• EVs, Batteries and Tales From The Valley of Death  John Petersen worries about Tesla's (TSLA) chance of crossing the Valley of Death as it launches it's "first credible commercial product."
  
• Capstone Turbine Ramps Revenue, Earnings Not So Much Debra Fiakas questions Capstone Turbine (CPST) management's ability to turn rapidly growing revenues into profits.
  
• Are IPOs good for early-stage companies and advanced biofuels? Jim Lane looks at how biofuel IPOs have fared, and compares the results to raising private money.
  
• Natural Gas Liquids are Following Natural Gas Off a Fracking Cliff Tom Konrad looks at how natural gas developers' shift from "lean" to "rich" natural gas plays will affect the market for natural gas liquids (ethane, propane, butane, etc.)
  
• Rentech Retrenches Debra Fiakas CFA looks at Rentech (RTK) and wonders if the company can make its renewables business pay.
  
• Waterfurnace 7 Series vs. Climatemaster Trilogy Geothermal Heat Pumps: The Best of the Best Tom Konrad compares two new variable speed geothermal heat pumps from Waterfurnace (WFIFF) and Climatemaster (LXU).  A comment made him revisit this analysis, and write an even more in-depth look at how well these impressive machines perform.
  
• Musings From The EV Black Knight John Petersen embraces the epithet "The EV Black Knight" and lists the reasons he's skeptical about EVs.
  
• Voices from VODville: Lessons learned in the journey towards advanced biofuels Jim Lane draws lessons from how biofuels companies have negotiated the Valley of Death.
  
• How to Play the Solar Revival Tom Konrad uses a report from GTM Research as the basis for tips on which solar stocks to buy and when.
  
• 11 Clean Energy Stocks for 2012: July Update Tom Konrad looks at what's happened to his eleven annual stock picks in the last month, and what the events mean.
  
• Alterra Power: Cash to Invest Tom Konrad notes that Alterra power has a much stronger balance sheet than many other renewable IPPs, but its valuation does not reflect this.
  
• Special Report on Drought and Biofuels Jim Lane looks at how the drought in much of the US will affect biofuels companies.
  
• Where's Western Wind Energy's Cash Grant? Tom Konrad investigates the fate of Western Wind's delayed 1603 Cash Grant.  A reduced grant has since been awarded (as he predicted), and the company is arguing the case in Wahington for the whole grant to be reinstated.

Also in this email:

• An Actively Managed Green ETF: HECO Tom Konrad looks at the case for active management in a green ETF, and looks at past performance (really!) for the recently launched Huntington EcoLogical Strategy ETF (NYSE:HECO.)

Sorry for any inconvenience the delayed emails caused readers.

Tom Konrad, CFA
Editor, AltEnergyStocks.com

Posted by Tom Konrad at 03:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Due to an ever-increasing flood of comment spam, AltEnergyStocks.com has changed how the comments work.  If you would like to comment in the future, you will need to register with an email address, or OpenID.  Most likely you are familiar with this procedure from other blogs.  After you've first registered, you will be able to sign in and comment.

One other change is that comments will now appear immediately, and you will no longer have to wait for us to manually approve your comments. 

Feel free to test this procedure in the comments on this entry.  If you have any problems, please let us know by email.  Our contact information is available on the Contact page.

Posted by Tom Konrad at 01:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Tom Konrad, Ph.D.

I've been writing for AltEnergyStocks for over two years now, but it has not always been about stock market investing.  Often, it is about my other passion, energy policy and economics.  While this can inform stock market investing, I have come to believe that many people who come to a site called AltEnergyStocks, are probably more interested in investing-focused fare.

Because of this, I've been writing less about policy and economics than I would if I were writing for a more policy- or economics-focused blog.  Since I'm not about to give up my either my interest in policy or my interest in investing, I thought it was time for each to have its own place.

The new place for my policy articles will be my new Clean Energy Wonk blog.  When those articles will usefully inform my stock market articles, I will continue to link to them from here, and vice versa.

My first original article for Clean Policy Wonk has now been published.  It is an in-depth look at what Energy Return on Investment (EROI) and Energy Internal Rate of Return (EIRR) can tell us about how to make the transition away from fossil fuels.  

If you'd like to continue to read my wonkish policy and economics articles, please look for them there.  Otherwise, you'll still see the occasional link to them in investing articles here.

Quick Polls:

Posted by Tom Konrad at 11:33 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

Tom Konrad, Ph.D., CFA

I first met David Gold when he agreed (at the last minute) to sit on a lunchtime panel about Financing Renewable Energy I organized for the Colorado CFA Society in April. When he emailed an announcement in September that he was starting Green Gold Blog, I immediately signed up, because I expected he'd have something interesting to say.  

I also know that what's relevant for Venture Capitalists is often relevant for public investors.  For instance, doesn't his recent article on VC cleantech investment trends have some almost eerie similarities to my article about why small investors by solar stocks? And both have similar lessons for investors: there's probably a lot of opportunity that others are not looking at because they either don't have the right background or perspective to see the opportunities.

