Member Info for TarryBreeks

Hardly any power is generated by coal in the UK any more and none in Scotland; 75% of gross electricity in Scotland is produced by renewable resources.

The national grid needs load balancing and buffers to take excess power when it's not required and return to the grid when it is which is possible with a smart grid and distributed storage in BEVs.

No-one is suggesting this is something that can be achieved overnight but reduction in ICE cars, especially with low emission zones in cities, significant increases in BEVs and significant increases to renewable energy generation globally are required.

All of which is good news for a company producing battery minerals - especially copper and tin perhaps with some cobalt and nickel into the mix.

Speaking of nickel has anyone heard from Dr Goole recently?

BigMinnow you say "Although electric cars are good as cars they are not any greener considering the whole life cycle versus ICE cars."

However I think you may be mistaken:
https://www.eea.europa.eu/highlights/eea-report-confirms-electric-cars

I'd say a few things in response, I'm not an expert and it will require investment but I don't think continuing as we are is viable and I don't think a mass transition to Hydrogen is possible/practical/achievable.

1. A charge cycle is a period of use from fully charged, to fully discharged, and fully recharged again - smart grids don't fully decharge a battery.
2. It's greener than fossil fuels, batteries can be recycled and those with useful life could be centralised in a sub-station style setup where performance in relation to cars is less of an issue.
3. Battery technology is undergoing huge amounts of R&D and it's not just car manufacturers looking at this - the mobile industry is too. Nano technology is making it's way into batteries to improve cycle numbers and charging speed. Costs are reducing and capacity increasing and we can largely re-cycle batteries.

All in all SML seems well placed to capitalise upon the changes we'll need to transition to a more sustainable transport infrastructure. As for the mega-battery Neoen has several smaller projects underway all attached to renewables with a 20MW and 50MW mega battery either underway or planned: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/sep/27/south-australias-tesla-battery-on-track-to-make-back-a-third-of-cost-in-a-year - making 30% of the cost back within a year is also pretty astounding. I'll bet hinkley point c won't achieve that ;)

I disagree Slurm, just look at the massive battery Tesla installed in South Australia. In principle this is the very same thing you suggest is not possible. I would also suggest that many would get involved in this type of scheme if the economic model was right. Renault Zoe's model of renting the battery gives a hint at possible models where you not own the battery and perhaps your rental is reduced for access to part of it's charge at set times.

Continuing as we are is the pipe dream IMO.

Fortunately SML as a battery materials company is well placed to capitalise on the massive shift we must make towards 100% power generation from renewables.

It's a flexible/smart grid Rosewall. If each of the battery electric vehicles can be used to store and return electricity to the grid on demand (within preset limits) that solves many issues with renewable power.

In respect to demand if you could have many of the benefits of a private car without the cost of ownership would you still want to own a car and all the associated depreciation and maintenance tasks. We'll see automated personal electric vehicles on demand in our cities sooner than many think IMO.

Hydrogen for personal transport use just doesn't stack up. I may be proven wrong but that's my opinion.

Makes you wonder why they plugged it in the first place.

Hello Rosewall,

The original post was about whether hydrogen fuel would replace battery electric vehicles. My take is that it wont/can't due to the cost and energy loss. For those in rural areas certainly cars are an important lifeline.

Most of the human population live in and around cities however and we all need to make radical changes to all our lives. Cycling, walking and radically lowering out consumption.

Talk of a climate emergency is very real, very serious and we're literally at the 11th hour. The support systems that human life relies on are collapsing in the greatest ever threat to humankind and most newspapers yesterday unbelievably led with a royal baby. We're sleepwalking into oblivion: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/may/06/human-society-under-urgent-threat-loss-earth-natural-life-un-report

For me SML represents an opportunity to aid transition to a more sustainable energy mix but really it's a drop in the ocean. Hydrogen will play a part certainly but battery electric vehicles are the most efficient and efficiency must win out.

I live in Scotland too thelearner and I am sure hydrogen will be part of the mix but I don't think it will replace petroleum based fuel. Actually if you think about it private car ownership is pretty wasteful. We buy cars to sit outside our house all night, make a furious dash to work, they then sit outside our offices all day and we then drive them home. Rinse & repeat. Our cities, towns and countryside are dominated by roads and planning for cars. It shouldn't really be this way. Most journeys in the UK are under 5 miles. In Glasgow for instance car ownership is under 50% of homes and in London even lower. I suspect automated battery powered vehicles will become the primary transport model as private car ownership wanes. It really needs to be made much more expensive to drive than it is currently to help combat climate change, air pollution and obesity.

Just my opinion.

Hydrogen is unlikely to be used for cars on a mass scale. You lose far too much energy in the conversion process: generate electricity via renewables preferably, (alternative is to use natural gas), then use than to convert to hydrogen, then convert to liquid (think about the logistics and storage costs/energy), then once in a vehicle it is converted back to electricity in a fuel cell. There is too much energy loss in that cycle for it to be viable for cars Stockdale. Perhaps commercial vehicles like planes where battery weight: energy density would be an issue but I can't see mass uptake of hydrogen. That's why all car manufacturers are producing battery electric vehicles.

As for recycling this is already done and extremely efficient at recovering the materials inside. Just think about all the lithium Ion batteries we all have in our phones. The infrastructure is there (largely) to recycle this. And battery tech is also improving with new chemistries on the horizon promising greater density.

That all said, the best thing we can all do for the environment and our children's future is to adopt a plant based diet. [steps of his soap box].

2050 and most of us on here will be driving electric mobility scooters stockdale ;)

Anyway, we should probably all be investing in liferings, not cars, in preparation for the "tsunami of cash" coming our way! :D

First ripple from the tsunami of cash heading our way! :)

Well done SML!

Great interview. I especially liked the simple explanation that Cobre is funding Leigh Creek. Leigh Creek will fund Redmoor. And Redmoor will fund all our retirements ;)

The juggernaut is coming!!!

We'll, this morning's RNS has certainly put a rocket under the sp hasn't it? ??

And so he should Stockdale, bonkers to think we will shortly have 100% ownership of the largest undeveloped tin mine in the world, a copper cement mine entering production with 100% offtake agreement, COBRE magnetite operation covering all our costs and CARE tenements targeting nickel sulphide in Australia, heavily invested BOD and we have a market capitalisation of £22m?

Buy on speculation, sell on news. That's the old mantra so it does make you wonder why we're still hovering around 10-12p given we now know Djeno oil is coming to the surface unaided. I hope all the predictions of huge leaps in ask once the news on CPR and license come to fruition.

.-- .... .- - / .- .-. . / -.-- --- ..- .-. / -.-. .-. -.-- .--. - .. -.-. / -- . ... ... .- --. . ... / .- .-.. .-.. / .- -... --- ..- -

https://morsecode.scphillips.com/translator.html

;)

OK Trojan, you've been posting the dots and hashes for a while now. I don't get it ... is that morse code?

No dv, I'm sure you're not although I'd quite like to see significantly more being bought so we can say goodbye to sub 2p for good.

I really like the new bb design, for a start it's actually responsive (rotating your device from portrait to landscape) doesn't break the layout. I'd agree on post separation being less defined and also the header being too tall/taking too much space. That aside an improvement IMO.

Let's hope there is an improvement in our sp next week too!

CPR, Licence, production, 104.

Brexit, what a total shambles. Scots didn't vote for this incompetent Tory government and we didn't vote for Brexit. English xenophobia riding roughshod over the UKs unwritten constitution will lead to the breakup the UK and reunification of Ireland largely because disaster capitalists and hedge funds like May's husband and Mogg want to avoid paying taxes. Total shambles.