RE:Pilot Plant
Nope for sure lol.
What I am having a bit of a problem with in these discussions, is that something like 80%+ of solar grade silicon appears to come from the High Cost plants using the Siemens process, ie reported Capex of over $700 million US at a sales price of over $11 per Kilo, these companies are obviously making a profit, admittedly we do not know what the profit is, but the plant Capex is for sure counted as a portion of the cost of manufacture through amortization and interest on the loan to build it in the first place.
Secondly, these plants start with Silicon Metal of around 3N, which is for sure more costly than the high-grade quartz needed as a starting point for PUREVAP (which we apparently have millions of tons).
With a capex of something like 1/10 of existing profitable silicon production systems, and a single step process to go from Quartz to Solar grade Silicon (reportedly to be a fraction of the OPEX of existing process), I find it difficult to imagine PUREVAP would not be in a profitable position, effectively selling the Silicon at a 10% discount, which is what the 10% royalty amounts to.
Where am I going wrong here?