Yearly Archives: 2007

On Monday, the Boston Globe told us about a new report that sheds some doubt on contentions that cleantech is the new darling of venture capitalists. Thanks to the WSJ's Energy Roundup for this one. Red Herring also published an article on this report last week. On Monday, Eli Hoffman at Seeking Alpha told us about Barron's latest five cleantech stock picks. Of those, I am particularly familiar with SunPower (NASDAQ:SPWR) and Fuel Tech (NASDAQ:FTEK). Both are a bit rich at the moment but I like Fuel Tech's exposure to China, especially at a time when the country...

On July 3, The Energy Blog told us about a process of turning old tires back into valuable oil and gasses.  Given the problems of Peak Oil and plastic waste which can mimic almost anything in the environment, I was intrigued, and I had the feeling that other watchers of the alternative energy space would be, too.  After a quick review to make sure that the technology was based on sound science (I believe it is, although that is no guarantee that it can be commercialized), and a search for information about their governance policies and a board list...

Here at AltEnergyStocks we try to give the best advice to help our readers sort quality alternative energy investments from the simply overvalued and the dangerous poseurs.   How well are we doing? Putting Play Money Where our Mouth Is. As regular readers know, both Charles and I invest in many of the same stocks we recommend. I take a broad portfolio approach, with small stakes in almost everything I think is interesting, and larger stakes in companies I'm more bullish about, while Charles has a highly focused portfolio consisting of a small number of companies he expects to perform...

UPDATE 2/23/09: Here are in depth looks at available Clean Energy ETFs and Clean Energy Mutual Funds. Alternative energy is undoubtedly the future and we are just entering the early phases of what will be the next booming industry. Even if the growing consensus over global warming isn’t enough to change human behavior, we really don’t have much choice in the matter. Fossil fuels are becoming more difficult and expensive to find and extract from the earth. Couple lower supply levels with rapidly increasing demand from nations such as China and India and you have the perfect...

Diamond in the Rough Alternative energy stocks are usually exciting, development stage companies with break-through technology which just might to totally transform the way we live.  Unfortunately, that's a better description of a speculative lottery ticket style company than a solid investment which will provide solid, long-term capital gains.  So it's always a pleasure to find a company whose products are so commonplace that we don't even notice them, even when we see them every day, and yet is involved in essential work to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels.  I took this picture in...

Last week, Paul Davidson at USA Today told us about how Sodium-sulfur (NaS) batteries can increase the reliability and efficiency of the grid. On Monday, Keith Johnson of The Wall Street Journal told us that Wind Turbine Makers can't keep up with demand.   Investment tip: this should be good for 2nd and 3rd-teir turbine makers who otherwise would not be able to sell their products.  I've noticed this in a flurry of turbine sales by Composite Technology Corp.  (CPTC.ob), a company I own not for their turbine business, but instead because I see great potential for their transmission...

What is a good indicator of whether something is "hot"? When the top weekly in the world runs at least one article about it in every edition it publishes. That is what has been happening with The Economist and alternative energy over the past few months. This week's piece was dedicated to the economics of wind power. Citing studies conducted in the Netherlands and Denmark, two wind power markets that are comparatively more developed than most North American markets (barring maybe Texas), the piece argues that, once a significant part of its initial costs have been paid off,...

So goes the old adage. We thought the following, recently published in The Economist of gas consumption in 2003, fully embodied the true essence of that phrase. Have a good day!

An interview with our analyst, Tom Konrad, with Nick Bruse of The Cleantech Show is now available. In it, they discuss various strategies and the outlook for the Cleantech investment space, as well as some of Tom's ideas on industry regulation. You can download or listen to a podcast of the interview here.

 That Polyanna of energy price prediction, the International Energy Agency (IEA), issued a new report today which, while it still does not acknowledge peak oil, predicts a supply crunch in the 2010-12 time range. Despite four years of high oil prices, this report sees increasing market tightness beyond 2010, with OPEC spare capacity declining to minimal levels by 2012,'' the IEA said in its Medium-Term Oil Market Report, which is published every six months. ``Low OPEC spare capacity and slow non-OPEC production growth are of significant concern I was blown away... as were most energy stocks today....

Too Many Brownies Before Dinner "When you feed your kid six brownies before dinner, you can't expect him to eat the salad, no matter how good it is."  So says Leslie Glustrom, a long term renewable energy advocate.  This is her metaphor for why Xcel Energy (NYSE: XEL) has been reluctant to pursue Demand Side Management (DSM) and renewable energy projects in Colorado as they have been in Minnesota.  Because Xcel is currently constructing 500 MW of new coal-fired generation, and they are also interested in a 300-350 MW IGCC plant by 2013, they may have little demand for...

On Tuesday, Dallas Kachan at Inside Greentech gave us the scoop on a recent GE move (NYSE:GE) to gain greater access to the European wind market. Interesting how GE is leveraging its capacity in the finance realm to complement its Ecomagination efforts. On Tuesday, Chris Coad at Seeking Alpha wondered whether high gas prices where increasing demand for hybrids. The reverse begs asking: would a collapse in gas prices lead to a material drop in demand for hybrid cars? On Wednesday, Dan Lewis at AEI directed us to an interesting article on vanadium redox-flow batteries (VRBs) (PDF...

On Monday, we learned about big coal companies pushing back against the major US corporations of the US Climate Action Partnership (USCAP,) which advocates for mandatory regulation of greenhouse gas with their own lobbyists.   Since I have advocated buying companies that take a proactive stance on climate change, I thought it might be instructive to compare the returns of the original ten members of US-CAP with the returns of the big coal coal companies (more companies have since joined,) over the six months since the Climate Action Partnership issued their Call for Action on Climate Change.   The Payoff ...

I just came across this article on potential problems with the emerging trade in carbon credits. The piece is not technical and I wouldn't say that it is particularly well-researched, but it does raise a key point - as the market for carbon emissions grows, the need for standardization and collaboration between governments and regulators will become ever more pressing. This could create problems. The carbon market is unique in that the commodity traded derives its value primarily from its ability to meet the requirements set by an environmental regulator. There is also a market for voluntary...

It's no secret that money is flooding into the alternative energy sector, but not all of this money comes from sophisticated, investors. Unsophisticated investment is a lighting rod for the scam artists. Because there is both an urgent need to deal with the the problems posed by global warming, energy security, and resource depletion, and the new money is rapidly accelerating the advance of technology in renewable energy, new innovations are very plausible. There are many ways to lose money in alternative energy, even without being taken by a scam. The current emotional...

On Monday, Todd Sullivan at Seeking Alpha informed us that ADM (NYSE:ADM) was planning on entering the Brazilian sugar cane ethanol market. It's no mystery that Brazil is an ethanol powerhouse and will be looking, in the years ahead, to export much of its output to the lucrative US and European markets. There is a lot of talk about China becoming an emerging market cleantech powerhouse, but don't forget about Brazil! On Monday, Mark Gongloff at the WSJ's Energy Roundup reported that Shell (NYSE:RDS-B) CEO Jeroen van der Veer was a big believer in energy efficiency, but not...