According to foreign media reports, the Queensland government will invest "at least 1000 Australian dollars (US $7.21 million)" to build a multi-user vanadium processing plant to make use of Australia's natural resources.
The money will come from the "invest in Queensland" plan, an economic recovery plan of A $520 million, as demand for transition metals used in redox flow batteries is expected to grow.
In a statement from the government of Labour Governor Annastacia Palaszczuk, vanadium was described as one of a group of "new economic minerals" that can boost economic growth and employment.
It has been pointed out that Australia has the world's third-largest vanadium deposit, but Finance Minister and Trade and Investment Minister Cameron Dick (Cameron Dick) said the country did not currently "produce one kilogram of processed vanadium".
"Mining companies that want to process vanadium on an industrial scale do not have enough capital to make this jump," it said. this is where our government can intervene.
Minister Cameron Dick said the government was in the final stages of selecting a site for a vanadium processing plant in Townsville, Queensland. This will be a "common user facility" for a number of small mining companies (companies that do not have their own processing capacity).
Vanadium redox flow battery (VRFB) is a proven Electroweb-scale energy storage technology, which is expected to store a lot of energy. At present, their market share is almost negligible compared with existing pumped storage and new lithium-ion battery storage facilities.
However, more energy can be stored simply by expanding the liquid electrolyte tank, which means that batteries can be expanded to have more capacity and storage time than lithium-ion batteries, and are easier to build and locate than new pumps.
Processing and electrolyte production may be the key to success
The private sector across Australia is making efforts to take advantage of the country's natural vanadium resources-about 80 per cent of the world's industrial vanadium is a by-product of other industrial processes, such as steelmaking in China, and the remaining 1/5 comes from three primary vanadium producers.
In an interview with PV Tech Power, Fortune Mojapelo, CEO and one of the major producers of South Africa-based Bushveld Minerals, said that while the ability to obtain raw vanadium can expand as demand increases, the ability to process vanadium, the key is the ability to make liquid electrolytes from vanadium pentoxide, will be key to the success of participants in the industry.
Some of Australia's vanadium mining work will take place in Queensland, just weeks after the Palaschuk government approved an A $250 million facility for Multicom Resources. Multicom's Saint Elmo mine will provide 400 jobs in the area.
Scott Stewart, the resources minister, said the mine would lay the foundation for "the next level of industry in Queensland for the manufacture of vanadium oxide flow batteries".
Saint Elmo is just the beginning, and other companies are promoting other potential vanadium mines, which could become a world-class vanadium mining center in the northwest, so having this processing facility in Townsville will ensure that locals benefit.
Stewart, who is also a local representative in Townsville, said the government is expected to conduct a market survey early next year to obtain a detailed engineering assessment and cost calculation of the processing plant. Then, construction is expected to begin in 2022 and the plant will be put into use next year.
In September, Energy-Storage.news outlined some of the vanadium battery industry activities in Australia by Australian companies interested in upstream and vertical integration.
Notable developments include the vanadium electrolyte manufacturing plant developed by the Vecco Group in southeastern Queensland, where the company hopes to obtain vanadium from its new mine in the state with an annual production capacity of 2 million litres. The annual production capacity will be equivalent to about 30MWh of VRFB electrolyte, but the company says it will expand to 300MWh as demand expands.
Another company, Australian Vanadium, is developing mining facilities on the other side of Australia with the goal of full vertical integration and A $3.9 million from the Australian Federal Government's Modern Manufacturing Initiative to accelerate the construction of production facilities at the Western Australia-based company.
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