Interesting... I did go looking for that news story you...

Interesting... I did go looking for that news story you mentioned but didn't find it.. no matter.

While it is certainly possible that coal waste and ash may have vanadium in it... it also has a lot of other things that are far less desirable.
Still the possibilities are there...
https://www.google.com.au/url?sa=t&...rst-2015.pdf&usg=AOvVaw1VB6jAJEXsLIEJF2I38Trl


Might be a long bow to draw that the presence of vanadium in coal ash is enough to make it's extraction, and processing to purity to (99.5-99.9%) Vanadium Pentoxide (V2O5) which is the stuff that really pulls premium price for battery manufacturers.

There are a number of large deposits of vanadium around the world that have minimal impurities in them... it may indeed be possible to extract the vanadium from coal ash, but can it be done cheaper than conventional mining ?

Lets see where the future takes this.. but I would not be pinning it as a likely large source of future revenue.