Ben Richardson, CEO at SulNOx, confident they can cost-effectively decarbonise commercial shipping. Watch the video here.
I find it hard to worry about hydrogen. When I first looked at hydrogen about 15 years ago the immediate prospects were: ancillary applications, vehicles, stationary storage, chp especially for domestic heating. None of that has come to pass. You can go into B&Q and buy almost any power tool you like in a cordless version, but I have not yet seen a hydrogen powered chain saw or any other hydrogen powered device. As far as I know all hydrogen vehicles on the road today are demonstration vehicles funded by grant money (correct me if I am wrong - I am not up to date), in contrast almost every car manufacturer offers a range of EVs. I know of no contracts for grid storage that have been won by hydrogen, whereas for battery storage there are plenty; it is widely accepted as the technology of choice. And domestic hydrogen chp never stacked up against condensing boilers and grid power, although the domestic heating market is still pretty much wide open for the longer term (heat pumps have a long way to go – in a nutshell, heat exchange costs real money especially at low temperature differentials). But I struggle to see hydrogen taking a large share. Then infrastructure. I know of only one hydrogen refuelling site in the UK and that is on the Beaconsfield roundabout - a demonstration funded by the EU, whereas every supermarket and carpark in the UK is rolling out its EV charging points on a commercial basis. And look at the KPIs! Those for cost and performance for batteries have improved hugely, whereas those for fuel cells and hydrogen have hardly moved in comparison.
Having said all that, I am unsure and unhappy about ZNWD. I have a big holding and have lost badly. There must be money to be made in Lithium mining, but I do not know where it is and I am not sure that it is ZNWD (funding and competition). If EMH ever gets its act together it could wipe out ZNWD, though I have my doubts about CEZ running such an operation.
I agree with all that johnphw has written. Onr must also remember that the value of the asset will only appear as cash years in the future, not only years in the future, but an unknown number of years (either for present shareholders or for any buyer in the event of a sale). As interest rates rise, the rate at which it is rational to discount future values rises also and so the present value of the asset falls as therefore must the share price. An additional uncertainty is how far interest rates will rise, when they will peak and how fast they will fall. It is possible to make a good case either way. All things being equal, uncertainty will reduce the present value of an asset (for most normal utility functions).
I should not be writing this - I shall end up selling if I am not careful.
I have no better idea than anyone else why this share has done so badly of late, but I cannot see that any ZNWD specific reasons stack up. EMH has halved in the past three months; so has ZNWD. The performance is a mystery to me, although my guess is it is mainly the reult of macroeconomc gloom and rising interest rates, but I'm hanging on a) because the reasons why I bought still seem valid and b) I am so far under water it hardly seems worth selling.
If SAV are sincere in this aim and if they can find the financial resources and technical competence to do it, then this will be a great achievement, not only for SAV, but in a much wider context.
This discussion of battery IP and ownership is fundamental and well above my pay-grade. Can I try these thoughts on the people who may know better? The following para is a precis of the main points in the article on VWs website from 13th July. The subsequent para is my conclusion.
Volkswagen intends to establish six gigafactories in Europe with a total production capacity of 240 GWh together with partners ? in order to secure battery cell supply and achieve large economies of scale implementing the unified cell concept. The Volkswagen unified cell concept is a prismatic cell format adaptable to various chemistry mixes available today or that maybe market-ready later. In May 2020, Gotion High Tech and Volkswagen signed binding agreements that Volkswagen (China) Investment Co. will become the largest shareholder in Gotion High-Tech, with 26 percent of the shares, through a buy-in of around €1.1 billion. The transaction has been approved by the China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) and both parties are presently working on closing procedures.
I cannot see VW accepting to use any batteries that do not conform absolutely to their specification. If VW are the largest shareholder in Gotion High-Tech then arguably they will control the IP – I do not know, but I am pretty sure that they will want to be able to licence the IP to any battery supplier that they wish to work with otherwise their single mechatronics platform falls to pieces. This includes CEZ and CEZ can take it or leave it; VW will not change their spec for them. I have worked with CEZ and have great respect for their technical skills, but I cannot see them achieving international competitiveness in battery supply entirely on their own, so I think they will take it, but maybe too late.
DP is correct. The RNS of Thursday 05 December, 2019 says “the Geomet Shareholders' Agreement includes certain minority shareholder protections with a number of reserved matters which require the approval of both CEZ and EMH, in the event of a deadlock on completion of the proposed work programme if the parties disagree on a construction decision, CEZ has the right, but not the obligation, to buy EMH's interest in Geomet at market value”. But anyway, it is not critical; the Czech state has a dominant position in Geomet and the means through other Ministries and regulatory agencies to block any downstream development that does not fit its own policy/plans, which seem to be to make batteries in CZ; VW may have some role, but an offtake agreement seems unlikely. The interesting questions are then, where does that leave EMH and how does one value it?