Member Info for Tyfoon

.. and it's current woes by SA's Daily Maverick suggests a number of initiatives to get Eskom back on its feet, but my particular favourite is this one (for obvious reasons):

"Bring on the energy transition – but make it just: Eskom’s existing power plants are nearing the end of their useful lives. The IRP shows the energy mix that should replace this capacity and increase this capacity. Those most affected by this transition, such as Eskom employees and workers in the Eskom supply chain including miners, need viable employment alternatives. For various reasons, no renewables are planned for the Mpumalanga region where most of Eskom’s power plants are situated. This should change. In terms of natural resources, Mpumalanga is nearly as good for renewables development as other areas, but it has distinct advantages: the density of the existing transmission infrastructure, and the proximity to the largest load centres. Mpumalanga should immediately be declared a renewable energy zone. Just to replace Eskom’s capacity would require 2000MW – 3000MW per annum of new-build wind and solar PV. Rights to develop this replacement generation capacity could be allocated to a combination of Eskom, trade unions, and local communities. Funding could be readily secured on the back of Eskom as well as private power purchase agreements. Eskom, as well as union pension funds, could play leading roles in financing the replacement build, supported by syndicated pension funds, including the likes of those managed by the PIC. This alone would create significantly more relatively well-paying jobs than currently exist. An energy transition like this would also attract international funds that are mandated to invest in clean energy."

Just think how many VRFBs Eskom would need in order to service "2000MW – 3000MW per annum of new-build wind and solar PV". It's enough to make one drool at the prospect :-)

https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2019-01-07-eskom-for-experts-in-energy-its-hopelessly-grim-open-ended-groundhog-day/

And if that works then we could even start to fund your trips! Win-win all round! :-)

UJ, thanks for your input, and a perfectly valid point of view that made me re-evaluate my line of thinking.

Altho I agree that the JSE listing will likely come after the Q4 updates, there's nothing to stop 2x RNSs appearing at the same time on the same day, 1 announcing JSE membership, the other announcing the placing.

In that scenario, my theory remains just about plausible, with the obvious caveat that the placee would be gambling that FM wouldn't announce JSE first and the placing later, in which case they'd get their fingers burnt.

Maybe not such a strong possiblilty after all...

Sorry, I don't think anyone wants to short BBN! BMN, of course...

...about the recent suppression of the BMN sp and who would benefit most from keeping it down to 40p-ish or less. While Alfa's suspicion that the MMs are shorting this remains valid and probably remains as Suspect No.1, it occurs to me that there's another entity or entities who would benefit by preventing the sp from taking off.

It's been common knowledge for a while that FM wants us on the JSE in order to access capital for expansion and, as BBN has mentioned, that is likely to be via a placing. Who better placed then to short BBN, other than the potential placees? The lower the sp, the more shares they get for their money so that, when they do finally let it go they're even more in profit.

We've already seen that there's no loyalty when money is involved ie the First Island sell down of a large tranche of shares once they hit their price target, so why wouldn't a potential placee be rigging the table in their own favour in advance of what they know is coming.

Is this a possible reason for the current cap on the sp here these last few weeks? Just my thoughts..

BTW, further to my previous post, there is one major impact on BE profitabilty which no other VRFB company on the planet has (yet), and that is a parent company who mine vanadium and are able sell V2O5 to BE at whatever price they wish, presumably over cost which is, I believe, around $6mkv (Happy to be corrected on this figure).

I think that FM and MN will have already worked out the numbers required to make both Co's profitable, what do you reckon? :-)

Me too gambit, we need more V to come onstream to keep the cost of VRFBs down, plus they're operating on a different continent to BE, so there's 2 positives for us if they succeed

For those with higher maths skillsets than myself, here is the full article (same article, different source) which contains all the calcs used to come to the conclusions in the post by IH

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2352152X18305498

But I did understand this bit:

"Residential systems with lower E/P of 2?h could only reach a break even at an electricity price of 0.40 € (kWh)-1 in the best case. With enlarged E/P of 4?h and 8?h a break even is possible at electricity prices around 0.30 € (kWh)-1 and 0.20 € (kWh)-1, respectively. Industrial VFB systems show their break even at lower electricity prices: 0.29-0.39 € (kWh)-1 for E/P ?=?2?h; 0.20-0.27 € (kWh)-1 for E/P ?=?4?h; 0.16-0.20 € (kWh)-1 for E/P ?=?8?h. This advantage has to be related to the fact that in industrial applications a significantly lower electricity price is applicable compared to residential use cases. Please note, that these results are based on the assumption of a full utilization of the capacity every day (see Section 2.1).

