Scandium International Mining Corp (SCY)

[TMLonggun]

Scandium roundup.

Excellent video, Kaiser at PDAC, discussing SCY and scandium's enormous latent demand:

Great points about the patents - a portion of SCY's true value might end being derived from licensing agreements. I am always impressed with Kaiser and how he effortlessly exudes wisdom.

Niocorp seems confident in their scandium metallurgy:

I suspect a huge amount of it has been ripped from SCY as Kaiser implied even if purely on a "wink, wink, nudge nudge" basis. It seems unlikely they just magically cracked the metallurgy so quickly, it's like they just so happened to guess a 100 digit password that it would take a supercomputer a year to crack in a single guess.

I personally dislike the patent system but I hope SCY gets theirs granted and preserves their lead, since much of their advantage is squandered if they bear all the expense of development and then others copy their processes and skip years of development.

Scandium shoes?

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00BKNDOZ4/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B00BKNDOZ4&linkCode=as2&tag=texmoubiktra-20

Technical video with robot narration:

Scandium lacrosse stick for $120.

A regular one is $20 and a "good one" is probably $40 so the "best one" being scandium sells at 3x which seems surprisingly reasonable to me, given that the Sc that went into it had to be expensive. People spend huge sums on golf clubs and hockey equipment searching for even the tiniest edge to improve their game. I'd say it is a good sign that there are already increasingly popular scandium goods. If they can make a profit on it now, value added industries will kill for a stable supply.

Literally:

http://www.smith-wesson.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/Product4_750001_750051_785116_-1_770151_757752_757751_ProductDisplayErrorView_Y

And if numerous mines made it cheap enough I'd bet we'd even see a scandium Coors can with the warning "don't try and crush this can on your head."

Lightweight scandium bikes:
http://www.konabikeworld.com/08_tech_scandium.htm

I also saw scandium skis being advertised. What can't this metal do? If I had to write down all the uses I have discovered for scandium it would take most of the day. Aluminum is everywhere and therefore scandium has a large available potential market since aluminum is already ubiquitous and Sc can improve its use in a variety of applications.

I want to remind everyone of an interesting story and the fact that truly not so long ago aluminum was more expensive than gold.

"Above all, people adored Element 13's color and luster, which reminded them of the sparkle of gold and silver—a brand-new precious metal. In fact, aluminum became more precious than gold and silver in the 19th century, because it was harder to obtain. The French government once displayed Fort Knox-like aluminum bars next to the crown jewels, and the minor emperor Napoleon III reserved a prized set of aluminum cutlery for special guests at banquets. (Less favored guests used gold knives and forks.) The United States, to show off its industrial prowess, even capped the Washington monument with a six-pound pyramid of aluminum in 1884."

"From a world production total of perhaps a few ounces per month in the decades before, by 1888, the largest U.S. aluminum company (the one that became Alcoa) could produce almost 50 pounds of aluminum each day. Within 20 years, it had to ship out 88,000 pounds per day to meet demand. As production soared, prices plummeted. In the mid-1800s, the first aluminum ingots on the market went for $550 per pound. Fifty years later, not even adjusting for inflation, it cost 25 cents for the same amount."

Hopefully we can do the same thing for scandium - making it cheap and abundant means success, not failure.

http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/elements/features/2010/blogging_the_periodic_table/aluminum_it_used_to_be_more_precious_than_gold.html

The Washington Monument story:
http://www.tms.org/pubs/journals/jom/9511/binczewski-9511.html