“What if you could get 20+ hour charge times for electric vehicles down to less than one minute?
“Four Koreans just found a way to do exactly that.
“And a new ‘clean-tech’ boom has started…
“It’s already sent one American stock soaring 55% in five days, between September 7 and September 12. Another went up 117% in 3 trading sessions.
“I calculate that two more ASX-listed companies are set to follow.
“Read on for a breaking story from clean tech’s ultra-fringe…”
That’s the opening pitch from Dr. Alex Cowie for his Australian Diggers and Drillers newsletter, which is quite similar to the US-based resource stock letters that we write about from time to time (Outstanding Investments, S&A Resource Report, etc — it’s become a pretty big sector, given the commodity bull market and obsession with “hard assets” among investors).
And given that, you can probably guess that he’s not teasing the actual science or the technology, but the commodities that make that technology possible … and the miners who he thinks will enrich you as a result. Not unlike the pitches from Byron King recently for graphene, vanadium and beryllium.
Probably Australian companies too, I’d gather — so this will be of special interest to our growing and much-beloved cadre of Aussie readers, though it’s generally pretty easy for most US investors to trade Aussie stocks if they wish to, and sometimes these Australian companies end up having US or Canadian listings, too … we’ll see.
The pitch about the “blood vessel battery” is basically that it’s going to make electric car batteries recharge dramatically faster, which would remove a major impediment to widespread adoption of electric cars — they’re fine for commuting, but since they take hours to recharge they take away the “I can go anywhwere” freedom that Americans, particularly, have come to see as a core part of their being.
And if that impediment is removed, the logic goes, then electric cars would finally take off as most experts expect them to eventually do — which would dramatically increase the volume of battery ingredients that’s required. Assuming that it’s still lithium-ion batteries that offer the best weight/safety/power equation when this happens, then the ingredients of those batteries should be in high demand.
Principally, those ingredients are graphite and lithium — part of the reason we’ve seen so many teases for those two “strategic” commodities over the last few years. But I’ll let Cowie tell a bit more of his story before we dig into which picks he’s touting:
“Electric cars need to be roughly equal to petrol cars for lots of people to buy them. But a study by the University of Illinois concluded that a car travelling at 50km p/h uses about the same power as 100 hundred-watt light bulbs.
“To charge that car in just a few minutes would mean transferring the power into the battery 20 times faster than it discharges.
“It’s impossible.
“Or it was…until August 8, 2012…
“On that day these four scientists from the city of Ulsan, South Korea went to their local Yonhap News Agency with a startling discovery…
“It’s a discovery that — almost by accident — has catapulted conventional battery technology 25 years into the future
“Western media hasn’t got a hold of this yet. You need fluent Korean to read most of the sites reporting it. The only Western outlets that have cottoned on are fringe, nerdy tech-sites like zdnet.com and engadget.com….
“His team has worked out an ingenious way to reduce the resistance inside the battery. What they’ve done is taken the lithium and soaked it in a solution containing graphite. The graphite then turns into web of ‘superconductors’ that all start charging at once.
“Professor Cho likens these super-conductors to BLOOD VESSELS
“Just think how your own blood circulatory system is working. Blood is travelling through 120,000 capillaries across every square inch of your body. That’s the delivery system that gets your cells their nutrients. This same delivery system is behind this new radical charging technique….
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just click here...“Basically every part of the battery charges at the same time — accelerating the recharge process between 30 to 120 times over.
“Hydrogen Fuel News is the latest tech mag I’ve seen pick up on the Blood Cell Battery breakthrough.
“On September 22, 2012 it reported that Professor Cho’s discovery ‘may be just what the world of clean transportation needs to find widespread favour amongst consumers.’
“Look, this technology is still very much in the lab.
“But as I’ll show you in a second, since the results were made public on August 8 2012, insiders and Wall Street hedge funds have been buying a record number of shares in a set of small to mid-range lithium miners.”
OK … so, assuming that you highlighted the “this technology is still very much in the lab” bit in your own mind … what are the stocks?
“I have identified two more Australian-listed stocks. This South Korean discovery could result in massive upward re-ratings in both shares. One of these local stocks has ALREADY gone up 41% since I tipped it two months ago. But as I’ll show, that’s just the warm-up act….
“The two stocks I’ve found are NOT battery technology companies.
“They’re not even ‘clean tech’ companies.
“But they ARE locked into a developing tech story that is already giving investors gains like 117% in 3 days.
“And these stocks are part of a bigger plan; a brand new Australian ‘Strategic Mineral Hit-List’ that I’ve been compiling since the start of the year….
