Roundtable Discussion; The Future of Mineral Sands. Watch the video here.
One interesting British Stock is Rolls Royce. While many would not view it as a tech company, it collects and analyses a huge amount of data and uses it to develop new products. It's going through big challenges because of Covid but the company has a lot of advantages and shares a duopoly over the market with General Electric.
We bought it last May because the company can quickly recover when we go back to normality and people start flying. We think the stock still looks cheap.
https://www.aerosociety.com/news/reimagining-the-future-of-civil-aviation/
It's saying in less words what I consistently say - RR moving into the future and more so post pandemic should be seen as a tech company. If it realigns its over exposed business model on power/hour / commercial aviation side and grows the other longer term growth rev ops it will do well imo. Its a green energy tech play into the future and green jam tomorrow. The company sits on a huge amount of data and information which could be all be monetised..expect to see growth in the data services it provides and AI / VR applications it can draw in revs for. The opportunities are endless if it has a different outlook on what services it provides.
https://www.proactiveinvestors.co.uk/companies/amp/news/941067?__twitter_impression=true
"One of the beauties of the SMR approach, is it becomes quite a low-cost source of energy for other parts of the decarbonisation scene, such as hydrogen and synthetic fuel," he said. One UK SMR and plant will be able to produce 170 tonnes of H2 or 280 tonnes of net-zero synthetic fuel per day, he added.
Rolls-Royce believes it will also be able to produce synthetic kerosene as a substitute to Jet A fuel "at around about twice the price" of fossil fuel-based kerosene.
"That isn't really that bad and gets us into the territory of being a believable option," he said. "Aviation globally needs 500 million tonnes of Jet A by 2050, so there's a massive industry building up in its own right alongside hydrogen and alongside grid power. The global market by 2040 is more than 500 million tonnes of synth fuel per year."
One UK SMR and associated infrastructure can heat or cool a city the size of Sheffield, with the annual global requirement for district heating/cooling forecast to be more than 10,000 TWh by 2040.
For water desalination, one UK SMR and an associated desalination plant will be able to produce 500 million cubic metres of potable water per year, he said, adding that global demand for potable water is expected to rise beyond 1 trillion cubic metres per year by 2040.
Stressing that the UK SMR is "a power station design and not a nuclear reactor", he said it has an availability factor greater than 90% and enhanced Gen III+ levels of safety and security.
Asked about the projected scale of production by 2050, Stein said: "For just replacing electricity on the grid, it's somewhere between 10 and 16 units by 2050. Then, for hydrogen, which is going to build up, particularly for transport, buses and home heating. Then, we've got the big aviation fuel initiative in the UK, which itself could create a market for a few 10s of units. The other markets are speculation, but I suspect they'll be greater than the grid market."
https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/Rolls-Royce-on-track-for-2030-delivery-of-UK-SMR
World keeps moving on.
We're now moving into Phase 2, which is a joint investment by the UK government, by the consortium members, and now, very importantly, third-party equity is coming in, believing in the approach, believing in the design. Phase 2 will be under way in about May of this year, with a view to completing GDA in about 2024, and power on grid in about 2030 for the first SMR."
Certainly makes sense for SpaceX to consider the opportunities for RR to develop a NTP engine system for the Starship - cut the martian transit time to 90 days which will have a significant impact on health / transport costs / future operations. A few well known space bloggers have picked up on the potential for RR x SpaceX partnerships. I think in the short term though if a credible kilpower reactor comes out from RR that will open up considerable opportunities for Artemis missions and future crewed mission to Mars.
Tesla just jumped into $1.5bn worth of $btc - good luck shorts. The game has just changed. Once this pandemic is over and it will be - game on for the Green Energy Sector and aviation in general - can't bloody wait. Keep spanking the cash RR will be worth it once things get purring in the skies again.
https://simpleflying.com/jal-saf-first-flight/
Interesting: Flying on fuel made from used clothing, February 4th, 2021, marked a special day for Japan Airlines (JAL). The carrier operated its first commercial flight using a made-in-Japan SAF, or sustainable aviation fuel. While SAF can be made from non-edible plants or agricultural and forestry waste, the SAF used by JAL comes from a more unconventional source: used cotton clothing.
With a total flight time of around two hours, this domestic flight would have to be one of the shortest flights using a widebody aircraft. JL319 is a route that has recently used the Boeing 787-8 but in recent months has also deployed the Airbus A350-900. The route also has occasionally been flown by the Boeing 777-200.
Yep Alice in Wonderland - will be interesting to note how the other sides of the business are shaping up outside of Civils. They are equally important for the future as the Civils comes back online slowly but surely.