Industry General

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....

Energy in the Great Depression Eamon Keane With the focus on the size of the ECB's balance sheet and eurozone bond auctions, it can be difficult to see the big picture of where this is going. Concerns about oil and climate change have taken a backseat to the foreboding sense of doom. To see the implications for energy it requires a look at the direction of the financial system. In recent times every 40 years or so there has been an upheaval in the monetary system, as Philip Coggan explains in his excellent...

Too Many Brownies Before Dinner "When you feed your kid six brownies before dinner, you can't expect him to eat the salad, no matter how good it is."  So says Leslie Glustrom, a long term renewable energy advocate.  This is her metaphor for why Xcel Energy (NYSE: XEL) has been reluctant to pursue Demand Side Management (DSM) and renewable energy projects in Colorado as they have been in Minnesota.  Because Xcel is currently constructing 500 MW of new coal-fired generation, and they are also interested in a 300-350 MW IGCC plant by 2013, they may have little demand for...

By Harris Roen 2013 is poised to be an exciting year for alternative energy investors. Despite the conflagration solar had in 2012 we see opportunities there, as well as in wind and energy efficiency. This article also reveals why 2013 is shaping up to be a good year for the stock market in general, and alternative energy in particular. ________________________ Solar If 2011 was a bad year for solar, with the bankruptcy of Solyndra, tariff wars with China, and other damaging events, then 2012 was a disaster. The Ardour Solar Energy Index (SOLRX) lost 35% in...

Proposition 87 sure got a lot of attention in the past few months, not least because high-profile venture capitalist (and clean tech enthusiast) Vinod Khosla threw his full weight behind it. Proposition 87 would have created a tax set at between 1.5% and 6% (depending on the price of the barrel of oil) on producers of oil extracted in California, and would have established, with the proceeds, a $4 billion fund to invest in alternative energy. Unfortunately for Khosla and his bunch, California voters defeated Proposition 87 at the ballot box on Tuesday. Unsurprisingly, this had no impact...

It wasn't long ago that people still believed the price of energy commodities - and crude oil in particular - had a greater impact on alt energy stocks than did general movements in equity markets or even fundamental factors. The logic went something like this: even though oil and most of the sub-sectors that make up the broad alt energy space (e.g. solar) are not in direct competition with one-another, expensive oil is the number one driver behind governments searching for alternatives to the way we currently meet our energy needs. For a time, this theory may have...

Eamon Keane Rare Earths 2 Eamon Keane This is Part Two of a three part series based on a rare earth elements (REE) review which is available for download at slideshare, where references can be viewed.  Part 1 is an introduction to REEs. Part 2 analyzes REE consumption and refining and Part 3 looks at how REEs might affect the green economy.  So where do all those REEs go? Figure 8 shows the estimated flows for 2008 . Although Chinese consumption is shown as 60%, this is only for the...

James Montgomery Crowdfunding illustration via Bigstock   The SEC has finally proposed its rules to allow crowd-funding under the Jumpstart Our Business Startups (JOBS) Act. What do they mean for small-scale investments in renewable energy companies and projects? Title III of the JOBS Act created an exemption under securities laws for crowdfunding, which set the table for its regulation by the SEC that was supposed to happen by the end of last year. Two weeks ago the SEC finally issued its proposed rules on crowdfunding (summary...

David Gold As a “gearhead” (engineer) I must admit I truly enjoy looking at all the cool technologies being developed by cleantech companies.  The promise of cleantech hinges, in part, on these innovations.  So it is not surprising that so much focus in the blogosphere and the press is given to the funding and development of these new technologies.  Much like the dot-com buzz in the mid-90s, today we celebrate the amazing innovations that are taking seed. But for cleantech to avoid the fate of synfuels of the ‘70s or that of many of the early...

Tom Konrad CFA US law requires that money managers put their clients’ interests first. Investment advisers and money managers almost universally assume this means that they must try to make as much money for clients as possible. If your job is all about money, this can seem like a natural interpretation. More money is better, right? For others, equating making money to serving clients’ interests seems like a very narrow view of the world. If Tracy is saving for retirement, she obviously wants to have enough money to pay for it. She also wants to be healthy enough...

Oil prices quietly (at least in the cleantech world), slipped below $80 last week, off some 50% from their highs a few months ago. Did I say 50%? Yes 50%. And gas has slipped, too, as with some variations, natural gas historically trades at a roughly 10:1 price ratio of Barrels to MCF. It's easy to get caught up in the cleantech hype and forget that only 10 years ago this year oil prices fell two thirds, caught between rising supply from a decade of drilling and nasty Asian flu, triggered in part by, wait, a financial debt...

I'm not sure whether John Maynard Keynes, the father of Keynesian economics and an ardent proponent of government interventionism during hard economic times, and Rachel Carson, the mother of modern environmentalism and the author whose work is credited for the eventual creation of the EPA, ever met during their lifetimes. But if current voter sentiment holds until November 4, their ideas could soon converge and form the basis of government policy for at least the next four years. Let me explain. First, John Maynard Keynes. There is no doubt that the deliberate and coordinated nationalization of financial services...

Doug Young King Vulture Sarcoramphus papa. Photo by Hein waschefort via Wikimedia Commons. New reports that major car maker Dongfeng Motor (HKEx: 489) is bidding to buy a struggling US hybrid car maker are casting a spotlight on China's emerging role as scavenger for global new energy companies struggling to stay in business. A number of factors are driving this budding trend, led by the fact that many of these Chinese suitors are relatively cash rich and in a good position to provide much-needed funds for cash-starved western new...

Ernst & Young's Renewable Energy Group just released the Q4 '06 update for its Renewable Energy Country Attractiveness Indices (the document is not yet available on the website, but it should be soon). In the words of Ernst & Young," the Country Attractiveness Indices provide scores for national renewable energy markets, renewable energy infrastructures and their suitability for individual technologies." These indices thus provide useful information for investors wanting to assess the desirability of company exposure to certain markets. There are 3 indices (their names pretty much says what they are about): (a) the All Renewables...

Charles MorandIt seems as though the darkest clouds are finally dissipating over alt energy's financing horizon. Over the past few weeks, money has started flowing into the sector again, as evidenced by a number of recent deal announcements: On June 9, I reported on the upcoming IPO for Magma Energy Corp., a geothermal exploration company. The IPO's size will be upped from an initial C$50 MM to C$100 MM, a sign of increased market appetite  SunPower Corp. raised $418 MM in early May through a share and debt offering, and recently announced it had reached a $100...

Sean Kidney Climate Finance session at UN Summit is electric.  Insurers go wild with promises; investors plead for green investments; Jim Kim almost breaks out in song about green bonds. It's the day after the UN Climate Summit party in New York. Yes I do feel as if I'm hungover; but it was a gas. If you're one of those who worry about the world, there is something magical in being inside the totemic General Assembly, with it's embodiment of one world idealism. Ban Ki Moon's audacious Summit convening (that's really the only power we allow...