“I’m telling YOU about this discovery because I believe it’s going to inject lightning into two little-known Australian stocks.”
And thankfully, Cowie does throw in the somewhat customary warning:
“These stocks are ULTRA-speculative. Definitely not something to throw your life savings into. They are super risky because you’re not just betting on a rising share price. You’re betting on…
“The winner of a race to change the entire world”
That’s right, you shouldn’t bet your life on any junior stock but DON’T BE A WUSS BECAUSE IT MIGHT CHANGE THE WORLD AND OH MY GOD YOU’LL BE SO RICH!
Sorry, I added that last bit of subtext myself. For some reason, that’s what jumped into my mind when I read the ad … gee, I wonder if that’s the message the copywriters are subtly trying to impart?
So … do we get any specific hints about the lithium stocks he’s picking?
“… owning good lithium stocks has been part of my new ‘Strategic Mineral’ strategy all year. But the MASSIVE increase in demand…one that will almost certainly cause severe lithium shortages — at least in the short-term — will come when electric vehicles go mainstream…
“I believe there will be more corporate fireworks in the lithium space. That means more takeovers.
“And I’ve found what I believe is next on the list of potential takeover targets.
“It’s an advanced-stage lithium explorer that’s discovered a massive new deposit overseas. How big? This deposit contains 6.4 million tonnes of lithium carbonate.
“This makes it a huge, world-class project.
“In fact, this is already more lithium than they could realistically ever need. At the planned production rate of 17,500 tonnes a year, the deposit would last 365 years.
“All the exploration is done. And this Aussie company is the only new lithium brine producers to go to start production for years.”
Well, the “lithium brine” part is good — that’s the primary method for producing lithium now, largely from the Atacama desert in Chile where world-dominating producers SQM (SQM) and Rockwood Holdings (ROC) essentially split the market (along with FMC Corp), and it’s the primary method because it’s a lot cheaper than mining lithium from hard rock (the brine is essentially a lithium salt deposit that they pump into the desert, let evaporate, then scoop up the lithium). Thanks to the fact that lots of people see that potential huge boom in demand coming in the 2015-202 timeframe there is a fair amount of investment in this area looking at new production methods or exploring for new deposits, and there are lots of other methods for producing lithium, which is present almost everywhere on earth in lower concentrations, and in sea water, but those South American deserts (that used to be seabeds) are where the low-cost production mostly comes from now.
But which company is this? Well, the Thinkolator tells us it must be Orocobre (ORE in Australia, ORL in Canada, OROCF on the pink sheets), which is trading in the neighborhood of $2 a share and is planning to start construction of their Olaroz lithium brine operation in Argentina in the very near future (financing with their Japanese partner is apparently just closing now). The 6.4 million tonnes of lithium carbonate is a match, as is the targeted production rate of 17,500 tonnes per year, though the feasibility study last year “conservatively” said they can produce 16,400 tonnes per year of “battery quality” lithium carbonate. They do have some other projects as well, including a Boron project that they recentljy bought nearby (Borax Argentina) that sounds like it will largely be used to strategically support Olaroz and to help process and sell borates and some of the non-lithium product they generate from the salts.
This is a good-sized company for a junior project developer, with a market cap just over $200 million, but it’s still quite teensy compared to the big lithium players — and it would, if they generated that kind of production, quite quickly jump into the top tier of producers — current demand is apparently somewhere in the neighborhood of 120,000 tonnes per year, so at that rate they’d be supplying more than 10% of global demand … though the electric car-driven projections are, of course, that the demand will multiply several times over the coming decade to well over 400,000 tonnes per year. Do note that those are still projections and guesses, and the bright future for “inevitable” electric cars has been forecast several times before without coming to fruition, so this puts a lot of weight on new battery technologies to improve charging speed as well as on environmental concerns and high oil prices. And, of course, that assumes that lithium remains the key battery ingredient — which is widely expected, given its reactive and electrical properties and light weight and relativel low cost of production, but not guaranteed. Figuring out what the simultaneous ramp-up in supply (from this and other new projects) and demand (from electric cars) might do to the lithium price over the next 5-8 years is, I’m sure, a variable-juggling morass that I won’t even try to climb into.
And that’s about all I know about Orocobre and Olaroz — they did also just get some new analyst coverage yesterday and that came with a A$2.98 share price target even after the stock has come up quite nicely in recent months (yes, it has climbed roughly 40% since the Korean research was published — though I highly doubt that there’s any real direct connection, since it’s been an eventful couple months for the company as well), so there’s at least some optimism about their impending project construction and startup. Their Japanese partner(s) have a 25% stake and their local Argentinean partner has a small stake, so Orocobre’s share of the Olaroz project is 66.5%, just FYI.