I put together a quick graph showing the Venture Capital (VC) investment numbers from David's article, and compared them with the numbers of public companies on our corresponding stock lists.

The parallel is very tight except in Geothermal and Energy Efficiency.  And I think the parallels would be a lot closer if not for the fact that I and AltEnergyStocks' Editor Charles Morand share an interest in Geothermal, and it's fair to say that I'm obsessed with Energy Efficiency as an investment theme.  In other words, the length of our geothermal and energy efficiency stocks lists probably has more to do with our interests than the number of companies out there.

The question David and I are both asking is this: Does the size of current investment in Cleantech/Green Energy sectors relate more to the size of the opportunity, or more to the predilections of the investors?

I hope readers find David's articles as engaging and provocative as I do, and that you look forward with me to more.  We expect to publish something from David about twice a month going forward.

DISCLOSURE: None.

DISCLAIMER: The information and trades provided here and in the comments are for informational purposes only and are not a solicitation to buy or sell any of these securities. Investing involves substantial risk and you should evaluate your own risk levels before you make any investment. Past results are not an indication of future performance. Please take the time to read the full disclaimer here.

Posted by Tom Konrad at 05:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

Results from our survey of readers.

Thanks to everyone who participated in our reader survey last week.  Our randomly selected winner has been notified by email, and the book has been mailed.  

Most valuable to us were the comments, and we appreciate the overwhelming encouragement from the vast majority of commenters.  But we're realistic enough to know we can always improve the reader experience.

What You Said

Here are a few ideas I plan to act on:

• Tom, the stocks that you cover range from solid established companies, to pie in the sky speculative ones. I think it's important to make those distinctions clear to your readers, like J P does.
• Tom could tell us even more often when he sells a stock or changes his opinion of one he has endorsed here in the past. (For this, readers should follow us on Twitter. I don't always have time to post an article, but I'll try to put some more alerts on Twitter.)
• A request - please do not start to charge for this service. (We don't have any plans to charge.  Rather, we are looking for ideas to attract more readers and advertisers.)
• More info about stocks to avoid and why. (See Thursday's article on shorting the least green large companies.)

And here are a few things we're discussing as a team:

• More support for entry level investors (maybe a glossary of terms, or a quick guide to how and where to look for relevant company information, etc)
• it […] would be useful to have sector by sector analyses or a section on the technology behind each sector
• Being a beginning level investor, I sometimes am overwhelmed with the wealth of knowledge here. Sometimes a bit more simplification or layman's terms would help. 
• Maybe a chart showing RE/EE stock performance over long periods.

We will not be able to implement all these quickly, but we hope you like what you see as we make changes over time.

Topics and Authors

We also understand from your comments that some readers would prefer if particular writers covered a wider range of topics, or feel that those writers have little useful left to say on a particular subject.  We hope that the author's name in italics at the beginning of the article, along with the title of the article, will allow readers sufficient information to skip such topics and/or authors altogether.

Demographics

We asked several questions about you, and we're pleased to know you're a well educated, financially savvy group.  You're also somewhat more mature than the standard internet crowd; I was surprised that we didn't get any responses from readers under 21.  That's perhaps a bit early to start worrying about stock market investments, but I thought we might have a few young readers because they almost universally understand the need to tackle climate change.

AltEnergyStocks.com readers are also very well educated, with a majority having at least a college education.  A good 10% of our readers also have investment management credentials, either a securities license or one of the well-recognized investment professional designations.

I consider it a mark of distinction that both individual investors and professional money managers find the site useful, including the 10% who manage over $1 million, with a few in the tens and hundreds of millions.  

A few respondents claimed to manage over $500 million, but I threw these in with the "no response" answers because 1) they all claimed to only manage money for themselves and 2) they actually gave us their contact information.  This seemed more characteristic of a reader with a sense of humor than a reader who might make it onto a "rich" list.

The other responses above $50M all came from people who manage money professionally.

Use of Your Information

A few readers were concerned about how we might use the mailing and email addresses we collected.  Our intent was only to use those for the contest, and to follow up with readers on their comments as necessary.  One reader suggested that we only collect emails, and ask the winner of the book for a mailing address after we had determined the winner.  This is a good suggestion, and we intend to follow that procedure in the future.

Once again, thanks for your time.  We're still getting a few responses trickling in even though PollDaddy said they'd only give us 100 responses, so please give it a try if you'd like to give us some feedback or add your numbers to the statistical stew.

Tom Konrad, and the AltEnergyStocks.com Team

Posted by Tom Konrad at 04:44 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

In order to improve AltEnergyStocks.com, we're trying to get to know our readers better. We've put together a short survey, and in order to make it worth your time to tell us about yourself and how we can improve the site, we're offering an incentive.  One respondent will win a copy of Investment Opportunities for a Low Carbon World, of which Charles has reviewed the Wind and Solar and Efficiency and Geothermal chapters so far.

