They'll need to after this gets going! Why so bullish? This was written on Reddit.. 2 parts
Amidst an otherwise terrible 2020, you made some smart moves in the market and you’ve succeeded. Your best move was getting on the EV (electric vehicle) train in the summer. You bought some Tesla shares, or maybe another beneficiary like Blink Charging, and you’ve reaped the benefits of those wise decisions. And you should be proud, as the time of electric vehicles has come. General Motors just announced plans to go totally electric by 2035. The clean energy vehicle wave is upon us and you’ve ridden it expertly!
And that’s why you’re here. You’re looking for the next link in the chain. And you couldn’t be in a better place. But before we move to the fascinating story of St. George’s Eco-Mining, let’s quickly go over the macro landscape for clean energy and electric vehicles at present. I promise I’ll be brief.
As mentioned, the wave is upon us. U.S. President Biden’s Clean Energy Plan expects to see investments of over $400 billion over ten years, with a major focus on clean energy vehicles; the plan calls for 500,000 new charging outlets by the end of the decade. Tesla plans to produce 20 million EV annually by 2030. The wave is here, but as with any great wave, there is an undercurrent to deal with. By 2025, 250,000 tonnes of discarded battery packs could be sitting in our landfills. Current batteries are not yet optimized for disassembly, and the more that are disposed of, the greater the pollution and even danger of thermal runaway….which is just a fancy way of saying disposed lithium-ion batteries can overheat and cause fire or even explode in landfills. Elon Musk himself has stressed the importance of ramping up lithium production, with Tesla embarking on a battery recycle and swap program. The need for efficient and cost-effective lithium battery recycling has never been greater.
Ok, as promised, I kept the macro side brief. Chances are you knew much of it anyway. Now let’s get to the good part: a story with weaves and turns, plot twists and innuendo, leading to some very powerful conclusions for the discerning reader. It’s the story of St. George’s Eco-Mining (SX).
The basics of SX are, well, pretty basic. It has extensive gold properties in Iceland and a nickel-cobalt-copper property in Quebec, Canada. Both are solid projects with excellent prospects. But the real fun, the real MYSTERY, begins with lithium.
Now I’m not certain what you know of lithium, but it is a highly reactive element that you don’t just dig out of the ground and stick into a battery. If only it were that simple. Lithium is present, in small quantities in material such as brine, mineral ore, and clay. Extracting it is a chemical process, and not necessarily a clean one. Chemicals can pollute water supply, and the amount of water used in processing one ton of lithium is a staggering 500000 gallons!. To date, lithium is really only successfully extracted in brine and ore, not clay. The average recovery rate of lithium in these processes is only about 30%. Not particularly efficient.
Back to St. George’s. The company is working on a revolutionary technology to extract lithium from clay, with patents pending. They have an existing agreement with Iconic Minerals (ICM on the TSX.V), which gives Iconic the right to use this new technology on its lithium properties in Nevada (remember this location, please). What are they giving St. George’s for this? Five million shares of their company, investment in St. George’s (through a private placement) and perpetual royalties. Iconic quite clearly sees the potential in the technology, and how could they not? St. George’s has reported remarkable early stage results with lithium extraction up to 98% and completed in record time. Yes, 98%.
Now go back and read the percentage of regular extraction processes. I’ll wait.
Meanwhile, elsewhere in Nevada, Tesla is looking to start its own mining and processing chain. It recently pulled out of an agreement with a company called cypress Development Corp., a company also working on lithium processing (they are at 85% extraction and use a less clean process than SX). The folks at Tesla may indeed be looking to develop their own tech, but they also appear to be searching for technology to acquire….
Now let’s move this along quicker. One piece to the puzzle you haven’t read yet may be the biggest piece of all, a St. George’s partnership with Altair International to produce CLEAN ENERGY RECYCLING PROCESSES for lithium ion batteries. It’s a revolutionary project, as it reuses every last piece of these old EV batteries. Absolutely nothing is wasted. Zero. It’s revolutionary and the potential is boundless. How much did Altair pay St. George’s to get in on this partnership? Altair, with its $100 million-plus market cap, paid six million shares and $300,000 cash, and both companies are already hard at work at their pilot plant in Quebec.