If you’re interested in the lithium story in general, there’s a nice quick overview in this Bloomberg article about a (private, tiny) company trying to bring on a new kind of fast , low cost production.
Cowie doesn’t tease a second lithium stock in this piece, but does imply that he has two favorite stocks for the lithium-ion battery surge, so I suppose it must be his hinted-at graphite stock that he’s referring to as the second idea — since lithium batteries have even more graphite in them than they do lithium, roughly 100 pounds of graphite for an electric car battery … so let’s see if we can quickly ID that one for you:
Clues, please!
“A hundred years worth of top-quality graphite to market
“If you pushed me on what the most promising graphite explorer in the world is right now, this company wins hands-down.
“This company is set to bring its maiden graphite resource to market within three months. I spent a long time looking at the drilling results and laboratory assays, and have come up with my own calculations…
“The whole resource this company is sitting on is over 200 million tonnes of graphite.
“This would make it at least an order of magnitude larger than nearly all other graphite deposits. It would provide enough ore for over a hundred years of mine life.
“Now what I didn’t discover until September is the grade of the graphite this company controls. Recent drill results show grades up to 21.9% TGC.
“If you do your own research on the web you’ll find that is freakishly high for such a large deposit.
“Most are in the 5–8% range. Some are as low as 1.8%. And the few grading above 10% have deposits a fraction the size of the company I’ve recommended here to my readers.”
On this one the Thinkolator says we’re almost certainly looking at Syrah Resources (SYR in Australia, doesn’t appear to trade anywhere else), which has had a spectacular year on the back of their graphite discoveries in Mozambique — the stock has gone from a few cents a share to about A$2.50, and I do know that Cowie has recommended it at least once along the way, with probably gains of about 100% from the brief commentary I saw from him on the company about six months ago.
Their prime asset is the Balama graphite deposite in Mozambique, not too far from the East African coast and supplied with at least some infrastructure — it is extremely early days, they do indeed say that they’ll be releasing their “maiden” resource estimate in the next few months and a more detailed JORC-compliant resource report in the first quarter next year, but it does look like it might be a truly massive graphite deposit, with pretty high grade stuff, near the surface and extending at high grades for a couple hundred meters over much of their exploration site, assuming that the initial drill results (which were extremely good, it appears) are really indicative of what they’ll find on the rest of the site. So there’s at least the potential for a very low-cost, high volume graphite operation that may indeed produce for decades. May.
Since they’re still quite early on in defining the resource and they’re not just re-starting an old project as some of the advanced stage graphite juniors are, I assume it will be several years, at least, before they’re shipping their graphite out of Pemba and making money, but from what I can tell the potential size of the high-grade deposit looks like it’s substantially larger than the better-known and more advanced projects in Canada and Sweden that we’ve seen teased for much of the past year. Might be worth investigating for those of you with a yen for sniffing through drill core assay results … oh, and they think the vanadium on site might also be a valuable byproduct to help offset costs.
For that, they’ve so far gotten to a market cap of over $350 million, and been one of the most spectacular stock fliers in Australia over the past year … so is it too late, or is the fun just beginning? That, of course, is your call to make.
The “buy the picks and shovels providers” mantra is perhaps a little shop worn, but certainly a “better battery” is the KEY to the electric car market as so far only “commuters” within the range of present technology are likely to be buyers until “range” improves. This does sound like a giant step forward if the technology proves itself and I would be far more interested in a follow up on battery designs that will accept this fast charge. Betting on increased demand for both lithium and graphite is potentially profitable and in fact I was already invested in Orocobre 2 years ago, (Oct.2010) on that very premise and returns were good then and it has been rising nicely in the past few weeks again as Travis has noted.
My best lithium returns came from SALARES Lithium which Talison took over at a nice premium and then again as Talisman itself was taken over by Rockland. I also made out well with SLQ one of the bigger producers and should probably take a look at the possibility of using options to profit from a more expensive stock like that. While I hold half a dozen other lithium stocks, as well as quite few rare earths and graphite stocks that have ranged as high as 10 baggers, I must admit I had not heard of SYRAH Resources simply because I do not research Australian stocks unless they are also listed in Toronto as many are.