Please take a few minutes to complete our short reader survey.

Thanks!

The AltEnergyStocks.com Team

Note: This contest will end when we reach our 100-response monthly quota on PollDaddy, which we expect to happen sometime on 9/20/09.  If you didn't get a chance to respond, we encourage you to leave your ideas for site improvement in the comments section, or you can return when our monthly quota is reset on 9/26/09.  Thanks to all of you who have responded; the winner will be announced soon.

Posted by Tom Konrad at 12:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

As most of you noticed, John L. Petersen recently joined AltEnergyStocks.com as a Contributing Editor. John brings a wealth of experience from years working as a corporate lawyer with growth-focused companies. His expertise in energy storage technologies has made him one of the best bloggers on this topic there is. We were thrilled to see how engaged you all got with his articles on long-range EVs and lithium-ion batteries, and we look forward to more top-quality material by John and insightful comments by you!

For those who missed it, here is John's bio:

John L. Petersen, Esq. is a U.S. lawyer based in Switzerland who works as a partner in the law firm of Fefer Petersen & Cie and represents North American, European and Asian clients, principally in the energy and alternative energy sectors. His international practice is limited to corporate securities and small company finance, where he focuses on guiding small growth-oriented companies through the corporate finance process, beginning with seed stage private placements, continuing through growth stage private financing and concluding with a reverse merger or public offering. Mr. Petersen is a 1979 graduate of the Notre Dame Law School and a 1976 graduate of Arizona State University. He was admitted to the Texas Bar Association in 1980 and licensed to practice as a CPA in 1981. From January 2004 through January 2008, he was securities counsel for and a director of Axion Power International, Inc. a small public company involved in advanced lead-acid battery research and development.

Posted by Charles Morand at 10:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I'm pleased to announce some significant changes on AltEnergyStocks.com: we have a new stocks page up as well as stock category pages and company pages.

Our new stocks page is a gateway to the new site changes. In addition to our list of stocks, we've added links to the major stock categories at the top of the stocks page to let you navigate to specific categories you're interested in.

Our new solar page is an example of our stock category pages. The solar page contains a list of solar stocks and an abbreviated stock quote for those companies. If you click on a company name in the solar stock list, you will be taken to a page specifically for that company. The solar page also contains solar news headlines pertaining to the solar industry and solar investing. The full list of stock categories can be found on our main stocks page - the more popular stock categories can be found in the top navigation of our site which appears on every page.

The Ascent Solar is an example of a company page. Here you will find a more detailed stock quote for the company and news headlines for Ascent Solar.

We've also given our Cleantech News page a new look and made the headlines easier to scan. On this page, you'll find the news healines pertaining to cleantech as a whole. If you've not signed up by RSS or email to our Cleantech News, this is a great way for the headlines in the cleantech world to be brought to you - you'll find a subscription link at the bottom of the headlines.

Over time, we will be expanding the features of these pages and improving upon their usefulness. As alway, we welcome your feedback and suggestions.

Posted by Brian Gomes at 09:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (6)

I spent most of May studying for the third CFA Exam, and did little writing.  I now feel prepared for the exam (which is this Saturday.) I expect to be posting regularly again the following week.  Until then, here are a few items I would have mentioned if I had not been focusing on studying.

• An Article: BC Business writer Jeannie Mitchell interviewed me early this spring for an in-depth article looking at Canadian Cleantech firms, published here. I own stock in three of the companies profiled: Xantrex (TSX:XTX or XARXF.PK), VRB Power (TSE:VRB.V or VRBPF.PK), and Carmanah Technologies (CMHXF.pk or TSE:CMH).
• A Presentation: I've uploaded my presentation from the NREL seminar.  It's available here.
• A Favor: I'm looking for a CFA Institute member from Colorado to sponsor me to join the CFA Institute as a regular member (this is separate from passing the exams.)  Since you'll need to say that my work has direct application to investment management, I thought a reader would be a good person to ask. My email is available on the AltEnergyStocks About page (sorry no direct email link... too much spam) or you can call me at 303 748 0209.

I'm looking forward to getting back to writing next week.  Thanks to Charles (who just entered the CFA program himself.) for all his great posts in May.  I expect I'll be filling in for him this November.

Tom Konrad

Posted by Tom Konrad at 08:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Readers have probably noticed my less than consistent posting for the last couple of weeks.  I'm afraid that this is only going to get worse for the next month and a half... I'm currently studying for the third CFA® Exam, and I have much more to do than I had hoped I would at this point.   I may or may not post again before the exam (June 7th,) and if I do it will probably be short.  Charles has agreed to pick up most of the slack in May, as he did last week.

To those of you who have emailed me looking for advice or networking, I'm never very good responding to email (When it comes to advice, I try to respond to comments on the blog rather than email... people who want free advice should be willing to share.)  If I have not gotten back to anyone, it's not personal.

