I agree with you about not making an investment thesis on hope...

I agree with you about not making an investment thesis on hope but that has nothing to do with what you originally said.

You said their business models were incompatible. I disagreed.

It is entirely possible that Talga will supply Talnode C to Northvolt or co-locate a Talnode C anode refinery within Northvolt premises. ABB and Northvolt have a partnership where ABB ill provide the manufacturing expertise, machinery and processes. Talga also have a partnership with ABB for the manufacturing processes.

Co-location is a potential business model that we now seen announced to the public with the recent Freyr MoU. It doesn't mean Talga give up margin or don't supply coated anode. It brings construction of a customer specific anode into Northvolt's existing and already permitted plant, which makes sense from a risk perspective for both Talga and Northvolt.

Having said that, did you actually read the scientific publication you posted? Guess what...I did.

When they refer to coating they are talking about coating of the copper foil. That is completely different to anode coating. Anode coating is the process of taking the spherical graphite powder 5-20 nanometers in size, then coating with another material 8-20 microns in size and about 5-20 nanometers in even thickness. Again this was taken from Blue Swims who knows far more than me.

Here is a quote of the coating they are refer to in the publication, it is taking coated anode active material (completely different thing) and coating it onto the copper foil:

The anode coating process at Northvolt principally contains two steps, coating active material onto a moving copper foil using a slot die and then drying the wet mixture with ovens. During coating with the slot die, the slurry mixture fed into the slot die is under constant movement in a storage tank. The focal point of the coating process is to achieve a homogeneous coating thickness that remains within specified tolerance limits.

Here is a diagram from the publication as well. Notice the supplier for the Active Material is censored and all they do is apply a binder and solvent to the active material before coating the copper foil.



Here from Talga presentations as well. Talnode-C (coated anode finished product) is mixed with binder and solvent to create a slurry to be "coated" to the copper foil.



Again I see no where that Northvolt can produce coated anode and the coating they are referring to in your diagram and publication is the coating of the copper foil. Completely different thing!