For those who are interested in the space but can not easily buy Australian stocks I would suggest taking a good look at ENERGIZER Resources TAX/EGZ / ENZR/OTCBB / FWB/YES which I bought shortly after its IPO, but took my profit after I decided their Vanadium play in Madagascar would take too long to develop. Indeed it was “dead money” for years but was recently revived with the discovery of high quality graphite on their huge holdings, so I recently bought back in and consider the shares at .30 to .35 a bargain for a patient long term investor focussed on the “better battery” technology vanadium, graphite and lithium will benefit from. Energizers website highlights the future potential quite well.
The problem with recharging batteries has to do with transfer of energy.
150 miles in a car is huge energy. It doesn’t matter if Spaak made the batteries, putting that much juice through a system would fry most electrical systems, and if anything went wrong you’d have an explosion. Never mind the havoc it would play on the grid if 1000 cars get a shot of a megawatt each for 2 minutes.
What makes more sense is cars that can quickly swap a depleted battery for one that is charged, and of course batteries with high energy storage per pound than are currently available.
Austin’s comment is dead on! Speed of charge is important, and should be improved — way short of the dangerous speeds suggested in the article — but this factor is nowhere as important as AMOUNT of charge (capacity) per unit weight. That’s the big hurdle that needs to be overcome before wide-scale adoption of electric vehicles will occur.
I agree entirely with what austin and sho had to say.
In the original article, I read this amazing statement:
Electric cars need to be roughly equal to petrol cars for lots of people to buy them. But a study by the University of Illinois concluded that a car travelling at 50km p/h uses about the same power as 100 hundred-watt light bulbs.
He is claiming that 10,000 Watts would run a car at 50km/hr. Well, 10KW is equivalent to 13.4 horse power. This is only true if the car has already been accelerated up to that speed and if it is running on a flat road. As soon as some acceleration is included or the road ascends on a shallow slope, you can add a multiple of 2 to 8 to the previous value. This means that the engine has to be 8 times more powerful than is needed otherwise – and that much heavier, which increases the power needed and so on.
Whenever I read an article so full of “good news” and all the data is presented with the best possible polish, I know that it is a spin.
Amen to that!
“I assume it will be several years, at least, before they’re shipping their graphite”
NO! Target production commencement is 2nd qtr CY 2014 (As reaffirmed in presentation released to market last night). The project is simple…from surface and only requiring flotation to extract the graphite.
And FYI YES just to confirm Alex Cowie’s graphite tip IS Syrah Resources… And it IS the best graphite stock globally not just on the ASX. Though thats not saying much really considering the rest of the rubbish out there that claims to have graphite projects. Have a look at yesterdays announcement…signing up a major global institution Credit Suisse to undertake a fully underwritten $16M placement to institutions (and by all accounts its already been filled). I’ve seen Cowies report on SYR…reads well, and he also talks about the vanadium at the same project.
If anyone has any questions on SYR, more than happy to answer them…I’m a large shareholder so have been following it extremely closely for a while.
I took electronics in high school It seems that a capasitor could get a charge in less than a second, with an advanced computer and one million capasitors could release the power exactly right, Except if you live where it is hot or cold you would need A/C or heating. That would take more power than could be provided from an electric car for any length of time, unless you could add a propane tank to the deal. More good stuff from Travis and his think-O-Later. I’ve been a freebie reader for years, Travis is great!!!From Berlium to Fracking, he knows all, I donated to to some Jimmy cancer fund in the past , he can suck you in, however a very smart person. Thanks Travis for doing what you do. Your advise is great on these newsletters.
I am still waiting for Nissan to bundle a pair of Leaf all electric cars with solar panel array. That way while you drive the first one to work, the second one will charge up. Both cars will also last twice as long since they each only get used half as much. And because the sun is the source of power to recharge, you pay absolutely $00.00 to drive everyday. Hello, Nissan, Chevy, Obama, anybody listening ??? (Sure beats the 500 MILLION Obama spent trying to build solar tech in the U.S. only to show us his lack of business acumen at the taxpayers expense. ouch…
Early in my career I worked in high density Lithium Battery research for NASA Space Programs. Several comments expressed clearly indicate the difficulty of working with Lithium in any application and electrolyte contamination is an issue.
The graphite solution is unique, I wish I had thought of it!! Perhaps the “woven Lithium” recently introduced may lend itself to this approach mechanically.
Having the prior experience I believe we are 10 years away from any significant developments. Since I am retired I can intellectually masturbate and afford to be wrong.
