Monthly Archives: June 2012

Tyler Hamilton There was a shareholder who stood up at Ballard Power’s annual meeting last week to share her experience with the company’s stock price. It pretty much summed up the frustration shared by most investors in the fuel-cell industry. This investor has owned Ballard (BLDP) shares for most of 20 years. She sold in early 2000 when the stock hit $140 a share and did quite well. That was when the hype around fuel-cell powered cars was approaching its fever pitch. Later that year she bought back into the company at about $120 a share, believing...

Tom Konrad CFA The Perfect Stock My ideal stock is: Green (in that the company is helping to make the economy more sustainable) Pays a good dividend (in the current low-interest rate environment, I consider 4% to be “good”) Has earnings and free cash flow large enough to easily sustain the dividend, and Has low debt, leading to low earnings and cash flow volatility. I like such stocks because I can buy them, and pretty much ignore them.  This leaves me time to research more speculative green stocks, while still knowing that much of my portfolio is producing...

Debra Fiakas, CFA The Waste Hierarchy, with energy from waste highlighted In the last post “Covanta on a Mission to Up-cycle Municipal Waste," I noted that even a group of experts advising Covanta Holding (CVA:  NYSE), has some concerns about the wisdom of channeling municipal waste through mass burn facilities like those of Covanta.  Recycling and reuse are considered even higher uses for municipal waste that result in net lower toxic emissions and net higher energy savings or energy generation.  For example, a report published by...

John Petersen Last week the stock of A123 Systems (AONE) soared 52% in a day after it announced that an enhanced chemistry would improve the cold and hot weather performance of its LiFePO4 batteries, reduce the need for ancillary temperature control systems and make them more competitive in a rapidly evolving micro-hybrid battery market that's dominated by lead-acid battery manufacturers like Johnson Controls (JCI) and Exide Technologies (XIDE). Investors seem to understand that micro-hybrids will generate several billion dollars of incremental annual revenue for battery manufacturers by 2015, but they haven't quite figured out who the winners will...

Tom Konrad CFA Geothermal well photo via Bigstock Ram Power (OTC:RAMPF, TSX:RPG) recently provided an update on progress at its flagship San Jacinto project in Nicaragua.  This was the project where cost overruns and construction delays last year sent the stock plummeting from over C$2 a share to around C$0.50 a share at the start of the year.  The decline has continued, despite the fact that the project seems back on track with the hiring of a new subcontractor, and the stock now trades...

Tom Konrad CFA Offshore Wind Farm photo via Bigstock Wind tower stocks having opposite day, or rather opposite week. When US-based wind power companies won a preliminary injunction to impose countervailing duties  in a trade dispute against China, their stocks fell.  They have continued to fall for the four trading days since the announcement.   In fact, as the chart and table below show, wind tower stocks Trinity Industries (NYSE:TRN) and Broadwind (NASD:BWEN, red) have fallen more than the wind industry stocks as a whole (NYSE:FAN, green) and Siemens AG (NYSE:SI), the German energy...

Jeff Siegel and Tom Konrad June 11: A trade complaint may filed against Chinese solar manufacturers in the EU TK: The EU is still a much larger market than the US, which already has countervailing duties.  China's largest panel makers, will likely shift their focus to China's domestic market while boosting production.  More here. June 12: A123 (AONE) announces battery new technology TK: A123 (NASD:AONE) says their new Nanophosphate EXT technology will allows lithium ion batteries to operate at extreme temperatures, eliminating the need for liquid cooling systems in EVs, and reducing the cost...

John Petersen One of the hardest parts of blogging about energy storage and vehicle electrification is the inability of some readers to wrap their minds around large numbers. We throw around numbers like thousand, million, billion and even trillion with surprising alacrity, but many fail to grasp their significance because the underlying realities are too big to comprehend. The other day I stumbled across a website that tracks the national debt and uses the humble second to put incredibly large numbers into perspective: A thousand seconds is 16.6 minutes; A million seconds is 11.6 days; A...

