A Little Stock With A
Great Big Story To Tell

By James Rapholz
Economic Advice

       Uranium Star Corp's., (OTCBB: URST or Frankfurt - FWB: YE5; $0.35) Green Giant Project could be the world's largest, low-cost, single source of vanadium:
       Uranium Star controls a 194 square kilometer property in an area where international mining companies are investing billions of dollars. The Company has all the land and environmental permitting and a preliminary metallurgical study in hand, and has positioned an exploration team armed with the latest exploration technologies on-site. Over the next 18-24 months, Uranium Star plans to spend $10 million to conduct environmental, geotechnical, metallurgical and marketing studies, and complete a pre-feasibility study.
       Exploration over the past year has shown clear evidence that the Company's Green Giant Project in southern Madagascar contains a massive vanadium deposit that easily could be valued in the multibillions of dollars. Based on very conservative estimates, a 225 million ton deposit with average widths of 50 meters, grades of 0.5%, at a price of $4/lb, this vanadium deposit would be worth more than $11 billion. Incredibly, the Green Giant deposit appears to be much larger than the example outlined above.
       Vanadium is the element that could change the world:
       It has been around for decades. While each of us comes in contact with products or structures that contain vanadium almost everyday, most of us have likely never heard of it.
       With an infrastructure building boom underway, coupled with an unprecedented global focus by governments and corporations to develop alternative and renewable energy sources to address climate change and our dependency on fossil fuels - that may be about to change.

Why is Vanadium So Special?

       Vanadium is a strategic metal that is already irreplaceable for engineering in aerospace, aviation, automotive, shipping, and construction. This is because vanadium has a remarkable ability to make steel alloys both stronger and lighter. In fact, vanadium-titanium alloys have the best strength-to-weight ratio of any engineered material. These ultra high-strength and super-light steels are often called the plastics of the 21st century, and demand for them is strong and growing. But while vanadium is most often associated with steel, it has recently been discovered that vanadium also makes highly powerful and efficient batteries - batteries that have the potential for large-scale, power grid storage.

Steroids for Steel

       It is primarily used today to produce metal alloys. Vanadium is mostly produced in the form of vanadium pent oxide, which can then be reduced to a ferro alloy known as ferrovanadium. Vanadium added to crude steel creates a product that is lightweight but extremely high in tensile strength and wear resistance.
       Eighty seven percent of vanadium is used in the steel industry for high-strength-low alloy steels in pipelines, shipbuilding, machinery, and automotive and rail parts. It is also used in titanium alloys for aircraft frames, engines and components. Thirteen percent is used for batteries and glass products.
       The world's future will be battery powered. The best battery will win. Vanadium makes the best batteries.
       But, while it is most often associated with steel products, it is poised to play a pivotal role in helping renewable energy achieve success. This is because vanadium also makes highly powerful and efficient batteries - batteries that have the potential for large scale, power grid storage. Storage is the biggest, most significant issue we are facing this century. All of the great ways we have to generate electricity - wind, solar, geothermal - are limited without an efficient way to store it.
       The problem is that a power grid requires really big batteries - and current battery technology can't scale up that big. And so the future of renewable energy - and thus the future of climate change, and the planet - may rest on a little known element that goes by the name of Vanadium!
       Vanadium batteries are chemically and structurally different from any other type battery. The vanadium battery has a marvelous advantage over lithium-ion and most other types of batteries. It can absorb and discharge huge amounts of electricity instantly and do so over and over, making it the only battery technology today capable of connecting to power grids to help smooth out the unpredictable flow of energy stored from wind turbines and solar cells. Vanadium may therefore hold the key to scaling renewable energy to national levels, helping reduce our dependence on fossil fuels. Beyond these large scale uses, vanadium has also proven to be effective at combining with lithium-ion batteries to significantly improve their performance - so the next generation of hybrid and electric car batteries may also feature vanadium.

What is the Global Demand for Vanadium?

       Since almost 90% of vanadium is consumed by the steel industry, the demand for vanadium is closely associated to global steel production. According to CRU Strategies, global steel production is estimated to grow at 5.5 annually through 2011. I have also read that more steel will be consumed in the first 20 years of the 21st century than was consumed in the entire 20th century!
       CPM Group statistics (July 2008) estimated that the demand for vanadium would grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 4.9% over the decade ending in 2018. What is the current and forecast global vanadium supply? Based on CPM Group statistics (July 2008), global vanadium production was estimated to be about 68,000 tons annually.
        The future will be battery powered. The best battery will win. Vanadium makes the best batteries:
       The life span is 10 times longer for Vanadium.
       A Vanadium battery that is once charged, stays charged.
       Vanadium batteries contain no non-toxic materials.
       Vanadium batteries are highly expandable.
       Vanadium batteries generate low levels of heat.
       Vanadium batteries charge and discharge simultaneously.
       Vanadium batteries can release energy instantaneously.
       Vanadium batteries are suitable for connection to power grids.
       Lithium Batteries leave a small footprint compared to Vanadium batteries.
       Fifty six percent of Vanadium comes as a by-product of slag from steel production (vertically integrated in steel plants so it is almost solely used to make ferrovanadium). Fifteen percent of vanadium comes from coal fly ash and the oil that is extracted from oil tar sands.
       As the demand for vanadium increases, new capacity is typically sourced from co-producers (slag processing operations) since they generally have the lowest apparent production costs because of the higher VO content of vanadiferous slags.
       Since the global vanadium market is still quite small, only the most cost effective sources of production are brought on stream to fill the supply-demand gap. Only significant growth in demand will enable low-cost primary producers to flourish.

Growth in Demand From Steel and Batteries:

       The increasing demand for vanadium from both high-strength steels and the new battery applications is growing total world demand.
       Future growth for vanadium looks strong on the steel side. In addition to the $1.5 trillion of global stimulus recovery packages already pledged for infrastructure, CIBC World Markets estimates that total global infrastructure spending will tally to US $35 trillion over the next 20 years. Global infrastructure projects will be focused on rail, highway bridges, subways, pipelines and airports that all will require vanadium.
       Explosive growth in the energy storage industry is predicted and vanadium is poised to play a pivotal role in this new arena.
       The future has already arrived. Subaru recently revealed its G4E concept car. The vehicle is powered by a high-capacity vanadium-lithium battery, capable of storing two or three times more energy than standard lithium-ion batteries. Subaru expects the car to be able to travel 200 kilometers on a single battery charge.
       I have read that every company in the world that is now manufacturing fossil fuel powered automobiles plans to have an electric battery powered version ready to sell to the public within the next two years.
       For more information on Uranium Star Corp. contact Brent Nykoliation Toll Free 1 (800) 818-5442, E-Mail: bnykoliation@uraniumstar.com, or visit the website at www.uraniumstarcorp.com.
        Editor's Note: James Rapholz is editor of Economic Advice, 3910 N.E. 26th Ave., Lighthouse Point, FL 33064, 1 year, 12 issues, $149. www.economicadviceinc.com.