Electric cars is one solution and hydrogen another and they will compete. A tank can be filled with hydrogen in 3 minutes, I doubt very much that a battery can be charged that quickly, theoretically it looks impossible. The quick filling in 3 minutes and not having to swap a battery looks like a winner!
graphite to graphene then all ur questions are answered
BTW ULEY in Australia is the best graphite deposit
owned by ASX:SER
THANKS for the tip , TODAY IS A HAPPY DAY 15TH OCT 2012 🙂
I’m a little disappointed in this. I am ok with sleuthing teasers, ie overhyped stocks from overpriced, self-puffing newsletters. It is a game and only half-serious. However, Dr Cowie keeps the obligatory Agora bs to a minimum and works very hard to deliver a carefully researched set of generally good to excellent recommendations for subscribers. They don’t charge much for it either. Perhaps Gumshoers could confine their attentions to more deserving targets.
perhaps they are planning to recharge the batteries via the old hook a wire with a pole hooked to your flux capacitor. The big problem is knowing exactly when and where a lightning bolt will hit it.
Be careful if you are driving excess of 88 mph because you could wind up in the past or the future.
kndi on nasdaq
battery exchange EV in china
search SA for articles:
http://seekingalpha.com/article/802541-who-just-won-world-s-largest-ev-order-could-be-kandi-technologies?source=yahoo by art porcari as a starter
http://seekingalpha.com/article/875081-kandi-technologies-it-ain-t-easy-being-green
by perry coleman
huge state grid firm is building battery exchange depots and CALB firm is supplying the batteries so KNDI sells EVs with no battery
could be 25-30 bagger in 3 years
I would be interested to here peoples comments on Galaxy Resources (ASX:GXY).
I am not beginning to doubt that the fast charge Lithium Battery is the solution to quick replenishment of energy. The problems with delivering this energy are massive. You need extremely good electrical contacts during the charging process to avoid dangerous situations.
I am inclined to think hydrogen is the fuel of the future for electric cars and Lithium will have lost its market value.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/08/110831115812.htm
Catalyst Helps Store Hydrogen In Liquid Form for Simple, Safe Future Fuel Use
http://www.popsci.com.au/technology/catalyst-helps-store-hydrogen-in-liquid-form-for-simple-safe-future-fuel-use
Lithium Battery is no good for electric cars. Maybe OK for Lawn mowers
Hydrogen fuel-cell cars look to overtake electric autos
http://edition.cnn.com/2012/11/25/business/eco-hydrogen-fuel-cell-cars/
Commitments by automobile manufactures to develop hydrogen fuel-cell cars have surged in recent months. Toyota, Hyundai, Daimler and Honda announced plans to build vehicles that run on the most abundant element in the universe and emit only water vapor as a byproduct.
“A lot of auto makers believe the fuel-cell vehicle is just a better performing vehicle and just makes more sense,” said Kevin See, a senior analyst of electric vehicles at Lux Research in Boston.
A fuel-cell-powered car can travel much longer distances than battery-powered ones before needing to be refueled, and fuel cells can be more readily used in large vehicles like trucks and SUVs.
Nissan Terra concept: hydrogen fuel cell SUV headed to Paris
http://www.caradvice.com.au/190911/nissan-terra-concept-hydrogen-fuel-cell-suv-headed-to-paris/
Even Nissan, which leads the global electric-vehicle market with its Leaf subcompact and has vowed to sell 1.5 million battery-powered vehicles by 2016 with corporate partner Renault, is showing a powerful fuel-cell SUV as a concept car in Paris. The company’s strategy reflects widely held views in the automotive industry, according to consultancy KPMG. Of the 200 executives polled in its 2012 Global Auto Executive Survey, those predicting that electric-car buyers of 2025 will prefer a fuel cell outnumbered those backing battery technology by 25 percent.
http://www.technologyreview.com/news/429495/hydrogen-cars-a-dream-that-wont-die/
abundant supply of natural gas flowing from hydraulic fracturing (or fracking) wells, which provides a ready source of hydrogen. “There is already more and more interest in fuel-cell technology because of the new natural-gas resources,”
http://www.technologyreview.com/news/429495/hydrogen-cars-a-dream-that-wont-die/
Toyota Confirms Hydrogen Fuel-Cell Sedan Due Out in 2015
Two years ago Toyota said it had figured out how to cut the cost of hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles by 90 percent — meaning it can sell a hydrogen-powered vehicle for about $50,000. Toyota Managing Director Yoshihiko Masuda said at the time that the Toyota hydrogen-powered sedan will have the same driving range as a comparable gasoline-powered car but “with some extra cost” for the technology.
http://www.insideline.com/toyota/toyota-confirms-hydrogen-fuel-cell-sedan-due-out-in-2015.html