NREL Presentation

A couple months ago, I agreed (against my better judgment) to do an investing presentation as part of an event at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory.  So if you have a burning question (and live near Golden), I plan to leave a good amount of time for Q&A.  The event will be May 10 from 9am to 1pm, "Consumer Power for the 21st Century."  Details are available on NREL's Events page.  I'll present a version of my Investing in Renewable Energy presentation, with updates for current market conditions and some of my more recent thinking on peak oil.  Also presenting will be Wade O. Troxell, Ph.D, on smart grid applications.  Since smart grid is one of my favorite investing themes, I'll be interested to hear what he has to say.

DISCLAIMER: Although the CFA® charter is a well respected designation, you have to wonder about the sanity of someone who voluntarily decides to go through the process, and even enjoys it.  Therefore, everything Tom Konrad says or writes should be taken with a grain of salt: He's obviously nuts (and probably sleep-deprived, to boot.)

Posted by Tom Konrad at 12:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Many readers write me with questions relating to my articles.  At first, I would respond directly, but eventually the calls on my time became too great.  I instituted a policy: I would respond to comments on the blog, but would redirect people emailing me to put there comments there, allowing me to answer many readers' questions at the same time.

In that spirit, here are some recent questions from readers others may find useful as well.

Questions about My Reasoning:

1. Why are so many greens against Fuel Cell Vehicles? (On 10 Most Blogged Cleantech Stories of 2007)
2. Can you cite rigourous sources for your assertion that non financial benefits are much larger than the financial benefits of energy efficiency? (On The Value of Energy Efficiency)
3. How can you call GE and Sharp "Green"? (On Give the Gift of A Green Future)

Questions about Which Stocks to Buy and How:

1. How do I invest in CSP? (On Structured Leveraged Concentrating Solar Power)
2. What is the investment timeframe for these stocks? (On Ten Alternative Energy Speculations for 2008)
3. Can you rank these in terms of which are the best bets? (On Ten Alternative Energy Speculations for 2008)

4. Are there any mutual funds which contain these stocks? (On Our Blue Chip Alternative Energy Stock List)

Other Questions about Stocks:

1. How much of each of these are in your own portfolio? (On Our Blue Chip Alternative Energy Stock List)

Thanks to everyone who commented or asked a stimulating question.  Keep them coming!

DISCLAIMER: The information and trades provided here and in the comments are for informational purposes only and are not a solicitation to buy or sell any of these securities. Investing involves substantial risk and you should evaluate your own risk levels before you make any investment. Past results are not an indication of future performance. Please take the time to read the full disclaimer here.

Posted by Tom Konrad at 03:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The AltEnergyStocks.com team would like to thank all of our readers for a great 2007 and wish you all a happy and prosperous 2008.

Our New Year resolution is to continue delivering top-quality content that we hope you will find valuable.

On behalf of Brian, Tom and myself, Happy New Year!!

Posted by Charles Morand at 10:11 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

For the holiday season, we at Alternative Energy Stocks are taking the opportunity to wrap up the year with musical review...

In the twelve months of 2007, Alternative Energy Stocks gave to me, 
Twelve(ish) transportation fuels compared, 
Ten (and a Bonus) Insights into Greenhouse Gas Regulation,
Ten Thouseand Cellulosic Miles per Acre, 
Nine Solar applications, 
Eight Barriers to Energy Efficiency, 
Seven new developments in Geothermal Power, 
Six weaknesses of number-crunching money managers, 
Five Sustainable Companies for Gifts, 
Four Ways to Avoid Being a Sucker, 
Three Dictators to Bribe with Renewable Energy, 
Two Independent Power Producers,
And Cleantech News and Email Updates! 

Happy holidays, and thanks to all our readers and commenters for a wonderful year!

Posted by Tom Konrad at 08:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Email Updates: Finally!

A quick note to inform our readers that AltEnergyStocks.com has recently implemented an email service for the blog part of the website. To receive email updates when new articles are posted, simply scroll down to 'Subscribe to this Blog' on the right-hand side on the homepage and enter your email address in the appropriate field.

We will not share your email address with any third party, nor will we use it to send you anything more than updates. This is something many of you have asked about in the past so we are thrilled to finally be able to bring it to you.

Cleantech News: You Won't Find Anything Like It

I also want to take this opportunity to remind our readers of our great Cleantech News (CTN) service. CTN continually scans our extensive and growing list of cleantech feeds and ranks articles based on a number of criteria including how recent they are and how much they are being linked or referred to by other sites.

This is a great way to keep abreast of what is happening in the global cleantech blogoshpere, and to get of sense of what people are talking about and linking to. Unfortunately, given the potential volume, we will not be implementing an email update service for CTN. You can, however, register for it in your RSS reader.

