Member Info for Boffin

I wonder if the extreme wet weather being experienced in Victoria and other parts of SE Australia are having any impact on our drilling program?

https://www.newscientist.com/article/2343938-eastern-australia-is-battling-fifth-major-wave-of-floods-in-19-months/

Or perhaps an ammonia or methanol reformer built in as the hydrogen source?

I wrote to the business development manager of Hiiroc in April re the press release announcing AFC's investment in them. I did copy the answer here at the time but have repeated it below just in case others have missed it. The reply didn't sound too encouraging to me but then again he didn't say there was no relationship either.

"Thanks for showing interest in HiiROC and taking the time to contact us.

I hadn’t seen that press release, so thanks very much for bringing it to my attention.

We are currently in the process of verifying and certifying our tech of our single torch model and we hope this will be complete later in the year. Then we have a number of (mostly) UK-based pilots to test the tech in situ.

And then we will be turning our attention to manufacturing single torch models at scale, whilst also perfecting the four torch model and going through a similar process. It is anticipated that this model will produce the purity of hydrogen required for fuel cells for vehicle charging.

I hope this gives you enough information – please shout if you have any more questions."

Interesting and potentially superb potential from this RNS. The issue of sampling highly "nuggety" gold deposits was much discussed on here at the time. With a relatively small drill bit diameter its really very easy to miss the few nuggets that sit in say a cubic meter block of rock and conclude there is nothing worth having there.

I don't know if the new rig has the possibility of a larger diameter drill bit as one way of improving the confidence levels of how much gold is actually there. The only other possibility is just drill more holes to get a greater chance of getting a more representative sample.

I suspectthough that this may well peak the interest of companies that may be considering a jv. The prospects for Creswick just took a very positive turn.

The energy, apart from start up, is all contained in the plastic feedstock. The thermolysis of the plastic is exothermic and therefor results not only in the conversion of the plastic to syngas and carbon char but the release of heat. And just in case anyone is concerned about his comment on the PHE reactor a small amount of CO2 vs HUI system its because some plastics eg PET contain a small amount of Oxygen built into their molecular structure which comes out either as CO2 or H20. I must admit I don't understand how the HUI system avoids this.

Whilst all early commercial stage company comparisons are to some extent risky it can at least be interesting to see what orders can do. An AIM vanadium flow cell battery company, Invinity Energy systems , has endured an even more torrid SP fall in the past year ( 120 down to 20) than AFC as orders have been a bit slow. However one actually fairly modest order this week has seen the SP rise by over 30%. New technology capital equipment companies selling primarily BtoB (as opposed to retail selling) thrive on peer group confidence almost as much as the quality of the innovation demonstration and delivery. As soon as serious customers start to buy in almost anything suddenly becomes possible and it seems to me that the current on site evaluations evidence AFC to be on the cusp of this.

I realise the geology and drill depth may vary from Bailieston but it was taking about 6 days to drill a 180m deep hole there. On that basis though we should have completed at least two holes and be engaged at some point in the 3rd. A picture on twitter of the latest cores in the shed would be nice!

Since they have told us Blue Moon going to happen early Sept ( and perhaps already has) then strictly their only obligation is to inform us if it hasn't and why not.

I basically gave up on commenting or looking in here about 9 months ago. And just taking a hopeful return glance the past couple of hours tells me why. Twelve messages filtered green and seven others mostly referencing those that are green.
A fat zero of anything informative about AFC .

Whilst its quite a decent hi-res photo its still risky to over analyse. But with this caveat in mind I expanded the photo by ten times, and more, and it seems that much of what is in the pan is "sand" or something like it. There are a few quite bright "shiny" pixels which may be gold but really not very many.

But at this early stage a few specks of gold in a pan isn't discouraging even though we all wish it was "bonanza".

I didn't say there was no market for AFC's current offerings. My comment was clearly a response to suggestions that we should be contacting high energy users. In my view we are a long way from being ready for that segment of the market

The problem is that even the largest AFC model mooted is only 200Kw. This is trivial when compared to what a large user eg an aluminium smelter needs. Even the most efficient need 13Mw of electricity per ton of aluminium and will be producing a few hundred tons a day. That would be AFC fuel cells by the thousands. On a somewhat more modest scale (relatively speaking) a ship like the QM2 has over 100Mw of total power generation. Thats 500+ of the 200KW cells for one ship-and of course all the space to have them onboard. I am sure fuel cells will have some marine opportunities but far larger and more energy dense systems are going to be needed for many purposes especially energy demands in the 10's to 100Mw+ , even more so when space is at a premium.

Indeed it could mean many things eg PHE's core technology plus a rather different rest of plant set up to suit the potential end customer opportunities in Konin or Ireland.

But one thing is sure, with a 50% seat at the table there is every prospect that PHE get some useful insights and learnings from whatever HUI bring to the table. It shouldn't be a one way street.

I don't have precise numbers but you only have to look at the nature and complexity of published synthetic routes to know that this isn't cheap. OK its cheaper and simpler than the pharma compounds I am used to but my my best guess is at least $5 per kg and probably quite a bit more. OK may not be just plain silicon hydride but I don't think that makes much difference except for one other thing. This issue though is if you look at the formula for its degradation to hydrogen, even in its simplest form which is silicon hydride, you only get about 100 grams of Hydrogen for each Kg of silicon hydride. The rest becomes silicon dioxide/hydroxide. That yield will be even lower if the starting compound is anything more complex. That's very expensive hydrogen!

Well this sounds very much like silicon hydride which has been around for decades and is well known to produce hydrogen when mixed with water.
The issue is the energy required and cost of making silicon hydride. Unless they have found a much less energy intensive and thus expensive route of manufacture I cant see what this has to offer over say electrolytic cracking of ammonia or methanol to generate hydrogen on demand.

Perhaps limited research but nonetheless worth looking at the view on Powerhouse ownership on Yahoo

https://uk.finance.yahoo.com/news/ownership-structure-powerhouse-energy-group-134711968.html

I suspect, but obviously don't know, that HW decided they weren't sufficiently aligned with his thinking. Given that he and his family have nearly a 25% shareholding he only has to "mention" that he will vote against them at an AGM for them to decide to look for other opportunities.

I think you are basically correct although I suspect that HW's influence has made it difficult for the board to act fully independently. I think Kitchener found himself in a highly conflicted position and just had to choose. And as for Gill I never understood why she was there.

There is quite enough money in the bank to get this moving forwards and a 50% ownership to get a share of profits plus the license fees isn't a bad deal.

I must admit I have my reservations about Bond but its not just about him is it?

First just take a look at the CV's of the board including the non execs. They look good enough to me to be anywhere but choose to be at AFC and I doubt they are Bonds "yes men"

Then take a look at David Harvey's Linked in page (the Chief Technology Officer. Its not just that his CV is impressive but look at all his contacts at AFC listed. This is a seriously impressive set of colleagues who again could pick and choose to be anywhere but have chosen AFC.

I very much doubt that they would stay for long if they thought AFC weren't going to deliver.

The other thing Adam and the rest of the management will know is what the XRF measurements are of the seven cores we are awaiting assay results from.

OK XRF isn't a perfectly reliable substitute for atomic absorption or flame assays for JORC standard assessment but they generally correlate within 10% or so.

I doubt that management would be quite so positive re todays assay announcement if they were concerned that the next drill hole results were looking weak on the XRF assessment