Tag: PV

Is LifeVantage a Scam

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Founded in 2003, LifeVantage Corporation is a publicly traded (ticker LFVN) MLM business specializing in scientific anti-aging products using its clinically studied Protandim supplement.

LifeVantage has a very interesting history

The company’s stock skyrocketed earlier on 2005 after they made public the clinical studies and television specials by ABC, the Today Show and PBS concerning their Protandim product in 2005, The corporation’s stock went through the roof. This early publicity sent their stock up to more than twenty dollars per share but it could not sustain it with no sales to support the hype. During this time Protantim was just obtainable by means of retail channels and it did not do well on the shelves of nutritional stores.

On May, 2009, after more than 6 months of planning and research they ventured into MLM for distribution|After more than 6 months of developing and preparation, in May of 2009. Not surprising to those who know the power of Multi-Level Marketing, LifeVantage sales have dramatically improved and with that their stock price has more than tripled from its lowest point of less than $0.10 in Nov. 2008. Still a bit too early to say, but it looks like network marketing is proving to be a good strategy.

As with all assessment, let’s start off with the easiest area to spot a scam THE PRODUCT!

Protandim Review – I cannot speak for the product since I’ve not yet tested it speak for the product. What I do know is I am more willing to try it than any other nutritional product I have seen recently due to the extensive clinical studies and peer reviewed studies that was used on it. More than twenty universities have started a number of self funded medical studies on the product in relationship to its relation on anti-aging and disease. Quite a few have been completed and are posted on www.pubmed.gov under Protandim to see.

In contrast to the majority of nutritional merchandise, Protandim is not an antioxidant by supplementation but rather a merchandise that activates the body’s production of its own natural enzymes which the body makes use of to tear down free radicals. Clinical studies appear to prove that it is many times more efficient than taking external antioxidants for this purpose. The LifeVantage corporate website () lists access to all the studies, information and news video releases on their product that explains how it acts and what it does.

What I like most regarding Protandim is the distinctive marketing approach it has

In constrast to many MLM companies which almost always use the old “try it out (for 30, 60 or 90 days) and see how you feel” script, LifeVantage distributors are able toconfidently exclaim that Protandim is clinically proven to lessen oxidative stress by slowing down the rate of cell aging to that of a 20 year old.

This alone is not enough to build a business on, but it’s a huge introduction for distributors. More often than not the hardest part in shaping a nutritional networking business is getting individuals to check out the product and LifeVantage holds the aces in this area.

I was pleasantly surprised at the price of the product. In an industry where product autoships are almost always above one hundred dollars per month, a one month autoship supply of Protandim for a retail “preferred customer” is only $39! This pricing is way less than the industry norm, thus making it doable to gain loyal retail consumers.

Besides the Protandim product, LifeVantage also has a skin care product called TrueScience which is a skin cream designed with the anti-aging properties of Protandim. What’s striking about the overall product line is its simplicity; just two fundamental products, with one core selling point, and a cost that is truly not expensive.

Ultimately it is going to take a lot more than research and advertising for a product to make it. Protandim will have to make a noticeable impression on the overall health of people taking it, whether it be additional energy, improved sleep, not getting sick as often, etc. There’s not a lot of individuals who will use their splurge on a product monthly based on research alone. If you are reading this article and have actually tried Protandim, please feel free give us comment on the product.

LifeVantage MLM compensation plan

I’m not going to go to the matter of how lucrative the MLM compensation plan is. There is quite a lot of money available in every MLM compensation plan as long as it’s legit. If you hear somebody going on about how their MLM comp plan pays the highest in the business, huge chance something is not right.

Technically speaking LifeVantage uses a unilevel pay plan paying down 9 dynamically compressed levels with the potential for a matching bonus on the 1st 4 levels and a coded bonus for LifeVantage pack qualifiers that allows for bonuses to be earned through unlimited depth. If none of this makes sense to you don’t worry about it.

The most important part about the MLM compensation plan is legal, because it only pays commissions on product sales. LifeVantage has taken an added step to promote the movement of product that I truly like and which does a lot to ensure legitimacy. Like all company, distributors must stay qualified to earn commissions, here in LifeVantage this means 200 PV per month in personal volume. The nice thing is that the volume generated from personal “preferred customers” reduces personal volume requirements for distributors. This means that as a distributor, I can reduce my monthly personal volume requirement down to the minimum of 30 PV if I have enough personal customers consuming product.

Behavior rewarded will be duplicated so when you see a company reward the enrollment of loyal retail “preferred customers” (individuals buying the product, but not does not involve themselves in the business opportunity), you will most likely have a higher customer to distributor ratio. This ratio is one of the most crucial things the attorney general and FTC look at when determining if a company is a pyramid scheme or not.

Company and Leadership of LifeVantage

There are a few notable points of interest about the LifeVantage beyond the short history I have mentioned. The company is a member of the Direct Selling Association () and the BBB (). They were implicated in and settled a lawsuit with Zrii. In this lawsuit, they were alleged to have conspired with ex- Zrii management/distributors to breach contracts and switch to companies. It was settled for 400,000 even if the lawsuit asked for damages of 250 million. This type of lawsuit is normal in the network marketing business and in my opinion nothing to be worried about.

As for the leadership behind the company, formerly with Metabolife, David Brown, is the CEO and Dr. Joe McCord, the driving force behind Protandim, is the Director of Science. It is noteworthy that Dr. McCord was the co-discoverer of antioxidant enzymes and their relationship to free radicals in 1968 at Duke University. It is also good to know that LifeVantage has skilled in-house legal counsel with Eric Marchant, who has counseled multi-national hundred million dollar network marketings in the past.

