@ordos My notes from the interview:
- Industrial Metagene scale pilot plant in the plans and 750k euro grant for that purpose is already awarded. This is a highly prestigious award, which essentially puts you in the top tier of technology innovators. This is non-dilutive financing
- French military will be testing the plant in real conditions. This plant will be solving the military logistics issues, e.g. there will be no need to establish fuel supply routes to the front lines
- All planning has been done, e.g. who is going to build what for the pilot plant
- It's just the beginning, we are eventually planning on selling thousands of these systems, most likely contracting out the builds by others, but we fully control the "ink", the energy source, e.g. the safe SiAl catalyst. Analogous to ink in printers, which is a massive recurring revenue source
- System itself (generator with reactor) is revenue source
- (!) Fuel "ink" (aluminum silicon alloy briquettes) is MASSIVE RECURRING revenue source. We own the patent to that "ink", no one ever done it in a mature field (since 1800's)
- No one has successfully done what HPQ Silicon / Novacium have done, there are no precedents, the patent office confirmed there are no priors and this is a breakthrough technology in a mature industry. Using aluminum to generate hydrogen is a known concept but with 2 limitations, HPQ Silicon / Novacium have successfully resolved those 2 limitations, something no one has ever done before.
- Key points about the invention
- The catalyst is aluminum silicon alloy and it is solid bulk form, it is not a powder (which is highly explosive and reactive, that was a key issues with Trekhy)
- We can use recycled aluminum (think soft drink aluminum cans, coffee capsules, etc)
- Catalyst is safe to transport
- Catalyst has long shelf life, it's non-perishable
- No need to transport hydrogen
- No need to compress hydrogen (usually requires compression to 300 bars, where shipping cannot be under more than 200 bars pressure because of safety and regulations. This means that you have to re-compress it again at the distribution point to reach 300+ bars)
- No need to store large volumes of hydrogen
- Applications
Military (market size: most likely 2 to 3 times bigger than the fumed silica market, and that's just the start)
- Pressurized hydrogen tanks needed to operate drones on the combat field. You cannot deliver battlefield-ready pressurized hydrogen to the front lines
- Defense of remote borders (i.e. Canadian northern border). Currenly you would need diesel fuel, which becomes spoiled if stored for 2 months, and then there are environmental issues
Civilian
- First one on mind for autonomous system: remote communities fuel source, replacing diesel (i.e. First Nations in Canada)
- (!) Hydrogen generation is now officially a business line for HPQ Silicon. They purposefully remained quiet until they reached this point, filing a very strong patent with no priors with a real client: French military. Now we have a unique, strongly protected technology. HPQ Silicon / Novacium have been working quietly on this for 18 months (!)
- Should we focus on just one business line at a time? No
- Fumed silica. R&D and technology is done by Pyrogenesis, HPQ Silicon's focus is marketing, sales, distribution
- Battery SiOx and hydrogen. Novacium is doing the work and we are in discussions with partners who are going to "take over this". In the end it will most likely be revenue from licensing, packaging the material
- We have demostrated that we are doing well for all these business lines concurrently. The progress is clear and obvious
- (!) We have other things that we are working on that's are going to come out. Patience