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Also, our Auroch shares were ratified yesterday: http://clients3.weblink.com.au/pdf/AOU/01839801.pdf Quack.

REM talking about ADR's. But surely we don't really have much to say. Or will we by then!? Bit of a coincidence Tesla might "reveal" their supply chains that day too. I must admit, if ducks are being lined up, then it sure looks like they are about to quack! ;-)

It's from last night, but I don't remember it being posted. Worth a read: "Interim Financial Report 31 December 2016" (16 March 2017) http://www.asx.com.au/asx/statistics/displayAnnouncement.do?display=pdf&idsId=01839422 http://www.asx.com.au/asxpdf/20170316/pdf/43gv0ddth3ylf4.pdf I'd forgotten about: === The annual cost saving is estimated to be 25% lower than the figure used in the pre-feasibility study announced in April 2016. === and they mention the environmental studies we were talking about the other day. Also the section on share incentives for the directors makes an interesting read. Thanks to all for posting the various news announcements - much appreciated! A lot going on for the remainder of this month. e.g. "Tesla to reveal more about its new Gigafactory battery cell production at trade show in March" (Jan. 16th 2017) https://electrek.co/2017/01/16/tesla-gigafactory-battery-cell-production/ === Now Senior Director of Cell Supply Chain & Business Development, he will give a keynote presentation about “Gigafactory Material Sourcing and Cell Production” at the seminar on March 22. === http://www.internationalbatteryseminar.com/battery-development/ Will announcements be made before, during, or after this trade show I wonder? Not necessarily anything we are connected with I hasten to add - but we live in hope! ;-) Ob

You are certainly correct that I remain enthusiastic for our Stirling Engine technology @Fallingknife! The reason is that I've done my research into the competition, and it looks like it is mostly fuel cells from here, but as I mentioned the other day - I believe we still have the edge in terms of TCO and the all important pay back times for a sufficiently large portion of the mCHP market to more than make it worth our while alone, or with a partner to commercialise. In terms of others out there: you can forget about the likes of flow: the heat/electricity ratios just don't compare, and it looks like they've been having problems of their own the past few years if the more reasoned on their chat board are to be believed. In terms of funding you really should heed this paragraph from: "Inspirit Energy - On the cusp of cogeneration commercialisation & trading at a fraction of replacement IP cost" (13th June 2016) http://www.alignresearch.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/Inspirit-Energy-Align-Research-13th-June-2016-Final.pdf === Inspirit's current market capitalisation of £3.89 million represents just a fraction of the money spent on developing the technology over three decades. Competitors have spent sums in the tens to hundreds of million pounds on their technologies, which gives some idea of the cost of development from scratch (and not considering the time involved). Consequently, we believe that the company may be attractive to competitors given this commercial consideration. As John Gunn holds a major stake he has influence to extract a decent price and we doubt it is anywhere near the current valuation. === "we doubt it is anywhere near the current valuation" - and that was £3.89 million. We are currently valued at around a third of this! Don't you see we are potentially in a situation where those buying in now could make an absolute killing, and as for those selling... As I said the other day, a single whiff of positive news and this share really could fly, but of course by then the opportunity to buy in at these bargain prices would be gone in a flash... Regarding David Lenigas stepping down: he stepped down from all of his *AIM* companies at the same time: "David Lenigas leaves boards of all his Aim companies" (22 December 2015) http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/david-lenigas-leaves-boards-of-all-his-aim-companies-a6782451.html === David Lenigas, the colourful Australian entrepreneur who claimed to have found “multiple billions of barrels” of oil beneath Gatwick airport, has quit the boards of his five remaining Aim companies. === You'll have to take a time machine to the past if you want to speculate on the reasoning behind this decision - it's old news. ;-) Ob

