STRONG BUY, page-683

CEO of the Slovak InoBAT:
https://www.e15.cz/rozhovory/slovensky-musk-marian-bocek-stavim-obdobu-tesly-ve-vychodni-evrope-1380988

...

Are you planning to do business in the Czech Republic?

We are focusing on the entire battery industry chain: from lithium mining to R&D and recycling. That's what we have partnerships for, and that's where CEZ comes in. We are working on lithium in the Cinovec area. We want to be the future customer when we build a gigafactory. It is very important to the EU where the lithium and active materials come from. Cobalt or lithium currently comes from refineries in China. There are only a few countries in the world that have lithium deposits. In Europe, Portugal, Serbia and Cinovec. Thank God for the Ore Mountains. The European Commission is looking into the origin of the minerals that go into battery cells. There is a big push to ensure that the raw materials come from European sources, not from China.

But that's not the end of the cooperation with CEZ, is it?

We are also looking at energy storage. We have ESS as a partner. It focuses on flow batteries, and Bill Gates has invested in it. With ESS and CEZ we are creating a pilot project to test the use of flow batteries to stabilise the grid and provide storage for charging stations or green energy sources. This will solve the intermittency of solar and wind farms - when it's not blowing. With CEZ, we are trying to integrate this into our future generation. It's the first project of its kind where flow batteries don't have a lithium electrolyte, but run on iron and salt water. It's a breakthrough technology.