Vanadium, now a sure thing, was once a long shot

In the early 60s they were shaking their heads at the prospect of sending a human to the moon. That’s where we’re now at in Queensland in the transition to renewable energy. It’s that ‘vision’ thing which will be one of the themes at this year’s North West MPX Mining Conference and Expo held in Mount Isa in May. The few that have it are inspired by the opportunities presented by decarbonising the national electricity market. The nascent vanadium industry has its share of dreamers and doers and is part of the solution. While they’re backed by government and major industry now, that support was remote in the future when they were whiteboarding their projects years ago. There are now five junior miners based on a reef referred to as the Toolebuc Formation which boasts reserves of vanadium and oil shale and runs for hundreds of kilometres through North-West Queensland, south Australia and the Northern Territory. Leading the pack in promoting the industry is QEM managing director Gavin Loyden. QEM managing director Gavin Loyden Developments over the last six months added confidence to the business case which saw QEM share price firm. They include the announcement that the state government would build the CopperString distribution network linking the North West to the national electricity market. There are also leaps in processing vanadium electrolyte and a proposed downstream battery manufacturing facility adding to the package. Locally based processing made the model complete, Mr Loyden said. “Our intent is to produce high purity V205 from an industrial waste stream (and) get that into an electrolyte phase,” Mr Loyden said. “And allow some breathing space for Australian battery developers to get into the market, get established, get some traction and have at least 12 to 18 months breathing space before any production comes online to allow them to get a heads up. Vanadium pentoxide “Because as soon as there's primary production, the big guys will be here from overseas. “They'll want to lock up these projects with length of mine offtake agreements, and that product's going to go offshore and we're back to being a hole in the ground. “That's not the objective for us. It's not the stated objective for government. They want to see that downstream opportunity developed here in Australia.” The aims for decarbonising the economy are lofty which required 160 gigawatt hours of storage in Australia(25 GW required for Queensland alone), Mr Loyden said. It was an enormous challenge which was being met with intent and a combination of initiative and cooperation he said. “We've had plenty of generation, we've got more generation coming on, but without storage, you're only telling half the story and providing half the solution. “We're going to transition, I believe, from the generation story to the storage story quickly and at scale and this is how we do it. We do it with vanadium. “This is what they're built for. This is what they're best suited for. If you look at the Chinese example, VRFBs, vanadium redox flow batteries, all of their excess vanadium goes into those grid support systems. All of their lithium goes into computers and cars.” The North West MPX mining conference and expo runs from May 9-11 in Mount Isa.

Vanadium, now a sure thing, was once a long shot

Industry Queensland

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