@Fallingknife1, I can't deny that no news can only really mean one of two things: our belly is indeed about to be pointed skywards - or, and this is why I continue to post here, we are on the cusp of something company defining, such as a joint development/commercialisation agreement. You can forget about today's share price if that is the case, it's an irrelevance: look to the volume traded hands... Just because the board and as far as I can see, every single person currently connected with INSP appears to have taken a vow of silence, doesn't necessarily mean bad things are imminent. Of course they could be: but all it really takes is a strategically placed partnership with access to commercial customers who would clearly benefit from an Inspirit Charger - and we could fly - literally overnight. You hold/buy you might lose it all, but you might win, and win big! I know I shouldn't really point to our ex chairman, but his words should certainly not be ignored. When it comes to predictions it's about maintaining reputation. If he is convinced that "The Inspirit boiler will change the world", as he tweeted yesterday, then I am inclined to believe that he believes that. Whether *I* truly believe that means I'll make money in the process depends on our next move. INSP is certainly risky, there is no doubting that. But I think we're beyond, beyond terrible now. That's good right? ;-) Ob

I've been through the numbers and I make it that on April 30th 2016 given all available information in the Hastings PFS I calculate we should have arrived at an 8% NPV due to our 30% Yangibana North JV of around double that presented in our 2016 annual report: £30M instead of £15.4M I'm going to attempt to be brief, but happy to elaborate if there is interest. The PFS was for a 7 year mine 2019-2025 using indicated resources with an 8% discount giving an NPV of AU$700-750M based on rare earth mineral prices around double that today. Not too optimistic given the expected demand pick up! http://www.hastingstechmetals.com/images/asx_latest/PFS_Announcement_-_FINAL_CL_FINAL3.pdf Total amount of TREO mined in this period from the PFS is: 7,074kt * @1.15% = 81,351t Total amount of TREO from Yangibana (North & West) from the (corrected) PFS is: 3,507,000t * 1.43% = 50,150t Question is how much is from Yangibana North? Original Indicated resource from end of 2015: http://www.asx.com.au/asxpdf/20151204/pdf/433l5dfzctx7q7.pdf 2,718,269 * 1.46% = 39,687t (11,906t ours) New resource "upgrade" (it was a downgrade for Yangibana North, but an overall total upgrade for our JV's IIRC) at beginning of 2017: http://hastingstechmetals.com/images/asx_latest/HAS-20170116-Resource_Upgrade_Including_First_MeasuredFINAL_FINAL.pdf 2102000 * 1.58% = 33,212t (9,963t ours) Given that Yangibana West originally only had an indicated average of 0.99% and that the average for the whole of Yangibana was 1.43%, it is very likely that all of Yangibana North contributed to the "Yangibana" pit, but only some of Yangibana West. But let's be conservative and use somewhere between the two, leading to 11kt of the 81kt TREO mined over the 7 years being attributable to REM, around 13-14% If that 11kt were mined equally over the period, then we can *probably* (anyone have a better idea!?) just pro-rota the NPV. AUD to Pounds at the end of April 2016 was around 1.92. Assumed tax of 30% (anyone know better?) AU$725 / 1.92 * 0.7 * 11 / 81 = £36M Of course in practice Yangibana North is unlikely to be mined equally across the 7 year operation. I've constructed a very simple 8% discount model to explore the extremes. I get the following valuations depending on when our TREO is mined: All in year 1: £45M All in year 7: £27M Years 1-4: £40M Years 4-7: £31M Given what we know from page 18 of: http://www.asx.com.au/asxpdf/20151110/pdf/432vrqvk2jdr1k.pdf years 4-7 estimate is probably the worst case scenario, and what I used in my headline figure of ~£30M, but we certainly shouldn't rule out more optimistic scenarios, in particular the years 1-4, or even years 1-2/3. Of course the above may contain both inappropriate simplifications or mathematical errors! DYOR ;-) Ob.

