The Gibellini mine, first explored in the 1950s, and being revamped by Canada-based American Vanadium, holds the western hemisphere’s mother lode of vanadium. The silvery-grey transition metal is the key ingredient in a novel flow battery concept that is starting trials at the US National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL).

Vanadium flow batteries (VFBs) have been on a slow burn for many years.