Books, Reports, Webcasts & Podcasts

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 American Council On Renewable Energy (ACORE), the Renewable Energy Resources Committee of the American Bar Association (SEER Section) and the Renewable Energy Committee of the Energy Bar Association are organizing a teleconference on the state of play with climate change regulations across the US. The teleconference is entitled State and Federal Green House Gas Regulation: Current Status, Outlook, and Implications for Renewable Energy (click on the link for details). The good thing about it is that it's only $20 to participate and free if you are a student. (DISCLOSURE: We are not affiliated with, or otherwise...

A quick post to give you the heads up on 2 interesting TV segments that you can watch online. Firstly (and thanks to Mark Reid for this one), Ian Cheshire, CEO of B&Q, Europe's largest home improvement company, on his company's decision to begin producing and selling wind and solar equipment. The segment is about 23 mins long. The interesting thing about this is to hear the CEO of a major global company discuss how he and B&Q see demand for clean products evolve over the next few years. It's a good reminder that it's not only small...

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.

 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...

Allow me to introduce this post by saying that I wholeheartedly welcome the firming of a new trend in North America: namely viewing climate change as a value creation, rather than as a value destruction, proposition. For the better part of the past decade, the climate change debate has been dominated by the the views of a small-yet-powerful collection of business actors with a lot to loose from seeing governments regulate greenhouse gases (GHG). This group, with its tremendous political influence, did everything that it could to stymie meaningful debate on the climate question, tirelessly arguing that moving...

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...

The Economist ran, in its edition for the past week, a series of very interesting articles on the topic of business and climate change called "Cleaning Up: A Survey of Business and Climate Change". To access the articles, go to the Economist's page for that edition and scroll down to the section called A survey of business and climate change (right side of the page). Some of the more interesting articles, from my point of view: 1) Emissions trading 2) The wind and solar industries 3) Clean coal Happy reading!

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...

I recently got around to reading Deutsche Asset Management's (DeAM) note on investing in climate change (PDF document). There is very little original work in this paper. Most of the tables and figures are derived from existing studies by the likes of McKinsey, the IPCC and New Energy Finance, to name a few. The paper synthesizes publicly-available information on cleantech and climate change trends into a broad investment thesis. DeAM sees investment opportunities as falling in two main categories: Adaptation (e.g. water management, disaster control, infrastructure) and Mitigation (renewable energy, clean power gen, energy efficiency). They identify four...