Posted by Charles Morand at 01:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

A quick note to inform our readers that I recently changed my email address due to vastly increased levels of spam in the last few months. My new email address is:

Should you wish to include my contact information on your website, I would like to ask that you please use a format that does not make it easy for robots to read email addresses. We use images at AltEnergyStocks.com - this is one of the most effective ways.

I will be checking my old email address for another month, after which we will discontinue it permanently.

Best,

Charles

Posted by Charles Morand at 07:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

In June, we launched CleanTech News which generates the top headlines in the cleantech world by automatically by scanning over 240 cleantech blogs and news sources. Today we are launching an RSS feed for CleanTech News. The aim of this feed is to allow you to track what is happening in the cleantech world through a single feed.

Tom and Charles have been using the CleanTech News feed for some time and they have also been providing feedback which has been used to improve the application that generates CleanTech News. Both Tom and Charles, who are voraciaous consumers of cleantech information, have found CleanTech News to be very useful. We are confident that you will agree and encourage you to sign up for CleanTech News and give it a try.

We are also now using the FeedBurner service to distribute and track the RSS feed for Alt Energy Stocks. If you are currently following our site through RSS, please take a moment to switch over to the new feed at Alt Energy Stocks. Feedburner will give us aggregate information about our subscribers and readership and this will help us better serve your needs. Your old feed may work for sometime, but we will likely discontinue those feeds at some point so we do encourage you to switch over now.

As always, we welcome your comments and feedback.

Posted by Brian Gomes at 10:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I am very pleased to announce the launch of cleantech news which is the first phase of an ambitious plan to create a cleantech information community.

The cleantech news page consists of news items that are generated automatically by scanning over 200 cleantech blogs and news sources. The algorithm that is used to establish relevance and determine ranking currently takes three main criteria into account: 1) what other bloggers are saying about a news item, 2) how users across the Internet prefer a news item (which we call 'social popularity'), 3) the 'freshness' or age of the article. Over time, the algorithm will evolve and become smarter as it incorporates new criteria, some of which is discussed below in "What's Next?".

When we set out to build the application, we were not sure what we would get. I am very pleased to say that the quality of the cleantech news is better than I had expected. Of course, you are the real judge of that and we welcome your comments and feedback.

Please note that the Alt Energy Stocks blog will continue to be focused on investing in cleantech. At this time, the clean tech news page will have a broader, more general focus on cleantech.

How To Get on CleanTech News
If you have a blog or news source that you would like to appear on the cleantech news page, the first step is to make sure your RSS¹ feed is added to our list of clean tech feeds. We have done a good job seeding the list with many clean tech feeds but we are sure that we are missing other quality sources of information. To add a feed, you will need to register - of course, registration is free. We accept all feeds that relate to some aspect of clean technology. We often get requests for links and this is a good way of getting a link from our site. All feeds accepted will appear in our list of feeds.

The listing of a feed does not ensure that stories will make it to the cleantech news page - that is determined by the algorithm. Writing good content that is engaging to the cleantech blogosphere is the best way of being featured on the cleantech news page. Providing insight and coverage of other important news items in the clean tech blogosphere will also help.

What's Next?
Cleantech news is the first step in creating a cleantech information community. When I use the term cleantech information community, I use it to describe an online community built around cleantech news and information that allows for participation, sharing, discussion and networking.

Here are some of the features that will be added to the current cleantech news that we hope will help us to grow into a vibrant cleantech community:

Additional Categories - At this time, we have a general category for 'cleantech news'. We will be adding categories for the many areas of cleantech, categories such as: climate change, ethanol, solar power, biofuels, wind, geothermal etc. These categories will contain news that only pertains to that topic; this will make it easier for you to focus on the particular aspects of cleantech that you are interested in. A bit farther down the road, we also plan on tracking specific companies and ticker symbols in this way.

RSS Feeds - Each category will offer an RSS feed of its news items to make information tracking easier.

User Submission - Users will be able to submit stories directly. We will also continue to automatically scan the blogosphere for important cleantech news.

User Voting - Users will be given the opportunity to vote on news items. Voting gives users a direct method of influencing what we read - this makes the news smarter as we harness the collective wisdom of our users.

User Comments - Users will be able to comment on the news; sometimes the comments are better than the news itself. Users will be able to comment on a specific new item or they will be able to comment on all the news for the day in a category. Commenting on the news for the day provides an opportunity for the news to be summarized.

Focus on Users - A community is built of people and any good community should highlight the people in that community. Our pages will designed to spotlight the participation and contribution of each category’s top users. A category is made richer and more valuable if we can quickly identify the experts in that category. User profiles allow users to let the community know who they are and what affiliations they have in the cleantech community. We hope this will encourage networking and interaction directly between users.

Focus on Information - In addition to every category page identifying the top users, category pages will also identify the top news items over the last year and the top websites for that category.

Feedback - We are committed to making the community better by listening to your feedback and suggestions. The community pages will provide unobtrusive ways for you to tell us what you think. We will use that information to improve the community.