"Hyperloop Freight is a Joke" (2016/10/29) https://pedestrianobservations.wordpress.com/2016/10/29/hyperloop-freight-is-a-joke/ Ob

Don't think I've seen the following posted here: "Potential impact of electric vehicles on energy system ‘relatively ignored’" ( 2 Mar 2017) http://www.cleanenergynews.co.uk/news/transport/potential-impact-of-electric-vehicles-on-energy-system-relatively-ignored === “If you look at a world where 20% of new vehicles are, in the early 2020s, going to be electric, that adds roughly 1GWh of batteries to the system and that's assuming less than 10% of what's out there can actually be used for things like ancillary services. === And that is just the UK. Worldwide 20% of new vehicles electric @100kWh per vehicle each year is: ~90m * 0.2 = 1,800GWh of batteries, requiring something like ~1-1,500kt LCE - And similar, if not more, for stationary storage! "GTM: US energy storage installations grew 100% in 2016" (7 Mar 2017) http://www.energy-storage.news/news/gtm-us-energy-storage-installations-grew-100-in-2016 === According to Ravi Manghani, GTM Research’s director of energy storage, Q4 2016 was an inflection point in storage deployments in the US, with 230MWh coming online; more than the sum of the previous 12 quarters combined. === I do like a good "inflection point" - but they haven't seen anything yet! ;-) "Northvolt plans Europe’s answer to the Gigafactory" (10 Mar 2017) http://www.energy-storage.news/news/northvolt-plans-europes-answer-to-the-gigafactory === Sending out an optimistic message to industry, the company website stated: “There are strong indications that when the cost of lithium-ion batteries drops below US$100/kWh, a number of user-sectors will reach an inflection point where traditional technology is no longer cheaper.” === Did somebody say inflection point!? ;-) "Elon Musk and Malcolm Turnbull talk battery solutions for energy problems" (12 March 2017) https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2017/mar/12/elon-musk-plan-to-fix-south-australia-energy-crisis-exciting-but-needs-work-says-labor === @elonmusk: You're most welcome. Very exciting to discuss the future of electricity. Renewables + storage arguably biggest disruption since DC to AC. === "A #Lithium Valentine" (February 16, 2017) http://investingnews.com/daily/resource-investing/energy-investing/lithium-investing/a-lithium-valentine/ === NOTE: {On January 26th, Joe tweeted, “Dr. D makes me look like an abject pessimist. That said, I am coming around.“} === And one for Barksy. ;-) "Hyperloop One's Transport Economist Makes The Freight Case" (Jan 26 2017) https://hyperloop-one.com/blog/hyperloop-ones-transport-economist-makes-freight-case === We believe Hyperloop can bring huge benefits to time-sensitive deliveries. === Not sure anything we will be supplying falls into that category - but perhaps my mind is too closed after reading this!? "Hyperloop Freight is a Joke" (2016/10/29) http

Almost forgot to mention one of the most obvious USP's of our technology: it runs on "heat", unlike fuel cells, so it's fuel sources are wider ranging. e.g. take a look at: "Development of Micro-scale Biomass-fuelled CHP System Using Stirling Engine" (2015) http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1876610215012734 === Results of the present work encouraged initiating design of a MCHP system with 1 kWe capacity for rural electrification. So this operation can be considered as a breakthrough in the utilization of stirling engine for micro-scale CHP plants utilizing wood powder fuels. === I wonder if there is an obvious overseas market I'm not seeing? DL does keep implying it is "world" changing technology we have our hands on! ;-) Ob.

