Monthly Archives: October 2007

Q & A with Fund Managers of Guinness Atkinson Alternative Energy Fund

The following interview is provided to us by Guinness Atkinson Funds, a Featured Company Advertiser at Alt Energy Stocks. Fund managers Tim Guinness, Edward Guinness and Matthew Page discuss the Guinness Atkinson Alternative Energy Fund in a question and answer forum covering topics from the alternative energy market to management style and methodology for selecting stocks and managing the portfolio. To view the complete Q&A, please see below. - Q. Tim, your experience in managing energy comes from your many years managing more conventional energy investments. What led you to alternative energy? A. I have been...

The Arizona Renewable Energy Assessment: An Investor’s Perspective

Black and Veatch Corporation (B&V) recently completed and in-depth assessment of renewable energy generation potential for three Arizona utilities (Arizona Public Service (APS), the Salt River Project (SRP), and Tucson Electric Power (TEP)) which must comply with Arizona's Renewable Energy Standard.   Nate Blair, a senior energy analyst (and fellow board member at the Colorado Renewable Energy Society) at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory sent me the link.  Thanks, Nate! The Renewable Energy Standard requires that APS and TEP generate 15% of their electricity from renewable sources by 2025, and the SRP has adopted a...

The Week in Cleantech (Sep. 21 to Sep. 27) – More Casulaties In The...

On Monday, Maria Surma Manka at Green Options told us how Kansas killed coal plants. This is an interesting precedent, and it certainly buttresses the argument that coal will increasingly mean uncertainty and risk in the US power gen industry. On a related note, on Tuesday, David Ehrlich at Cleantech.com reported on NY's greenhouse gas cap-and-trade plans. This is the first of the RGGI states to flesh out its plan in some detail. On Tuesday, Jim Fraser at The Energy Blog discussed the timeline for solar power parity with fossil fuels. Does this mean that there is...

Two Recent Presentations on Investing in Renewable Energy

As I mentioned Monday, I did a presentation at a Renewable Energy Expo on Saturday about investing in renewable energy... This is a Powerpoint Recap of my Investing in Renewable Energy 101 article, with some Visual Comparisons and stock picking advice thrown in.  I list a bunch of stocks on a few of the slides, and as usual, many of which I own (see disclosure below.) You can download my Introduction to Investing In Renewable Energy here. Yesterday, I also did a 45 minute presentation to private equity investors on ways too look at renewable energy...

Geothermal: The Other Base Load Power

Last Thursday and Friday I attended the Geopowering the West Investors' Forum in Montrose, CO (hosted by the Delta-Montrose Electric Association, Colorado's most progressive Rural Electric Cooperative.)  I've long been interested in geothermal stocks, and I first started adding them to managed portfolios in 2003.  As a whole, those stocks have more than doubled in the 1-4 years since they were purchased. Fundamental Advantages of Geothermal Electricity Why did I make those first purchases?  Geothermal power has some unique advantages over other forms of renewable energy. Geothermal is base load power.  Utilities have a strong preference towards...

The Week in Cleantech (Oct. 14 to Oct. 20) – High Energy Prices: More...

On Sunday, Rob Day at Cleantech Investing (now part of Greentech Media) reflected on CEO turnover in the cleantech industry for us. This is an interesting piece and a good reminder for public market investors that the management team is a key success factor for any company. The ability to execute effectively on a business plan is more than half of the equation - a good idea or technology alone won't get you very far. On Monday, Mike Millikin at the Green Car Congress us told us about a new web-based resource for carbon capture and storage (CCS)....

Ethanol Report

The following is a Special Information Supplement provided to us by Guinness Atkinson Funds, a Featured Company Advertiser at Alt Energy Stocks. Written by Matthew Page, Co-manager of the Alternative Energy Fund ______________________________________________________________ Excerpt from Ethanol Report: Ethanol: Fuel for thought. The sun, rich mid-America farmland, water and a little patience. These simple, wholesome ingredients combine to form what has been dubbed an energy savior: ethanol. Ethanol seems almost a miraculous solution to our energy problems. But is it? Can ethanol replace gasoline as the transportation fuel of choice in the U.S.?...

Investing in Mode-Shifting: Preparing for a Peak Oil World

Technology cannot save us Technology will not save us from peak oil, but the invisible hand of economics will.  It's easy to get excited about all the amazing new vehicles the world's car-makers are promising us.  Even if we believe manufacturers' hype, the Cadillac SRX your neighbor bought last week will be on the road for at least a couple decades, and all the fuel saved by your next plug-in hybrid will not make up for the amount it guzzles. I, and many others, believe that the Western World will soon have to cope with much...

Investing In Renewable Energy 101

UPDATE 3/4/2011: An up-to date article on selecting green mutual funds and ETFs can be found here. Why Invest in Renewable Energy? Given all the attention that renewable energy is getting in the news over the last couple years, investing in renewable energy has become a hot topic.  People are drawn to renewable energy for one of several reasons: To fight Global Warming To prepare for Peak Oil. To improve Energy Security and local economies. To cash in on the above trends. The beauty of investing in renewable energy companies is that these goals are not...

The Week in Cleantech (Sep. 30 to Oct. 6) – A Good Week for...

On Sunday, Sebastian Blanco at AutoBlog Green informed us that European biodiesel producers were intent on stopping the "US biofuel invasion". I have long argued that the drive to ramp up biofuel production in the US was more about placating the farming lobby than it was about global warming or weaning America off foreign oil. It follows, then, that just like agriculture, generous biofuel subsidies are going to lead to frictions in the international trading system. The same is true, by the way, for Europe. To be continued... On Monday, Eli Hoffman at Seeking Alpha reported that...

The Business Of Climate Change, Part II

A few weeks ago, a reader sent me a link to the second edition of Lehman Brothers' The Business of Climate Change report (PDF document). I unfortunately only got around to reading through it tonight. Over the past two years, several of the big sell-side shops have published reports discussing the major investment opportunities and risks related to global warming. This one is a tad different from other such reports. The discussion is far more academic (rather than focused around actionable information) and the authors do not provide a list of potential outperformers organized by sector. Nevertheless,...

Global Resource Corporation and Mobilestream Oil

This is the text of an email I received from a reader of my article on Global Resource Corporation (GBRC.PK).  He has reason to suspect that things are much worse than just the weak governance issues I uncovered. I have been posting on Investors Hub as a result of family members being stung for a substantial purchase of Mobilestream Oil (MSRM.pk), now being converted to Global Resource stock. A poster gave me the link to your interesting article about Global and your problems contact Jeff Andrews. I am trying to contact Mr...

Cash in on the efficient transit and transmission building booms

This week's Fortune contains an article titled Cash in on the Rebuilding Boom in which the author, Katie Benner picks several companies she feels will benefit from upgrading the United States' aging infrastructure.  She picked Granite Construction (NYSE: GVA), for their road, bridge, and mass transit construction business,  Greenbrier (NYSE: GBX) for their railcar leasing operations, General Cable (NYSE: BGC) for their wire and cable business, and Wesco (NYSE: WCC) for their business distributing electrical supplies and equipment.  I agree that our nation's infrastructure is in need of a massive upgrade and repair.  However, given my expectation of continued...
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