Ann: Breakthrough in Gallium & Germanium Recovery, page-188

Hmm, perhaps some have as I did, finally got around to reading the post by @colinwood12 yesterday.

https://hotcopper.com.au/posts/77989607/single

Some goo stuff there

Rice University researchers argued:

“Urban mining by flash Joule heating would be 80× to 500× less energy consumptive than using traditional smelting furnaces for metal-component recovery and more environmentally friendly,”

Michael Walshe confirms a major industry secret is just how energy- and acid-intensive the spodumene problem is

“That was a lightbulb moment. I had known about the “spodumene problem” for nearly eight years, ever since working with several lithium producers in Western Australia, but this was the first time I had seen a viable alternative to the highly challenging calcination step.”

Terra Capital analyst Dylan Kelly described FJH as “a revolutionary type of concept that I’m surprised hasn’t actually been done before.”

“One of those elements that really gets me barred up is what they’re doing with rare earths,” Kelly also said.

“If we’re talking about Flash Joule Heating, it doesn’t matter if it’s rare earths or other concepts – what happens if we don’t actually use all that energy, all of that capital to do that?”

Terra chief investment officer Jeremy Bond

“There’s nothing rare about rare earths—what is rare is the ability to economically and sustainably produce these metals onshore outside of China in a capital-light way”

“The waste streams they access have no exploration activity attached. These materials have already been mined, processed once or twice, utilised in industry, and now returned to be repurposed”.

“No lengthy approvals process adding years to a development timeline.
Are they a miner? No. They are a processor with reduced risk to commodity cycles and the associated exposures."

“Are they undervalued? We certainly believe so."