Graphene Uses and Investments

I’ve been tight-lipped about it for a while now, but it’s finally time to show you what the BBC calls a “Miracle Material.”

And why now is the time for you to buy the best way to play it.

What the BBC calls a “miracle material” is actually called graphene, a name given by the two scientists who won a Nobel Prize for discovering it.

And it’s going to change the world…

“Graphene doesn’t just have one application,” says Andre Geim, who made the find along with Konstantin Novoselov. “It is not even one material. It is a huge range of materials. A good comparison would be to how plastics are used.”

I’d say plastics is a conservative comparison…

Graphene has far more high-tech uses than plastic, and is poised to be much more lucrative.

Let me show you what hundreds of researchers, companies, and governments are already doing with the strongest, thinnest, most conductive material ever discovered.

The BBC says: “It could spell the end for silicon and change the future of computers and other devices forever.”

The Daily Mail says: “A graphene credit card could store as much information as today’s computers,” and that “graphene will lead to gadgets that make the iPhone and Kindle seem like toys from the age of steam trains.”

But it won’t just revolutionize electronics. Graphene is also being used for energy, defense, and medicine applications.

Engineers at Northwestern University have a made a graphene electrode that allows lithium-ion batteries to store 10 times as much power and charge 10 times faster.

MIT Engineering Professor Jeffrey Grossman believes solar cells made from graphene could produce 10,000 times more energy from a given amount of carbon than fossil fuels.

And CNBC reports it could expand the current domestic oil boom because “tiny sensors coated with the wonder-material graphene and powered by flowing water could expedite the discovery of oil and natural gas reserves.”

It may sound too good to be true, but I assure you it isn’t. I’m extremely bullish on its future prospects, and so is one of the men who discovered it, Nobel recipient Konstantin Novoselov:

I don’t think it has been over-hyped. It has attracted a lot of attention because it is so simple – it is the thinnest possible matter — and yet it has so many unique properties. There are hundreds of properties which are unique or superior to other materials. Because it is only one atom thick it is quite transparent — not many materials that can conduct electricity are transparent.

And speaking of transparent, scientists at the University of Texas, Dallas have made a graphene invisibility cloak by heating up a sheet of the material with electrical stimulation.

The Israeli Army is even using the material to make invisible missiles.

Again, this isn’t science fiction; this is happening right now.

Novoselov says, “It’s a big claim, but it’s not bold. That’s exactly why there are so many researchers working on it.”

So many, indeed.

Over 200 companies are pursuing graphene opportunities, and it’s been the subject of thousands of peer-reviewed research papers.

Only a few companies around the world have access to the resource required to make graphene. And many of them are years away from production.

I’ve discovered and visited one small outfit that owns and and controls the largest and most concentrated reserves of it in the world. It’s one of my top picks for 2013.

Prices for this material could double this year as a shortage is expected — just like with rare earths — because of Chinese supply cuts and rapidly growing demand. And the higher they go… the higher this stock will climb.

Call it like you see it,

Nick Hodge

@nickchodge on Twitter

Nick is the founder and president of the Outsider Club, and the investment director of the thousands-strong stock advisories, Early Advantage and Wall Street’s Underground Profits. He also heads Nick’s Notebook, a private placement and alert service that has raised tens of millions of dollars of investment capital for resource, energy, cannabis, and medical technology companies. Co-author of two best-selling investment books, including Energy Investing for Dummies, his insights have been shared on news programs and in magazines and newspapers around the world. For more on Nick, take a look at his editor’s page.

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