We are excited about these changes and the road ahead. We welcome and appreciate your feedback on clean tech news.

¹RSS (Really Simple Syndication/Rich Site Summary) is a format for delivering regularly changing web content. Many news-related sites, weblogs and other online publishers syndicate their content as an RSS feed to make it easier for their users to follow changing content. More on RSS and web feeds.

Posted by Brian Gomes at 02:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

I am happy to announce that Tom Konrad has joined Alt Energy Stocks as an Editor. You may already be familiar with Tom's writing at EE/RE Investing and his professional services at TomKonrad.com.

Tom Konrad is an independent investment advisor and financial analyst specializing in renewable energy and energy efficiency companies. He has a Ph.D. in mathematics from Purdue University, and is a level II candidate for the Chartered Financial Analyst designation. He serves as Treasurer for both the Colorado Renewable Energy Society and Ratepayers United Colorado.

In the short time Tom has been with us, he has has produced two excellent pieces - one on biodiesel and the other on renewable energy income trusts. These posts demonstrate the wealth of his experience, knowledge and insight.

We are glad to have him join us as an editor and we look forward to sharing more of his work with you.

Posted by Brian Gomes at 09:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I want to share with you some of the positive developments we have had here at AltEnergyStocks over the last few months and give you and idea of where things are going for us.

The changes we have seen are the result of Charles Morand and the quality content he has been delivering. Charles' informative and insightful pieces have increased our readership and given us a lot of attention from the cleantech community. Each week, we receive communications that commend us for our stories, seek partnerships, inquire about our media availability, or bring news and information to our attention. These communications tell us that our voice is being heard, our message is valued, and that we are headed in the right direction. Thanks for your feedback and emails, we love hearing with you think, and it is important for us to set a course for the site.

In addition to Charles' contributions, we also appreciate the detailed and insightful posts of Neal Dikeman at Cleantech Blog.

Our blog posts are increasingly being syndicated by Seeking Alpha and Yahoo Finance and mentioned by TheStreet.com . You may notice that we are now Seeking Alpha Gold Certified and display their logo in our right hand navigation.

More Quality Content - Editors Wanted
Our goal is to grow and expand the delivery of quality content and we are looking for one or more editors to help us with that. We are looking for people who are passionate about cleantech and alternative energy and who have solid writing skills. While we are open to a variety of backgrounds, we could really use someone with a trading background to give us the short term perspective on investing in alternative energy and clean technologies.

Sales Help Wanted
We are also looking for sales help to grow the site. As you may have noticed, we are offering Featured Company advertising. As I am spending my time on software development and Charles is busy with content development, promoting Featured Company advertising is something we have not devoted time to. Promoting featured company advertising is ideally suited to someone with an understanding of both internet advertising sales and the cleantech industry.

Please contact us for more information about becoming a writer for AltEnergyStocks or assisting us with advertising sales.

Automated News Gathering
In my first post here at AltEnergyStocks, I had mentioned a system of automated news gathering which brings together and organizes content from other cleantech and investment sites and blogs. This system is still to be implemented but has taken longer than expected. Unfortunately, the time lines I had set out in that post were not reached. Rather than set new time lines for this, I will just say that we are working on it and will try and get something out as soon as possible.

I hope this gives you an idea of what has transpired here recently and the direction we are headed. Your feedback is welcome and appreciated as always.

Posted by Brian Gomes at 05:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I am pleased to announce that we are now offering "Featured Company" advertising for companies who would like to deliver their message to our website visitors. Featured company advertising is described in detail on our advertising page.

Here is a summary of the service. A Featured Company will get a listing on our featured company page . This listing will include a business description which will have website links as well as contact information including investor relations contacts. At the top right of corner of every content page on our site, the featured company will also get a link to their website.

A featured company will have the option to provide us with material that will be posted to our website as a "special information supplement". One special information supplement is granted for each 3-month period of advertising. A featured company will also have the option of having one of our editors conduct an email interview with company executives. The interview will be posted to our blog and it is intended to help communicate the company's message and progress. One interview will be granted at sign up, followed by one interview with every six months of advertising.

We are only accepting companies that relate to alternative energy, clean tech, or investing. This will ensure that advertising is pertinent to our readers and this will also make the advertising most effective.

Featured Company advertising is sold on a fixed-rate, flat monthly fee. This makes it easier for advertisers and for us as there is no need to keep track of 'page impressions' or worry about 'invalid clicks'. Advertising rates at the launch of this service are being offered at a discounted rate and this is a great opportunity to take advantage of these 'charter rates'.

To sign up as a featured company or for more information including current pricing, please contact me as follows:

brian @ altenergystocks.com
Phone: 905-456-8442

We believe this a great way to allow companies to deliver their message to our visitors without compromising the integrity of our site. Advertising dollars will help us to put money back into the site to add features and deliver quality content.

We welcome all comments and questions.

Posted by Brian Gomes at 11:09 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

This post is long overdue.

