A, B, C = ?North American pellet producers are: IOC, at Labrador City; Arcelor Mittal, at Port Cartier, CLIFFS in Northern Michigan as well as some others in the Minnesota Iron Range. These are big operations, they do not fool around. Pellets are dried out in huge ovens on moving grates and then fused into hard pellets in either a hotter section, still in the oven, or dumped into a rotating cylinder ( could be 16' dia and 200 ' long ) which is fired by one hugh burner at the exit end. They make a cement kiln look tiny. Multiple burners are employed in the ovens. Switching from burners to plasma torches will not be a weekend job. This is not going to happen in a couple of months and these organisations are loathe to unproven technologies. They prefer to take stuff that works and make it bigger ( example : trucks and trains ). IMHO this will be a slow step by step process that could easily last a couple of years. Just getting a demonstration unit in place and running will be a major event. Then it will be a question of seeing how long it lasts and what the maintence requirements are. When all that is well known then the "make it bigger" stage will occur. The application of torches to production of cement could happen first IMHO. Just having the electrical power available will be a major hurdle. As I wrote in a previous note Northern Quebec and Labrador West will have an advantage when it comes to power availablitity in the neighbourhood.
PYR's other initiatives with plasma torches will be old stuff when they get into a pellet plant IMHO.
How much of PYR's tech is patented and how much is just secret ?
When will the patents expire ?