Have not seen any discussion on this recently but I think this is a big under-announced development for the IM3 project. What is the air permit?
This permit specifies the type and quantity of particulates that are allowed to be released into the air from the Endicott during battery production. This is important as the permit dictates an upper limit on production rate or any overhead costs the factory will incur in capturing exhaust to clean it for community and environmental safety reasons. The conditional permit will be considered after the time window for Public Comment is closed which is this Friday 27th of August.
A battery recycling project on the Endicott site, SungEel, has copped a lot of public criticism for the list of toxic substances they would be emiting into the environment/community, and is likely to not be granted their air permit. However by comparison IM3 has not received the same level of criticism. Only two substances of concern during the public comment phase are NMP and dimethyl ketone, but the level of public scrutiny has been minimal due to SungEel copping most of the focus, so it is likely that New York's Department of Environment Conservation (DEC) will progress the air permit process since there isn't too much community opposition.
Additionally, as part of the permit application process, the facility conducted a DAR-1 review of their emissions inventory and confirmed there are no adverse off-site impacts exceeding DAR guideline concentrations through dispersion modeling which has been approved by DEC.
After permit conditional granting, only two other fairly straightforward things to maintain the permit:
Once the facility is operational, they will be required to perform emissions testing to confirm control device efficiency and permit application emissions. IM3NY will submit an operations and maintenance plan for all control devices at the facility to ensure they remain within the operating parameters for which the testing was conducted and ensure optimal performance.
Some renovations will be necessary to existing buildings to accommodate IM3NY operations and building code requirements.
Why is this good for MN$?
Aside from hiring a high calibre team to help with setting up, scaling and running the battery factory, this permit was one of the last significant risk items towards enabling gigawatt scale production (which would propel MNS to the Billion valuation we're all waiting for).
This project is so much further along than many other American EV-related startups (both private and public-listed ones), many of which are close to fraudulent with their technological claims while we have a Nobel-backed R&D team who literally helped invent the modern Li-on battery. And with lithium prices possibly dropping due to the supercycle shift, the profit margins for IM3 also look much better than before. This permit by itself won't influence the ultimate valuation, but help substantially de-risk the project in the minds of big money and get them to onboard sooner than later, especially at US listing which means they could bypass brokers.
And don't worry too much about whether you got in at 5c or 20c or 30c or 40c because it'll all look like such a bargain in 12 months' time. Just be holding and be patient! With this risk item gone I am ready to buy more shares at the 30-40c range I'm investing a couple more paychecks as I get them, as I personally, strongly believe the re-rate to $1.50 is inevitable once we're US listed, and $2-3 once they are operating and can start fulfilling their binding offtake agreements (probably no later than 22Q1 for price discovery to finally hit bigger, long-term value/growth investors in the Northern Hemisphere).
As always, DYOR and good luck to the faithful long holders!
MNS Price at posting:
36.5¢ Sentiment: Buy Disclosure: Held
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