"E.ON investing in fuel cell pioneer Elcore" (07/03/17) http://www.eon.com/en/media/news/press-releases/2017/3/7/eon-investing-in-fuel-cell-pioneer-elcore.html === E.ON is increasingly relying on highly innovative, clean and economical technologies to supply homes with heat. As the company announced today, E.ON is investing in Elcore GmbH, a pioneer in fuel cell technology, based in Munich. Elcore produces energy-efficient heating systems for single-family homes and duplexes. The heart of the system is an internal developed fuel cell heating technology that generates heat and power simultaneously. "The fuel cell is the most efficient technology for use in generating heat and power when upgrading heating systems. It’s another way that we are encouraging a sea change in energy. It means we can now offer customers a way to generate their own electricity without the need to rely on the sun to produce it. It's how we at Elcore are underscoring our effort to make the energy world of tomorrow clean, efficient and cutting-edge," === which led me to the following publication which I think I saw at the time, but have yet to comment on: "LONDON: a capital for hydrogen and fuel cell technologies" (April 2016) https://www.london.gov.uk/sites/default/files/london_-_a_capital_for_hydrogen_and_fuel_cell_technologies.pdf Take a look at the table on page 91. The Inspirit charger has both 3 times the kWt and kWe for a *single* unit, but likely costs initially the same (until mass production) £11,020-14,840 (ex VAT) as inferior Stirling Engine models which themselves appear comparable to fuel cells at the time the table was constructed (~2015) But what about current and near future fuel cells? Solidpower looks to be the strongest contender with its Engen-2500. But as with all fuel cell technologies I find myself asking the question: will consumers rather purchase a single mCHP for heat and power generation (something akin to the Inspirit Charger) or two (or more), one for heat using traditional condensing boilers, and one for power (which also generates comparable heat) using fuel cells? I suspect the answer will depend on the end user requirements: when there is a large thermal requirement, e.g. 15kWt, then the 3kWe we can deliver will look a very attractive "bonus" proposition given our payback time. Because of this I think it's very likely there'll be a place in the market for the Inspirit Charger to co-exist alongside fuel cell technologies - especially when our "charger" is combined with local battery storage (hence its name!). And it looks like our ex non-executive chairman continues to share this view: "@DavidLenigas" (11 Mar 2017) https://twitter.com/DavidLenigas/status/840676864305840129 === @brighouserecord @inspiritenergy The Inspirit boiler will change the world. Of that I am convinced. === Ob

Not a good article @CHRH a great one! ;-) It just beggars belief that the market appears to be valuing our Yangibana 30% JV at close to zero! Especially noting this from the article: "Great Thaw of the Rare Earth Ice Age" (March 09, 2017) https://investorintel.com/sectors/technology-metals/technology-metals-intel/great-thaw-rare-earth-ice-age/ === Below can be seen a cross-section of the Yangibana North part of the deposit with the Rare Earths being exceptionally near to the surface and indeed being in a relatively easily mineable band only ten metres in vertical thickness that outcrops at surface. This helps put Hastings in contention with some of the Xenotime deposits in Western Australia that are also at surface. === Yangibana North is us! "Yangibana Rare Earth Project" http://www.rareearthmineralsplc.com/operations/yangibana/ Whatever you do, don't read the "Development Plan" on that page, you just might have a heart attack! Ob.

On that Yangibana valuation... "RARE EARTH MINERALS PLC ANNUAL REPORT FOR THE YEAR ENDED 31 DECEMBER 2015" (26/05/16) http://www.rareearthmineralsplc.com/files/8814/6425/8651/Rare_Earth_Minerals_2015_Annual_Report.pdf === Attributable NPV to REM from joint venture £15.4M ... After the period under review Hastings published its pre-feasibility study, which showed a pre-tax NPV of US$700-US$750M at an 8% discount rate and a 40% internal rate of return. The PFS was not specific as to the total quantum that was to be mined from the joint venture areas. However the Company has used the mining inventory defined in the mine plan to assess the potential NPV to REM under the joint venture. === Surely *we* didn't use the incorrect table in our NPV calculation too!? It sure seems like it from where I am standing however you look at it. Some clarity would be appreciated! It'll be interesting what our 2016 annual report has to say. Are we to believe imminently? "Corporate Calendar" http://www.nexexchange.com/for-investors/corporate-calendar/ === Rare Earth Minerals plc - Fast Track Interim Results 15/03/2017 === They were published towards the end of May last year. Massive undervaluation if so - especially as interest in the rare earth sector could pick up strongly at any time! "The US rare earth vulnerability and mammoth battery supply disconnect" (February 02, 2017) https://investorintel.com/sectors/technology-metals/technology-metals-intel/us-vulnerability-mammoth-battery-disconnect-rare-earth-supply/ === The thesis is rather simple. If you believe that we are on the cusp (or indeed already in) of a massive surge in adoption of EVs and HEVs and therefore the batteries for these vehicles (primarily the Li-Ion battery format) will rule the Earth then how can one not also posit that the type of engine that dominates the same vehicles will have a proportionate need for the Rare Earth magnets produced from Neodymium and Praseodymium. If one is disturbed by potential shortages of Lithium and Cobalt, then why no sleepless nights about Rare Earths? === Coiled spring!™ Ob.

