Date: Sep 7, 2018
Special report: A German gas storage firm is planning to make a battery big enough to power the entire city of Berlin for an hour – leaving Tesla and its proposed plans for a South Australian Gigafactory in the dark.
EWE Gasspeicher’s battery would use vanadium redox flow technology, marking a big step forward from Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s lithium-ion battery, which can only provide two per cent of Adelaide’s power needs at any time.
Vanadium flow batteries are also safer than lithium-ion.
This application of vanadium has peaked investors’ interest in the last 12 months.
Prices have been rising continuously as a result. The August price of ferro-vanadium was $US79/kg (A$108) — a 511 per cent rise on the $US13/kg price seen in late 2015.
This is great news for ASX-listed companies like Pursuit Minerals (ASX:PUR) which has secured mineral reservations covering the Koitelainen and Karhujupukka vanadium projects in northern Finland as well as its Airijoki project in northern Sweden.
In addition to being a close neighbour to Germany where vanadium is being put to good use, Pursuit’s Finnish projects have the added bonus of favourable changes in regulations.
The Finnish government has ramped up its push to be at the forefront of battery technology and wants to re-establish the country as a substantial vanadium producer.
It was named the most attractive mining jurisdiction in the 2017 Fraser Institute Survey.
