Books, Reports, Webcasts & Podcasts

Ernst & Young recently released its Q2 2007 Renewable Energy Country Attractiveness Indices . As part of this initiative, E&Y typically publishes three forward-looking indices that rank countries based on their alternative energy investment friendliness. The indices are: the All-renewable Index, the Long-term Wind Index and the Near-term Wind Index (2-year time horizon). This edition of the Renewable Energy Country Attractiveness Indices report also contains a short discussion on supply-chain gluts in the alternative energy space. We have already discussed some of the potential investment opportunities related to...

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,...

Just as I was attending a debate this morning that touched, partly, on the desirability of implementing an emissions trading system to control greenhouse gas emissions, I received an email from Market Watch informing me that they were running a special report on climate change and cleantech investing. The report features a very interesting collection of articles indeed. If you have about 1/2 hour to spare, I would recommend going through all of them. The following topics are covered: a) Global warning and the insurance industry b) Al Gore and David Blood's investment venture c)...

 Bill Paul For investors to benefit fully from the alternative energy revolution, they must first see it for what it is, namely, some 30 different businesses, separate yet interconnected in their goal to reduce the use of oil, coal and/or natural gas and, with it, the emissions these fossil fuels generate. While wind and solar dominate the news, analysts’ research reports, and alternative energy ETFs, there are many other prospective long-term winners receiving far less attention. Some are developing other alternative energy sources, such as geothermal, biomass and biogas, wave and tidal, and algae. Some are...

Greentech Media is hosting a one-hour webinar at 12:00 PM ET Wednesday, September 19th, entitled "The Advance of the Solar PPA: When an Organization is Ready for a Power Purchase Agreement." PPAs are an interesting new area of activity in alternative energy, and definitely something worth understanding for the alt energy investor. For further details and registration, visit Greentech Media's special section for this event.

Charles Morand Tom and I recently received complimentary copies of a new book called "Investment Opportunities for a Low Carbon World", edited FTSE Group's Director of Responsible Investment Will Oulton*.  The book is a compendium of articles by 31 different authors broken down into three main categories: (1) environmental and low-carbon technologies; (2) investment approaches, products and markets; and (3) regulation, incentives, investor and company case studies. While Tom will provide a comprehensive review of the book once he's finished reading it in its entirety, I will instead review a few selected chapters over...

Charles Morand This is the third installment of my review of the book book "Investment Opportunities for a Low Carbon World". The second installment covered geothermal power and energy efficiency and the first installment covered wind and solar. This post reviews three interrelated chapters on the world of cleantech and alt energy indices, funds and ETFs. Two of these three chapters are my favorite in the book so far -  they provide very useful information for the novice investor with an interest in alt energy investing but limited time and knowledge for successful stock picking.  Cleantech...

Thanks to Bill Paul (see below) for the heads up on an interesting video on alt energy geared toward an investor audience. The video is available on Consuelo Mack's Wealthtrack website. Click on "Wealthtrack Video on Demand" on the right-hand side and select the clip dated 01/12/07. It should be under "Current Programs" for a little while longer and will then be moved to "Archive Programs". The video consists of a 25-minute discussion between the anchor and the following 3 guests: Bill Paul, former WSJ reporter and author of the newly-released book "Future Energy: How the New...

Just a quick note to inform our readers that CNBC's On The Money (OTC) will feature a segment tonight on climate change and investment opportunities related to it. OTC airs at 7:00 pm EST. We will provide a recap of this discussion later tonight. UPDATE: I watched CNBC last night at 7pm and the segment did not air. I am not sure if I misheard the date of the segment, or if it was postponed by CNBC for some reason. If I do see or learn of the segment, I will be happy to post on it....

Alt Energy Stocks Analyst Tom Konrad will join a televised roundtable discussion with EnergyTechStocks' Managing Editor Bill Paul and Ardour Global Indexes' Joseph LaCorte this Friday. The discussion will center around the topic of investing in alternative energy. The program, entitled WealthTrack with Consuelo Mack, will air on PBS between November 9th and 12th, after which it will be available for online viewing here.  You can find a listing of stations carrying the show with airtimes at the end of this article. Bill Paul may be familiar to our readers because of the series of articles he wrote following...

Last week, Jefferies & Co. held its Global Clean Technology Conference. Unsurprisingly, the tone wasn't as optimistic as in previous years, with cash and funding worries top of mind. Nearly two months ago, I discussed some tangible signs pointing to looming problems in the industry. However, despite all the gloom, it seems as though several firms (and investors!) are expecting the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act (ARRA) to provide the industry with a lifeline. But will this really be the case? For one thing, the major environmental spending programs in the ARRA are relatively...

Charles Morand On Monday morning, I received an e-copy of a new research note by BofA Merrill Lynch arguing that disclosure by publicly-listed companies on the issue of climate change was becoming increasingly "important". The note claimed: "e believe smart investors and companies will recognize the edge they can gain by understanding low carbon trends." I couldn't agree more with that statement. It was no coincidence that on that same day the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP), a non-profit UK-based organization that surveys public companies each year on the state of their climate change awareness, was...

Charles Morand Last Thursday, I reviewed two chapters from the recently published book "Investment Opportunities for a Low Carbon World"*. This post reviews two more.  Geothermal Energy Alexander Richter, Glitnir Bank (now Íslandsbanki) Geothermal is one of the most interesting forms of clean power generation there is. As noted by the author, the most convincing argument for geothermal electricity is the fact that it operates at capacity factors in the upper 90s. This makes it the only renewable technology suitable for baseload power with the exception of dam-based (i.e. large-scale) hydro. However, as...

The Distributed Energy Financial Group LLC (DEFG) and Market Strategies Inc. (MSI) released, on Wednesday, the results of their Third Annual Alternative Energy Market Survey. This report is based on a online survey of 450 "industry leaders". Unsurprisingly, survey participants remain very bullish on revenue growth in the sector, expecting aggregate revenues to grow by 87% in 2007. That growth, several agree, will continue to be driven in part by strong support by various levels of governments. Some other interesting bits information from the survey: - While energy is forecasted to continue being...

Many of our Canadian readers will have heard about this already, but better later than never. CIBC World Markets, the corporate banking arm of Canadian bank CIBC, made "a significant realignment in equity portfolio this month by reducing position in energy stocks from a 4.5-percentage-point overweight to a 3-percentage-point overweight", citing increasing risks linked to efforts by North American governments to reduce energy consumption and limit greenhouse gas emissions. CIBC WM made the announcement in its latest Canadian Portfolio Strategy Outlook report (PDF document), released on Monday Feb. 5. I decided to discuss this...

Q1 2007 Renewable Energy Country Attractiveness Indices Ernst & Young recently released its Q1 2007 Renewable Energy Country Attractiveness Indices, a series of indices that rank countries on their attractiveness with regards to alternative energy growth and development. These indices provide good yardsticks for investors who want to know which markets offer the best near and long term alt energy growth prospects. The report presents three main indices, whose names are fairly self-explanatory: (1) The All Renewables Index (2) The Long-term Wind Index (>2 years) (3) The Near-term...