Please contact your miners, farmers or personal deity for further insight.
From CNBC:
Tests of the zinc energy-storage systems
Lithium-ion batteries have become essential for powering electric cars and storing energy generated by solar panels and wind turbines. But their drawbacks are also by now familiar: They use scarce minerals, are vulnerable to fires and explosions, and are pricey.
A plentiful, safe and more affordable alternative would be worth a lot.
On Wednesday, an energy company headed by the California billionaire Patrick Soon-Shiong is unveiling a rechargeable battery operating on zinc and air that can store power at what it says is far less than the cost of lithium-ion batteries.
Tests of the zinc energy-storage systems have helped power villages in Africa and Asia as well as cellphone towers in the United States for the last six years, without any backup from utilities or the electric grid, Dr. Soon-Shiong said.
"It could change and create completely new economies using purely the power of the sun, wind and air," Dr. Soon-Shiong, a surgeon and a biotechnology entrepreneur, said in an interview in Los Angeles before the announcement.
Dr. Soon-Shiong and his company, NantEnergy, are presenting the product at the One Planet Summit in New York, an event meant to further the goals of the Paris climate accords. He developed the technology with support from the World Bank.
The battery units, in conjunction with solar arrays, can be combined to create a microgrid system powering a village or a larger area, Dr. Soon-Shiong said. They have been deployed at more than 1,500 sites supporting 110 villages in nine countries in Asia and Africa — including places that otherwise relied on generators or even lacked electricity, he said.
The International Finance Corporation, an arm of the World Bank fostering private-sector projects in developing countries, was an early investor in NantEnergy, and an agency representative sits on the company's board.
The United States Department of Energy made development grants to NantEnergy (formerly known as Fluidic Energy) totaling $5 million, Dr. Soon-Shiong said.
NantEnergy, based in Phoenix and in El Segundo, Calif., says it expects to expand the use of its product in telecommunications towers and eventually extend it to home energy storage, beginning in California and New York. Beyond that, it anticipates use in electric cars, buses, trains and scooters.
Dr. Soon-Shiong, who recently acquired The Los Angeles Times and is a part owner of the Los Angeles Lakers, made a fortune from the development of drugs to fight diabetes and breast cancer and the sale of pharmaceutical companies he had created....MUCH MORE
His energy company says it is the first to commercialize the use of zinc air batteries and has more than 100 related patents. It is taking orders for delivery next year and sees the potential for a $50 billion market.
Dr. Soon-Shiong said the cost of his zinc air battery had dropped steadily since development began. NantEnergy says the technology costs less than $100 per kilowatt-hour, a figure that some in the energy industry have cited as low enough to transform the electric grid into a round-the-clock carbon-free system.
Engineers want to turn the dam into a vast reservoir of excess electricity from the solar farms and wind turbines that represent the power sources of the future.
The prevailing cost of lithium-ion technology varies, depending on the scale and application. Yogi Goswami, distinguished university professor and director of the Clean Energy Center at the University of South Florida, estimated that it is most likely $300 to $400 a kilowatt-hour.
"This is a game changer," Dr. Goswami, who was not involved in the effort, said of the advances claimed by NantEnergy. "You have to have storage."...
Seriously, this is not a solicitation to buy zinc, or air for that matter.
Here's the last year's action in zinc via Kitco (also on blogroll at right):
Despite declining stocks at the LME you are not seeing much buy-side initiated action.
Prices for air are available upon request.
The base metals can exert a strange power over speculators which is why we are so cautious when discussing them.
Going back to a self-referential 2012 post:
"Buy Zinc" (but not yet)
Spot zinc closed at $.8580 on Friday.
From an April '08 post, "Buy Tin":
That was the cryptic message from a reformed metals trader this afternoon. No rationale, no investment thesis, just "buy tin".
I couldn't help thinking of the Barney Miller episode "Child Stealers".
Time traveler "Adam Boyer" comes back from 2057 and is hounded by Harris for stock tips:
So, if you hear the siren call, note that zinc eventually bottomed in January 2016 at ~63 cents and was closing in on a triple before reversing this February.[Harris, acting on a tip from a "twinkie" claiming to be a Sociology Professor from Columbia University who's traveled back in time from the year 2057 (played by the great character actor Richard Libertini), calls his broker to transfer his assets from gold bullion to the financial standard of the future--Zinc!!]:The episode aired in January 1980 so at $.8580, zinc didn't do so hot (but actually better than gold, which hit $850 that same month). The reformed metals trader worked for one of the discrete, some might say secretive Swiss-based physical commodities traders.
"...no, no blue chips, either...I was thinking about Zinc! (pause) Yeah, Zinc! What's it goin for these days? (writing the figure on a notepad)...Thirty seven and a half cents---a POUND?? (The "Professor" gives Harris an encouraging nod)...Yeah, well, I might be willin' to spring for a coupla TONS!"...
He had up to $50 mil. discretion to buy Russian copper cathodes or aluminum or whatever, figure out the logistics, rail, shipping, bribe the right port authorities etc. Pretty much end-to-end, turnkey, whatever you wanted to call it.
So when he called, I listened. And started laughing. I couldn't get that damned Barney Miller scene out of my head....
