Monthly Archives: June 2012

Tom Konrad CFA Goldman Sachs Tower photo via Bigstock Goldman Sachs’ Investment in Green Tech More than any other investment bank, Goldman Sachs (NYSE:GS) is famed for its skill at picking good investments.  Last week, the bank  announced it would invest another $40 billion in green technologies over the next 10 years (or an average of $4 billion a year.)   While this is a drop from the $4.8 billion invested in 2011, the last time Goldman Sachs made a commitment to green tech was 2005....

Jennifer Runyon In part one of this article, we talked with a-Si equipment manufacturer, Oerlikon Solar, which was recently purchased by Tokyo Electric.  Here in part two, we talk with two heavy-hitters in the thin-film solar industry to hear their thoughts about the future of thin-film PV and the future of their technologies.  First Solar (FSLR)– Maker of Cadmium Telluride (CdTe) Thin-film; Developer of Utility-Scale Projects First Solar (FSLR) has robust plans for the future, according to David Erhart, Marketing Communications Manager at the company. Erhart explained that it is First Solar’s “thin-film technology that takes a simple...

John Petersen While the broader market focuses on trivial issues like Asia, the Eurozone and an upcoming presidential election, a small but extremely vocal segment of the car shopping public is breathlessly awaiting the dawn of a new age with the first deliveries Tesla Model S electric cars to customers on June 22nd. The excitement among fervent Tesla Motors (TSLA) acolytes is palpable, but I have to at least ask whether their view of the company's risk-reward profile is rational. Is Tesla a great investment opportunity, or are we witnessing a weird form of transference that...

Jennifer Runyon As the solar PV market goes through its trials and tribulations, thin-film manufacturers could be poised to take on more market share. In the solar electricity market, capitulation, consolidation and contraction are the buzzwords of the day. Today, all solar PV manufacturers face an over-supplied and underfunded PV market. The oversupply and drop in subsidy markets across Europe and the U.S. has forced crystalline silicon manufacturers to sell their PV panels below manufacturing costs or risk losing all market-share. As the weeks tick by, major manufacturers, one after another, are going under or announcing...

Tom Konrad CFA The most efficient way to heat and cool a building just got more efficient. Geothermal heat pump diagram via Bigstock Climatemaster, a division of LSB Industries (NYSE:LXU), recently announced that their new Trilogy 40 geothermal heat pump (GHP) had been certified by the Air Conditioning, Heating, and Refrigeration Institute (AHRI) to exceed 40 Energy Efficiency Ratio (EER) under ground loop conditions. EER is the ratio of effective cooling (heat removed) to the energy used, at maximal load, and is the standard...

Debra Fiakas CFA Many are firmly opposed and a few more are skeptical of the nuclear energy industry.  A big concern is the waste resulting from the uranium enrichment process that is part and parcel of the reactors we have chosen to use for nuclear power generation.  Some see recycling of the waste as an answer.  First a short primer on uranium and then the recycling story. Natural uranium consists of a mixture of three radioactive isotopes which are identified by the mass numbers U-238 (99.27% by mass), U-235 (0.72%) and U-234 (0.0054%).  Uranium is everywhere...

Tom Konrad CFA Performance in May Fear of the disintegration of the Euro resurfaced in May, sending all stocks downward.  Clean energy stocks once again fell more than the market as a whole.  Possible causes are that many clean energy sectors are exposed to further loss of European subsidies, and that clean energy stocks tend to be more volatile than the market as a whole, with both up and down moves being magnified.  The Russell 2000 index (which I use as a broad market benchmark in this series) was down 7.1% in May, the Powershares Wilderhill Clean...

Tom Konrad CFA I was surprised when Lime Energy (NASD:LIME) announced that it was selling a million shares to Richard Kiphart, one of its own directors and its largest shareholder.  Last year, CEO John O’Rourke had told me that Lime  expected to reach profitability without having to raise additional capital. What happened in the meantime? It was the best of Limes, It was the worst of Limes Two things had happened, one bad, one good. The bad was that Lime’s C&I business turned in a particularly weak first quarter, cutting expected profits by a little over $1...

Garvin Jabusch This morning, in the realm of those who follow such things, the world became aware of two newsworthy numbers, 69,000 and 400.  The former number is how many jobs were added to the U.S. economy in May according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS); the latter is how many parts per million (ppm) in our atmosphere are represented by carbon.  You can guess our opinion: 400 parts per million is a far more significant milestone than the apparent ‘bad news’ of America adding 69,000 more jobs. The jobs number is, at best, banal ephemera....

Tom Konrad CFA Power REIT (AMEX:PW) aims to be the first renewable energy infrastructure Real Estate Investment Trust (REIT). The Renewable Energy REIT Renewable energy advocates have been calling for a change in the tax laws to allow renewable energy within the REIT structure.  A REIT is allowed to pass profits directly through to investors.  These profits are not subject to double-taxation like most corporate profits.  Owning shares of a renewable REIT would be much like owning a slice of a wind or solar farm.  This would open up the renewable energy investment opportunity to everyone, not just...

John Petersen Congratulations! You've been appointed Energy Czar for the island of Self Sufficiency; a wonderful place that can satisfy the bulk of its energy needs from domestic resources, but needs to import gasoline for a 10,000-unit automobile fleet that gets replaced at a rate of 1,000 cars a year. The island's battery factory can manufacture 45,000 watt-hours of lithium-ion batteries each year and depending on how they set the machines; the factory can make high-power batteries for HEVs or high-energy batteries for EVs. Your mandate as Energy Czar is to minimize Self Sufficiency's fuel imports and...

Tom Konrad CFA May 29: Chinese City of Hangzou Planning Electric Leasing Program to Include EVs This article in Zhejiang Online does not mention Kandi Technologies (KNDI) by name, but it does say the city of Hangzhou is planning on adding electric cars to its electric vehicle rental system, and the price will be the same as electric bike rentals.  To keep the price and space usage down, Kandi Technologies mini-EVs and Smart Vertical Parking System (described here) seem ideal. What Goldman's $40 billion investment pledge means, and what it doesn't mean. Neste Oil's...