In my first post at Alt Energy Stocks a couple of months ago, I mentioned that I would be looking to bring on other editors to help deliver high quality content. I am happy to give you this (belated) announcement that Charles Morand has become the Editor-in-Chief for the site and Neal Dikeman has joined us as a Contributing Editor.

About Charles Morand
Charles Morand is someone whose passion and hobby is alternative energy, clean tech and carbon trading. Charles is a big picture thinker who provides not only news and perspectives, but deep and valuable insight on the future and direction of cleantech. He is well read, well connected and he has many bright ideas for the site. I look forward to working with him to make the site stronger and more useful.

About Neal Dikeman
Neal Dikeman is the founder of Clean Tech Blog and a founding partner of Jane Capital Partners LLC, a merchant bank focused on energy and environmental technologies. Neal's bio at Jane Capital will give you an idea of the breadth and depth of his business and management experience. Neal's blog is packed with excellent commentary and analysis in cleantech from Neal and a handful of experienced contributors. I strongly encourage you to check out the Clean Tech Blog if you have not yet had a chance to do so. Neal has shown us first hand the quality of his writing and knowledge with his post on the ethanol sector. We look forward to more insightful industry sector columns from Neal.

I am very pleased to have both Charles and Neal writing for us. So what does that mean for me? I won't be doing much blogging but I will be helping develop the site by adding features, helping shape content, and giving the site direction. Having these two excellent bloggers on board certainly makes my job of developing the site a lot easier.

Thanks Charles and Neal for joining the site and I look forward to working with the both of you.

Posted by Brian Gomes at 02:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I am pleased to announce that Alt Energy Stocks has changed ownership. Alt Energy Stocks was acquired from MDA Holdings by 2043835 Ontario Limited. Mark Anderson, the previous editor, did a great job of making Alt Energy Stocks a valuable resource for investors in alternative energy. Unfortunately, in the last few months, other commitments prevented Mark from putting in the in the time the website needed. And that is why the website has come under new hands.

I, Brian Gomes, will be the new editor and blogger for Alt Energy Stocks and I am looking forward to making this website the premier destination for alterative energy investors. I know that if your needs are served, this will happen.

The site will continue to be devoted to providing information on alternative energy investing. The changes that are planned for the site are aimed at improving the information that the site delivers.

Starting to Blog
I am going to start by getting myself acquainted with the alternative energy community. I have subscribed to a number of feeds and will be monitoring them on a regular basis. I plan on sharing with you interesting things I come across and I will also be giving you own perspective on alternative energy and the investing landscape.

Research Articles for Alternative Energy
I am also planning a series of research articles that will be summaries for alternative energy topics such as: Ethanol, Fuel Cells, Solar, Wind etc. For each technology, the articles would provide information such as:

• a brief explanation of what the technology is and how it works
• benefits of the technology
• the state of the current technology
• the types of products and services currently being developed and their current usage levels
• risks for the adoption of the technology
• the leading companies (and the associated stocks) that are developing this technology

This will help bring me up to speed on where the industry is at and I hope you find them useful as well. You will likely see a few 'regular' blog posts before I can get to these research articles.

Automated Alternate Energy News Gathering
Longer term, we are also developing some software for the site that will provide an automated system of gathering and organizing the most relevant alternative energy investing news from around the web. This system will scan many of the blogs and news sources you may be reading and others you many not be familiar with to bring you the most important news.

Snippets of stories will be displayed on the site and a link will lead you to the full article where the story is located. We think this will be a great time saver that will point you to important news affecting alternative energy investing. If all goes according to plan, this should be in place before the end of 2006.

Other Editors and Bloggers
I am also looking at adding other editors in addition to myself. This would mean more frequent posting to the blog and posts from a different perspectives as well. I am in the process of looking for editors but if you or someone you know is interested in writing for us, please let us know.

This is what we have in mind but it is really your feedback will really help to make the site better. Please tell us what types of things you would like to see on the site.

I hope this gives you an idea of what you can expect from Alt Energy Stocks in the coming months. Please share your thoughts on the changes planned.

Posted by Brian Gomes at 02:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

AltEnergyStocks.com is a website resource which, along with its related publications and other services (collectively, the "Website"), is edited and written by Mark Anderson, published by MDA Holdings LLC, and offered to the general public for informational purposes only and is presented as is and without warranty.

Website visitors will receive the benefit of Mark Anderson's commentary, analysis, opinions, advice and recommendations. The Website is impersonal and does not provide individualized advice or recommendations for any specific visitor or portfolio.

The Editor hereby discloses that on the respective dates set forth below the Editor, directly or indirectly, owned the following securities which are the subject of the commentary, analysis, opinions, advice, or recommendations in, or which are otherwise mentioned on the Website.

Securities Owned (Ticker)

Compensation:

1. Amazon.com Affiliate Program
2. Google AdWords Program

Unless otherwise indicated above, all of these shares were acquired in market transactions. The Editor receives no direct or indirect compensation from any of the companies that are mentioned on the Website unless otherwise indicated above.

