By: Franyi Sarmiento, Ph.D., Inspenet, October 4, 2022
Craig Jones, the CEO of Forever Energy, has a project to manufacture vanadium batteries at scale in the United States, from a factory/processing complex he hopes to locate at the Caddo-Bossier port near Shreveport, Louisiana.
“Solar panels are fantastic, they are a very low cost, reliable and clean way of generating electricity. But when there is no sun, you have a problem, you need storage. Our vanadium battery marvelously absorbs all the electricity generated by the sun: it’s a beautiful combination. But to have a vanadium battery, I need a lot of vanadium,” Jones explained.
Vanadium is one of the most abundant minerals on earth, with twice the global volume of zinc. However, because 99% of its current use is for hardening steel, vanadium has been produced and processed at only a small fraction of the volume of zinc. “Each year, 12 million tons of zinc are processed worldwide, compared to just 100,000 tons of vanadium,” Jones said.
Forever Energy is in the process of finalizing negotiations with the State of Louisiana regarding the proposed site and is also in the process of raising capital, both debt and equity. A key event scheduled to occur soon is a final decision on approval of a $1.6 billion loan from the Department of Energy, and Jones noted that the recently enacted Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) also contains advanced manufacturing credits that the company can access.
Jones believes his plant could be producing vanadium flow batteries at scale within a year and a half from the date permits and funding are secured.
This espostus.com portal material was edited for clarity, style and length.
Source : https://es.postsus.com/business/1177994.html
Photo: ShutterStock
Don’t miss the Inspenet News at: https://inspenet.com/inspenet-tv/
Loading...