Considering an electricity price of 0.30 € (kWh)-1, a residential VFB (P?=? 1 kW, E?=?4?kW?h) could reach a break even over its life time of 20 years. In the best case, the NPV amounts to 700 €. In the worst case the investment would turn out unprofitable at NPV = -500 €. Industrial systems (P?=? 1 MW, E?=?4?MW?h) are more likely to reach a break even at an electricity price of 0.30 € (kWh)-1 showing a positive NPV of 0.5 million € and 1.4 million € in the worst and best case, respectively."

PLEASE NOTE: There is no reference anywhere in this article to leasing/ renting/ hiring of the electrolyte which, I suspect, would have a material impact on the conclusions above.

I don't see them as competition to BMN or BE as I've just checked on this bit:

"StorEn has entered into a supply chain deal with Multicom Resources, an Australian mining company. Multicom is the owner of two vanadium mines. "

https://www.mcres.com.au/ (Multicom Resources)

Multicom doesn't have any operating mines at present; it is the owner of 2 potential mining areas in Oz, one of which (St Elmo) "has an initial target production of 10,000 tonnes of V205 per annum" ie 5,600mtv by 2021.

https://www.mcres.com.au/saint-elmo-project

The other 'mine' (Yappar project) is nearby (in Oz terms) but they haven't started drilling yet:

"Nearby drilling data indicates that the Toolebuc Formation, the same formation that occurs at Saint Elmo Project, may be at shallow depths below tertiary sediments, and that the ore is potentially oxidised at the top of the unit.

As a result there is the potential for extractable resources of Vanadium and Molybdenum at the Yappar Tenements."

In addition, 2 of their exploration licences for this area expire this month and the other one in July of this year so they need to get their finger out and get them renewed:

https://www.mcres.com.au/yappar-project

There's no mention of where StorEn will be getting their V2O5 or electrolyte from in the meantime.

Well at least the Donut is thinking green now:

https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-46455844

"Climate change: The massive CO2 emitter you may not know about

Concrete is the most widely used man-made material in existence. It is second only to water as the most-consumed resource on the planet.

But, while cement - the key ingredient in concrete - has shaped much of our built environment, it also has a massive carbon footprint.

Cement is the source of about 8% of the world's carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, according to think tank Chatham House.

If the cement industry were a country, it would be the third largest emitter in the world - behind China and the US. It contributes more CO2 than aviation fuel (2.5%) and is not far behind the global agriculture business (12%). "

Ah, I see what you did there. You've put a CAP Around the end of the mid line I think, and that's what's spoiling your normally excellent chart imho :-)

I've just received an email from HL which has the heading 'How to cope with volatile markets', when you open the email the first thing that you see is:

"Could dividends be the key to success when markets wobble?"

Right you are then, looks like I need to find a promising company which already is paying or is about to pay dividends.

Hmmm, where to look.... there's so many companies out there... oh, wait a minute! Lol

Wow Sanchez, I'm totally blown away by your reply. When I read MIKINAMANs post I thought 'yeah, no chance of anyone on here knowing anything about that!' but how wrong I was.

What a great board - it's incredible the breadth and depth of knowledge here on any subject under the sun (incl #vanadium! lol)

Yep, Souplesse is no more thankfully. Wonder what name he'll pick next time :-(

Great news knuttie, well done to you and best wishes to Liz for a full and fast recovery. Keep us posted on progress buddy

Good luck to you both mate

I see that a certain CAPA has read our posts re voting on the Daily Mail comments section and has started posting negative comments about Bushy.

Now there's a man who wears two hats (pronounced tw-ats)

I've obviously voted him down and I see several others have done the same. Good work chaps and chapesses :-)

Gosh, I wonder where all those votes came from?! :-)

Nice one numpty5, I've just voted for your pick in the Comments section here:

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/money/markets/article-6538317/STOCK-MARKET-WATCHLIST-predictions-2019-Seven-picks-turn-lucky.html

The more votes the merrier folks! :-)

Good luck to you for 2019 reteps, hope you get well again real soon and come back into the fray. I'll raise a glass to your health tonight, and another one for knuttie's missus, and another for RK's missus... hic!