A Desert Solution to an Arctic Problem
Bill Radvak is used to it by now; the question, that is, about Vancouver-based American Vanadium Corp. Is it an energy storage company or a mining venture? The question has been raised often enough that it now ranks number one on the company-issued FAQ sheet for investors and other interested parties. Truth is: American Vanadium is a bit of both.
The company is currently developing the Gibellini vanadium property located near the unincorporated community of Eureka, population 610, in east central Nevada, and Radvak forecasts production by early 2016.
The company also holds the U.S. Master Sales Licence for the vanadium-based CellCube energy storage systems manufactured by Gildemeister AG, a 150-year-old German company.
“The foundation of the relationship is our ability to produce a projected 11 million pounds of vanadium per year once we’re in production,” says Radvak, President and Chief Executive Officer of American Vanadium. “We’re looking at a mine life of 10 years, but we believe there’s a fair amount of room to expand that because there are multiple occurrences on the property.”
The property in question is on a hillside about half-a-mile long and 300 to 400-feet high in most places and it holds a low-grade, but unconventional deposit.
Vanadium is usually found in magnetite deposits that contain anywhere from 15 to 50 per cent iron. Indeed, Radvak says that some two-thirds of current world production of vanadium is a byproduct of iron mining, but American Vanadium’s property is a shale deposit that can be strip mined and requires minimal processing, compared to conventional deposits.
Radvak says that the ore resides at surface and for the first two or three years there will be almost no waste. Only 20 per cent of the shale rock will require crushing. The balance will go through a screening process and will then be sent straight to a heap leach pad and doused with sulfuric acid, which will dissolve the vanadium and collect it in so-called pregnant solution ponds.
“It’s a unique way to produce vanadium,” he says. “We have a low-grade deposit and if it were in magnetite, it would be uneconomical.”
Radvak says that the company’s applications for permits are virtually sailing through the approvals process. Local residents are supportive for a couple of reasons. First, very little water will be required, and water is a scarce and valuable resource in hot, dry, parched Nevada and secondly, a mine means jobs and tax revenues — both of which are big pluses in an isolated community like Eureka, which straddles a highway known locally as “the loneliest road in America” because the nearest communities in either direction are located more than 100 km away.
State and federal authorities have looked favourably on the project largely because vanadium is seen as a “green” metal that is of considerable strategic value.
Russia, China, South Africa and Brazil produce the vast majority of the world’s vanadium (there is almost none produced in the U.S.) and most of it is used in steel production.
“Two pounds of vanadium in a ton of steel increases its strength by 100 per cent,” says Radvak. “It allows you to reduce the amount of steel used in beams and rebars by 30 to 40 per cent, yet you can maintain the strength. You can also get a much lighter building. You use much less iron ore, along with all the energy and environmental costs. It’s the green metal.”
In recent years, another major market for the metal has appeared; vanadium-flow batteries, which bear no resemblance to the batteries found at supermarket and drug store checkout counters and used to power hundreds of portable consumer products.
Vanadium-flow batteries are very large energy-storage devices that can cost anywhere from $100,000 to $10 million and can be used by public utilities, renewable power producers and remote communities to store, manage and dispatch electricity efficiently.
Radvak expects that about half the production from its Gibellini property will be sold domestically in the U.S., likely to steel producers, while a significant portion of the balance, perhaps all of it, will go to Gildemeister, the world’s leading producer of vanadium-flow batteries.
The German company has field-tested its CellCube energy storage systems over the past five years and over the past two has installed 50 of its systems commercially.
Bulk storage of electrical energy is seen as one of the critical factors necessary to increase the use of renewable sources such as wind and solar and to reduce the developed world’s reliance of fossil fuels.
“At the present there is really no best battery,” Radvak says. “It’s really a case of what the various types of batteries are best at. Over the past 10 to 15 years, vanadium-flow batteries have come to be seen as one of the top technologies for mass energy storage. They work best when you need to store energy from four to eight hours.”
Radvak says that Gildemeister’s vanadium-based CellCube technology could solve some of the energy woes of more than 300 remote, northern Canadian communities, including dozens of impoverished First Nations communities that are located beyond the reach of electrical grids.
Such places generally rely on diesel-generated electricity and in most cases, diesel must be flown in from late spring to late fall or hauled on ice roads during the winter. Generating power from diesel is also extremely costly, noisy and produces high volumes of emissions.
“The federal government is under great pressure to replace diesel because the cost is killing them,” says Radvak. “We’re talking five to 10 times as much as it costs to produce power in the south.”
Windmills or solar farms might be the solution, provided that the energy produced during peak periods can be stored and distributed after the sun has set or the wind has died, but a hillside in remote, isolated Eureka, Nevada may hold a motherlode that makes such dreams possible and it’s a Canadian company that is working to make it happen.
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