincidentally I watched this Real Engineering video on youtube earlier this morning, then I remember the comments made here previously.

Whilst RE videos are slickly put together I'm not sure they really understand everything that they are talking about - for example they described mineral 'reserves' as 'being held back to keep the commodity value up' - this is a complete misunderstanding of the concept of a mineral reserve, and makes it sound like the stuff is just sitting in a warehouse somewhere just waiting to have a shipping label just stuck on the side of the box. It is nothing of the sort, it is still stuff in the ground, which 1) may not be as easy to get out as you think and 2) when it is dug up can only be processed at a specific local site with the existing limits of processing capacity and 3) includes many reserves that may well be uneconomic to mine at current commodity prices.

It does not surprise me that they don't know what is happening with flow batteries yet - their heads are filled with all the fascinating complexity of the Lithium-ion battery technology and marketing propaganda - Lithium, Nickel, Cobalt, Graphite, Manganese, Tabbed, Tabless, Tesla, Nikola (watch RE's breathless video on them here - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ynupYBLlyA ) , 100 Million, 100 Billion, 100 Trillion, Yada, Yada.

Now imagine a grid battery that uses only a single metal element.
An element that is more abundant than Lithium, Cobalt, Nickel, Chrome or Copper.
Where extractable resources exist all across the world, including the good 'ol US of A
Where the energy storage capacity can be increased at sublinear cost (double the energy storage is not double the price)
Which is ideal for building massive SAFE batteries that cannot burn.
Which has already been used to build the world's largest battery, in the centre of a city.

BMN worth about $170 million when you do the currency conversion.

So $10 million added for

1) Inflation
2) Vametco which produces about 2.5x as much Vanadium as Vanchem
3) Mokopane which has the potential to produce as much as Vanchem and Vametco together, with ores that grade 1.75% in magnetite concentrations
4) 8% ownership of ATM
5) 84% ownership of Bushveld Energy
6) 50% ownership of Enerox Holdings Ltd, with first right to supply Vanadium or Vanadium electrolyte
7) 8.43% of Invinity Energy Systems, with first right to supply Vanadium or Vanadium electrolyte
8) Imaloto Coal

indeed - https://www.metalbulletin.com/Article/1917904/Duferco-subsidiary-buys-Vanchem-from-Evraz-for-160-million.html

and how much is BMN currently worth ?

https://www.internationaltin.org/tin-in-lithium-ion-batteries/

if people were not aware

I do numpty - I have all the free shares and then some. Uis is a quality asset. It was once the largest hard rock tin mine in the world. That was back when the Lithium was worthless, and there's even more of that stuff. A perfect complement to my BMN holding. Tin for the solar panels and batteries. Lithium for Electric Vehicle Batteries. Vanadium for Grid Storage Flow Batteries.

was Vanchem worth when Duferco bought it in 2008 ?

lol numpty I don't know what you're smoking but it shouldn't be legal.

Pat48 - Duferco, having owned the Vanchem plant for many years, know exactly what is coming in the world of Vanadium. Unlike quite a few private investors here who may have held here for only a few weeks and then sold at a loss.

I am quite happy to sit alongside Duferco.

Daisydog - the problem is that the Market Makers do not operate like the Royal Greenwich observatory - i.e. they do not have a big ball on a stick to indicate that a share selling overhang is over. Thus those who are sitting on the sidelines looking for the ideal point to buy back in ahead of the post-overhang rise have the problem of trying to decide if a rise in SP is the actual end or not. Without additional information, this is of course, impossible, and a fools game.

Investing on fundamentals is investing on what is genuinely known. Which is why it is the only real way to properly make a long term investment.

indeed gambit, indeed