A quick look at the industry and competition

It is common knowledge that nutrition is the backbone of MLM industry and there is no doubt that the health and wellness industry is growing and will on the rise and will still increase. On the flipside I think at present you have an overload of companies coming into the industry and it is easy to get confused and be lost inside the rubble unless you have something exceptional I think LifeVantage has just that. With a low product price point and the type of studies and publicity behind Protandim, I think they are suited to thrive in the networking business.

In conclusion…

LifeVantage sells a legitimate product at a price point that real customers can afford and together with a compensation plan that for me solid more sturdy than your standard Multi-Level Marketing. While there is a lot of research and publicity behind this company you still want to be sure your belief is 100% behind it before delving into it. In multilevel marketing, belief in a product is still top priority and you cannot trade whatever amount of research for that. If you’re not willing to give it a year, then better if you don’t give it any other day at all. LifeVantage will work if you work it.

Can Nuclear Get Greener The Green Benefits Of Depleted Uranium De-conversion

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Nuclear power as a sustainable, environmentally-sound source of electricity is enjoying a comeback in terms of public opinion, but it still faces public and environmental challenges. On the one hand, the near zero-carbon emissions characteristic of nuclear power plants is attractive to industry and environmentalists alike. On the other hand, concerns remain about potentially-harmful environmental effects of the uranium-based fuels that make it possible.
Nearly all of the concern with nuclear power has focused upon the back end of the fuel cycle, namely the storage and disposal of spent fuel as high-level waste. While spent fuel has been the major focus issue surrounding nuclear power, there is actually another disposal issue at the front end of the fuel cycle: that of dealing with the large quantities of depleted uranium hexafluoride, which is a by-product of the uranium enrichment process.

Since the beginning of the nuclear power era approximately 60 years ago, there has never been an economical solution for the management of the large quantities of these depleted UF6 tails. And yet, an anticipated shift in the near future from foreign to domestic enrichment of uranium will result in a significant increase in depleted UF6 tails produced in the U.S.

A new commercial concept for an environmentally friendly de-conversion process is currently being advanced. The process design extracts high purity fluoride from the depleted tails using their patented process. This process is environmentally-friendly, energy saving, and it allows new and useful products to be created as a result.

A Brief Overview of Nuclear Fuel Cycle

To understand the meaning of depleted uranium and de-conversion, it is useful to have an overview of the nuclear fuel cycle.
A form of uranium, enriched in the U235 isotope, is used as fuel in nuclear reactors. In order to use uranium as a nuclear fuel, it must first be enriched, as follows:

1. Uranium that is mined from the earth is converted into uranium oxide or yellow cake.

2. The yellow cake is converted to UF6 gas through a multi-step chemical process using various chemicals, including fluorine. In the process, the uranium is converted into UF6 gas.

3. The UF6 gas is passed through a enrichment process at an enrichment facility. In the enrichment process, the U235 atoms present in the UF6 gas are enriched significantly from their naturally-occurring levels.

4. The enriched UF6 is then processed into uranium oxide and fabricated into nuclear fuel.

5. However, about 90% of the UF6 emerges from the enrichment process as depleted UF6, or tails, in which the concentration of the U235 atom has been greatly reduced to the level that is not economically or feasibly useful for further enrichment to reactor fuel. The depleted UF6 tails mentioned in step 5 above have historically been stored in large steel cylinders and ignored for years, or even decades. In the U.S. alone, there is already in excess of 1.6 billion pounds of stored depleted UF6 stored in enough cylinders that if you were to line them up end-to-end they would stretch for more than 130 miles.
At the present time, a vast amount of the enriched uranium required to fuel the existing U.S. nuclear reactors actually is imported from overseas. There is, however, a significant shift in effect towards domestic commercial uranium enrichment. Therefore, the proper management and storage of these domestically-produced depleted UF6 tails will become an important issue confronting the nuclear industry.

Direct Disposal of Depleted Tails is Not Acceptable

Depleted UF6 is a chemical form of uranium that cannot be directly disposed because it is chemically reactive. Therefore, in order to dispose of depleted UF6, some or all of the fluorine must be removed in a de-conversion process. This de-conversion process changes the uranium to a non-reactive (or less-reactive) oxide state. In this new granular or powder, solid state, the depleted uranium can be disposed in approved and licensed low-level radioactive waste landfills.
Historically, there has been little or no economic incentive for de-conversion since the fluorine has effectively been wasted. However, the anticipated dramatic growth in U.S. commercial enrichment creates a need to address the management of depleted UF6 produced from commercial enrichment companies and the new de-conversion process can extract value.

A Green De-Conversion Solution for the Nuclear Fuel Cycle Industry

The de-conversion process design is both environmentally-friendly and economically-valuable. The process utilizes a proprietary Fluorine Extraction Process (FEP) to produce high-purity fluoride gas. FEP can be used to produce a variety of economically-viable pure fluoride gases.

There are several aspects of this new depleted uranium de-conversion process that clearly demonstrate its role as a green solution for the front end of the nuclear fuel cycle.

First, de-conversion itself is effectively a recycling process in which valuable fluoride material is recovered from the depleted uranium.

Second, some of the products produced by fluorine extraction are used in manufacturing thin films and photovoltaic (PV) materials for solar applications.
Third, producing fluoride products using FEP will save millions of pounds of CO2 emissions because of the energy efficiency of this process compared to conventional production methods.

As the nuclear fuel enrichment process increasingly takes place on U.S. soil, the Fluorine Extraction Process will offer a solution which is both environmentally-friendly and economically-valuable.