Tom Konrad CFA Electric Transit Buses Coming to North America   Quayside electric bus in Newcastle. Photo credit: LHOON On June first, New Flyer Industries (TSX:NFI, OTC:NFYEF) unveiled its first all-electric bus prototype. New Flyer is far from the first manufacturer to launch an electric bus.    The first deployment of electric buses on a commercial route was at the end of 2010 in Seoul, using buses developed by Hyundai and Hankuk Fiber. Wikipedia lists twenty manufacturers of electric buses worldwide.  Even in North America, Balqon Corporation (OTC:BLQN), a...

Debra Fiakas, CFA The Waste Hierarchy, with energy from waste highlighted Covanta Energy (CVA:  NYSE) is a champion of renewable energy.  So much so that Covanta commissioned an elaborate sustainability report in 2010, detailing the company’s three-year track record in elevating municipal waste from the landfill to a higher order of use.  Compliant with standards set by the Global Reporting Initiative, the report is full of choice tidbits from Covanta’s municipal waste experience  -  at least through the year 2009. Let’s look at 2009, the last...

Garvin Jabusch Preface: As per my usual, this post is more or less a narrative, and is definitely not math-centric. But, still, nothing quite conveys the stark reality of a thing like its governing equation.  So, two of those found their way in here, but both are short and explained in English. With that, let’s look at why energy is so good. And bad. Any system in nature, including the human economy, is bound by a simple fact: it can only thrive and grow in proportion to the energy inputs it has access to. Energy equals growth. In economic...

Debra Fiakas, CFA The Waste Hierarchy, with energy from waste highlighted The self-styled “energy-from-waste” company Covanta Holding (CVA:  NYSE) turns municipal waste into electricity and recycled metals.  The operations also turned 21.9% of its revenue into cash in 2011.  We note that the conversation ratio has declined over the last three years from 28.7% in 2009 and 27.2% in 2010, but we are still impressed with any cash conversion rate over 20%. The company operates forty-one mass-burn facilities around the U.S. that burn all manner...

Tom Konrad CFA Exide's Sundancer Electric Car.  Photo by Frank Lodge, EPA.  Public Domain NOTE: Since this article was first published, Exide Technologies (NASD:XIDE) stock has risen 22% from $2.31 to $2.82, but much of that rise was due to media confusion about a positive Credit Suisse research report on the unrelated Indian company Exide Industries, Ltd.  Details here. Exide Technologies (NASD:XIDE) is shutting down its battery recycling plant in Frisco, Texas, and selling the surrounding 180...

Tom Konrad CFA Nightmare or business opportunity?  A Lishen-branded Ultracapacitor, with Maxwell electrode.  Photo credit: Wedbush On May 25,  research firm Wedbush released the green stock investor’s worst nightmare.  That is the specter of Chinese competition. Why are solar stocks down 75% (as measured by the Guggenhein Solar ETF, NYSE:TAN) since the start of 2011?  Chinese competition, leading to overcapacity and an industry where most companies are losing money, even on greatly increased volumes. Why are wind stocks down41% (as measured by the First Trust Global...

John Petersen Last week the green car press was abuzz with stories that General Motors (GM) was increasing the electric drive range of the 2013 Chevrolet Volt from 35 miles to 38 miles. The increase is due to better batteries. GM's battery supplier LG Chem (LGCIF.PK) has apparently improved the volumetric energy density of their cells to a point where GM can fit 16.5 kWh of storage into a space that could only accommodate 16 kWh in January 2011. The GM press release also noted "tests have revealed less battery degradation, the ability to withstand temperatures...

Jeff Siegel and Tom Konrad June 4: Public Transit Ridership Rising Sharply The American Public Transportation Association reported Monday that Americans took almost 125 million more rides on public transit in January, February and March than they did in the same period last year an increase of 4.98 percent, the largest since the first quarter of 1999.  The rise was due to a combination of high gas prices and economic growth.  Good news for mass transit stocks, like New Flyer (NFYEF), which just unveiled a battery-electric bus prototype. June 5: World Environment Day TK: ...