This is a question that a child will ask, but as the old TV advertising slogan said, this is not a naive question. As the world moves towards electrification of transportation, from Tesla (TSLA) to electric scooters, all manufacturers of electrified mobile products should ask this question. So, are electric vehicles (EV) really more environmentally friendly than cars with internal combustion engine (ICE) architecture?

Once they are on the road, yes, of course. Electric vehicles have zero carbon emissions during the entire driving process. But what about their manufacturing? What are the components that make up the entire vehicle supply chain? What about the electricity that powers the manufacturing process?

Unless a lightning rod is installed on your Model 3, electricity must be generated in some way, and hydrocarbons are an important feature of the world's energy infrastructure, and I estimate it will be so for at least the next 30 years.

I will introduce liquefied natural gas (LNG) in the next column, but here I will discuss the process of green production of EV batteries.

The anode is mainly composed of graphite. I mentioned Westwater Resources (WWR) in the Real Money column before. Westwater CEO Chris Jones uses a rule of thumb that the graphite content in lithium-ion EV batteries is 10 times that of lithium. Like the electricity used to power the Model 3, graphite (a carbon element) is fortunately piled up on both sides of the main highway and does not require any energy to mine it. what! Nothing is far from the truth.

Chris and Westwater are working hard to develop mines located near the Cusa, Alabama, Vance Mercedes plants in Alabama, and deep in the "Electric Vehicle Belt" in the southern United States, but the plant is expected to arrive It will not be fully operational until 2028.

What about the cathode side of an EV battery? Anyway, from an environmental point of view, this is where things get really bad. The problem is that unlike gold, most metals cannot be mined from Mother Earth in pure form. They are alloyed, must be dealloyed, and are often combined with other elements, such as sulfur in the form of sulfuric acid.

High school chemistry told me that H2SO4 is a very annoying thing, especially in the large-scale process of battery manufacturing. In addition, the cathode powder needs to be baked and re-baked many times-and these ovens need to be powered by something...Similarly, use hydrocarbons. Then, as often happens in modern manufacturing, these sulfates are usually transported from where the metal is found to where the battery is produced.

In the battery material game, there are many slow ships heading to China, and at present, each one is powered by hydrocarbons.

Manufacturing electric car batteries is not a green process. But every great technology company is based on the idea of ​​providing solutions to existing problems, and this is where Nano One Materials (NNOMF) emerged.

I often write articles about Nano One, and this week Nano One management posted a video to YouTube that explained the process better than mine in thousands of words. You can watch it here. 

The video released on Monday prompted a good rebound in Nano One stock on the Toronto Stock Exchange. For many investors, I believe this is an exciting time.

Nano One will never manufacture electric car batteries, nor will it produce complete cathodes. Nano One is a craft company. The list of Nano One’s partners is in bold, such as Volkswagen (VLKAF) (and another global automotive original equipment manufacturer that cannot be determined due to competition), Johnson Matthey (JMPLF), China’s Pride and Brazil’s CBMM, the company’s Nano One reservation should show investors that the company’s process technology—commonly known as M2CAM, or metal-to-cathode active material—is very real and in high demand.

But YouTube videos are also very useful, and it is great to see Nano One benefited from this exposure. Another point of exposure was at a management visit meeting hosted by my company Excelsior Capital Partners a few months ago. You can watch that video here. 

Dan Blondal, the CEO of Nano One, was very generous with his time on Friday and even took the time to contact me to answer audience questions that appeared on the Vimeo feed after Dan's time period expired. When good people win, I like it.

So please do your homework and watch the two videos I linked in this column. The greening of the electric vehicle battery manufacturing process is a huge opportunity. The bearer of the green standard itself, and Nano One's M2CAM technology will make this greening possible.

Please note that due to factors such as low market capitalization and/or insufficient public float, we consider some of these names to be micro stocks or small cap stocks. You should be aware that such stocks face greater risks than the stocks of large companies, including greater volatility, lower liquidity and less public information, and such announcements may have an impact on their stock prices.

As of press time, Collins did not hold a position in the aforementioned stocks.

Growth stocks that were hit on Wednesday rebounded, but concerns about inflation prevailed. Here we see power.

Operating in the Microsoft ecosystem, AVPT seems to have good trading potential, especially after MSFT's strong earnings and forecasts.

This is where traders can go long WSM.

Shareholders must consider multiple perspectives as they approach the long-term chip shortage period.

Let's take a look at the charts and indicators.

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