Hi
@relaxin
I wouldn’t quite go as far as deeming the current state of the entire lithium industry as alt tech. Once upon a time - yes.
It has taken decades of research starting in the hands of Prof Goodenough and co, but it is now mainstream and has countless billions of investment flowing into gigafactories, mines, brine operations, grid installations and EVs.
The reason for this investment is that what was once on the lab table has been proven and indisputable with a growing infrastructure and global economy to support its growth.
It works. It’s a superior product. It is already more economical and efficient.
You can buy it off the shelf and drive it home.
The producing mines and brine operations, using the traditional methods, are now making excellent money. Alt tech methods have been discussed here for the last several years and we still have no operations, despite investments by huge companies, that are contributing any noteworthy quantity.
That is a reality and it frames most of my scepticism.
I do understand the equation of risk to reward.
I put down a lot of money on the early stages of a resurgent GXY and I applaud people going hard and going early and backing themselves and their research. I wish you and other LPD holders all the best.
For me, lithium is a very wise investment and the future rewards are already great enough in the bigger players, like GXY.
We are still looking at logical multiples of the current market cap as reward for the hard work the company has done in the last 10 years and positioning the company with prize assets and the experience to pull them off.
When newer processes, newer companies, newer methods, newer chemistries come along - then they too must prove themselves.
That takes time. I don't have infinite supplies of that.
Part of Galaxy's advantage is that they are already established and making good money.
LPD is lucky to have a forward thinking company like GXY to invest in them for (perhaps?) more honourable reasons than LIT, but until LPD is standing on its own feet and making money from its tech, then it could fall over and the tech could fail. There is that risk and I don't need to take it. GXY has already taken that risk for me with a small portion of a monthy shipment cheque.
What I was outlining was my view of the investment, in terms of how I see Galaxy positioning itself to cover the bases, and making sure that it is not exposed to the risks of having missed a trick, no matter how small the chance may be. This is important for Galaxy and the big players who are now buying up the stock.
Of course LPD has good potential and Galaxy has taken a stake in that, but some of the hyperbole and cross promo around here has been a bit ridiculous. In the end, what I believe, is that the R&D that LPD has undertaken will incrementally assist GXY to continue to improve their costs and to make sure that they are aware of all the possible avenues for processing.
LPD may well do nicely out of this alliance, and their other projects too - but they won't exactly be banking billions and taking out Galaxy with the proceeds. That takes a scale of investment in plants and operations that will require a decade or more to put in place.
For the moment, GXY is still not large enough to have a full scale tech arm with labs for testing out various processing ideas particularly with hard rock (brine is well served by Dr Mehta's IP and knowledge), but by making these kinds of investments and alliances then suddenly GXY can get the advantages that are normally reserved only for the largest majors.
