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American Vanadium (CVE:AVC) isn’t just developing a mine, but it is also making a market.
The company’s future product, vanadium, is well-used ingredient in steel alloy that has widespread application for making items stronger and lighter. But the company also sees vanadium as solving a key problem with renewables—finding a place to store energy.
The sun doesn’t always shine, and the wind doesn’t always blow; the energy must be stored until its needed. Vanadium in solution, in the form of vanadium flow batteries, is one technology that may be able to store a lot of energy on a mass scale.
American Vanadium is touting the technology in front of analysts and investors, and the company is making its battery drive the centerpiece of the company’s efforts.
It also is another hat for the company to wear in a tough market for junior miners. In the last year the TSX Venture has slid 28% to 1,251.88, nearing its 52-week low of 1,244.
“This is exactly where you need to go. A mine does not excite anyone anymore in these markets,” says Ron MacDonald, the company’s executive chairman and director.
Vanadium flow batteries are large tanks of vanadium in solution as electrolytes. The batteries are big, best for fixed installations. The advantages are that storage capacity can be added by just by increasing the amount of solution. Vanadium flow batteries can also be completely discharged for long periods of time without suffering damage.
Some disadvantages are size. The battery has a poor energy-to-volume ratio, and it can be relatively complex, requiring pumps or gravity-fed options to move the electrolyte through the system to release stored energy.
Vanadium is mostly associated with steel. It is an important alloy, commonly known as ferrovanadium, and used to make bike frames and wrenches—anyplace where the strength to weight ratio is important.
On its own the element is hard and silvery gray. The oxidized ore American Vanadium plans to mine is yellow.
Current vanadium production is mostly as a by-product, generated through steel production, oil and gas refining and uranium mining. Over 95% of the world’s vanadium production comes from China, Russia and South Africa.
China’s rapid industrialization points to an eventual need for more vanadium. Rebar in the West is often contains vanadium which increases the strength relative to the weight. China will eventually start introducing its own standards, which will encourage the use of high-strength low-alloy steels.
By 2025 analysts forecast that worldwide vanadium demand for use in steel will double.
Vanadium demand will always be there, says the company, which is a nice advantage as it touts the renewable energy aspect of its business. American Vanadium will be one of the few companies in the renewable energy space with revenues.
Most junior renewable energy companies rely on investment money until they make something marketable.
“If the battery thing doesn’t work out, [we] still make money from the steel side,” says Bill Radvak, the company’s president and CEO.
American Vanadium at a Glance
Stock symbol: CVE:AVC
Range: 0.61 – 0.66
Mkt Cap: 19.42M
Shares: 27.74M
52 Week: 0.35 – 1.41
Company Summary: American Vanadium Corp. (formerly Rocky Mountain Resources Corp.) is a metals exploration and development company focused on developing environmentally favorable projects within politically stable regions with the potential to host large deposits of industrial metals or minerals. American Vanadium is currently developing the Gibellini Project, a world-class vanadium resource in the state of Nevada, U.S.A.
American Vanadium hosted a tour of its mine with a large media group, which MINING.com attended, in Nevada in February 2012