The August WHI report is back online again. It can be downloaded by first going to: "Rare Earth Minerals - Investor Centre" http://www.rareearthmineralsplc.com/investors/investor-centre/ Then clicking on "WH Ireland Analyst Portal". From there scroll down and click "I accept" (assuming you do!), which will take you to a page where you can then download: "Increasing exposure to rare and critical metals" (11 August 2016) http://research.whirelandplc.com/research/download_activity.asp?researchID=54 === We open with our maiden risked price target of 0.9p and maintain our Speculative Buy recommendation which takes a conservative view of the value we see in REM. === We have moved on and de-risked since August, with contract prices for LCE significantly higher than their base case of $7,500/t which, when taken along with their "inappropriate" Yangibana under valuation, would almost certainly move their target into the single digit pennies towards their de-risked 4.51p/share upside should they issue an updated note in the near future. I'm happy to spell out (yet again!) why their contribution to the target from Yangibana was flawed (Briefly: table 20 has Fraser's and Yangibana headings transposed: check the PFS and correction note issued days later!) Ob.

Subsequent to the budget, I presume businesses should be more likely than they previously were to purchase an mCHP compared to the alternative of rooftop solar due to the new way rates will be calculated from April...? I'll look into it at some point if no-one beats me to it first! From what I remember it was slightly complicated... ;-) "Budget 2017: Solar industry facing devastating 800% tax increase" (8 March 2017) http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/solar-industry-budget-2017-800-per-cent-tax-increase-green-renewable-energy-a7618191.html === Britain’s solar industry is facing devastation and consumers could see energy bills rise after the Chancellor Philip Hammond refused to listen to pleas to cancel a planned tax hike of up to 800 per cent on rooftop solar schemes. === What are we waiting for!? Ob

Old news now, but I've included an important point which I missed the first time round... "Macarthur Minerals Lodges ASX IPO Prospectus for Macarthur Australia Limited to Raise up to A$10 Million" (March 06, 2017) http://www.marketwired.com/press-release/macarthur-minerals-lodges-asx-ipo-prospectus-macarthur-australia-limited-raise-up-a10-tsx-venture-mms-2200725.htm === Macarthur Minerals' wholly owned subsidiary, Macarthur Lithium Nevada Limited, will continue to advance the Stonewall Lithium Project, located in Nevada. === I *think* I understand what's going on now between MMS and MMM - just don't test me on it! ;-)

My answer in a nutshell @steveho is I don't know! The only thing I do know is that video has had 1885 views - which is a shame really - surely I should know more about the progress of a company I'm invested in and willing to research/write about than the number of views of a promotional video! ;-) Just keep repeating the following mantra to yourself as I do: We would have been told if the plan had changed; we would have been told if the plan had changed: AIM rules mandate it... Ob.

I've been using: http://www.epa.wa.gov.au/proposals/yangibana-rare-earths-project

Actually - on closer inspection, probably nothing of the Ball Hill pit extends into our JV... So just the largest pit to look forward to then: Yangibana North! ;-)

I *think* the drawdown (sloping pit walls) reach into our area, and it is certainly possible the pit *might* extend into it - it's close!

I think it is just Yangibana North that is from our area. It looks to me that our Bald Hill JV area doesn't have any of the proposed pit location contained within it.