The Editor has agreed not to buy or sell any of the above-listed securities within a minimum period of five trading days before or after making any new recommendation, or changing their published recommendation, regarding these securities on the Website (calculated from the date the Website featuring such recommendation is first posted on www.altenergystocks.com . After the expiration of this period of five trading days, the Editor may hold, buy or sell such securities, and may cease to own any of the securities listed above. Since the Editor's personal investing goals and risk tolerance may be different from those discussed in the Website and/or circumstances may have changed by the expiration of the five day restricted period, the investment actions taken by the editor in the accounts the Editor directly or indirectly owns may vary from (and may even be contrary to) the advice and recommendations on the Website.

Investing involves substantial risk. Neither the Editor, the publisher, nor any of their respective affiliates make any guarantee or other promise as to any results that may be obtained from using the Website. While past performance may be analyzed in the Website, past performance should not be considered indicative of future performance. No visitor should make any investment decision without first consulting his or her own personal financial advisor and conducting his or her own research and due diligence, including carefully reviewing the prospectus and other public filings of the issuer. To the maximum extent permitted by law, the Editor, the publisher and their respective affiliates disclaim any and all liability in the event any information, commentary, analysis, opinions, advice and/or recommendations on the Website prove to be inaccurate, incomplete or unreliable, or result in any investment or other losses.

The Website's commentary, analysis, opinions, advice and recommendations represent the personal and subjective views of the Editor, and are subject to change at any time without notice.

The information provided on the Website is obtained from sources which the Editor believes to be reliable. However, the Editor has not independently verified or otherwise investigated all such information. Neither the Editor, the publisher, nor any of their respective affiliates guarantees the accuracy or completeness of any such information.

The Website is not a solicitation or offer to buy or sell any securities.

Vistitors may submit questions to the Editor by e-mail to manderson@altenergystocks.com. However, since the Website is impersonal and does not provide individualized advice for specific visitors, the Editor can only answer questions of a general nature about the markets or specific securities. The Editor will make every effort to answer visitor questions on the Website (www.altenergystocks.com).

Neither the Editor, the publisher, nor any of their respective affiliates is responsible for any errors or omissions on the Website.

Last updated: 11/10/2004

Posted by Mark Anderson at 02:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

AltEnergyStocks.com is a comprehensive web resource that is provided for visitors that are interested in investing in alternative energy companies. Alternative energy companies are companies that either directly produce, or provide components or services to producers of energy that utilize renewable resources.

This site is edited and written by Mark Anderson. Mark has been in the Information Technology sector for over 20 years and has been hosting and running investment websites for over 10 years. He is an accomplished investor and stock trader and has recently turned his eye towards the Alternative Energy sector.

The goal for this website is to become the number one resource for investors that are looking to invest in Alternative Energy Stocks. We would also like to point out that we, don't know everything about investing or Alternative Energy. So with that in mind, we would love to have all visitors to take part in the intelligence gathering process so that we can strive to meet our website goals. As Dan Gillmor said at a recent conference on Open Source Journalism, "My readers know more that I do. Its true for all journalists. It's not scary, It's an opportunity." This concept of distributed research and fact checking can be a very valuable resource for your investment due diligence process.

The best way to participate is to use the comments link that is associated with every article. Every comment builds to increase the investable intelligence and also the worth of this website.

The website is divided into the following 3 main sections.

1. Resources: The resources section gives you a wealth of background information on the various technologies and growing trends in the alternative energy marketplace.
2. Sectors: This section talks about the various sectors and stocks that we follow. Currently we are only following stocks that are traded on exchanges in the United States. We do have plans to expand the coverage to the world wide stock market eventually. The companies and sectors that are represented here should have an exposure or division that is trying to capitalize on renewable energy. These companies can use one or many of the following methodologies to produce renewable energy: Wind, Solar, Hydrogen/Fuel Cell, Water, Geothermal, and Biomass.
   
   We will also be looking at the vendors and sub-contractors that provide key resources or materials to these companies. An example of this type of company is one that can specialize in storage systems, battery technology, or a basic materials producer.
   
   Finally, we will keep an eye out for future companies that are looking for future power generation techniques or systems. Cold fusion would be an example.
3. News: As we stated above, the goal for this website is be the number one resource for investors looking to invest in alternative energy companies and technology. The news section will be updated daily with news articles, research, and investment editorial.

AltEnergyStocks.com was launched in July of 2004 and is owned and operated by MDA Holdings and hosted with MDA Hosting. All editorial that is posted on this website, and links to content on external websites are believed to be true. But due diligence must be followed if you plan on making an investment in any of the companies listed. Please read our Disclosures and Disclaimers page carefully before making any investment decisions.

Advertisers interested in sponsoring AltEnergyStocks.com can contact us at ads@altenergystocks.com.

Posted by Mark Anderson at 01:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)