The EPA’s Carbon Rule: Likely Stockmarket Winners
By Harris Roen Greenhouse gas emissions by economic sector A seismic shift in the power generation landscape is starting to sink in. It has been two weeks since the EPA announced its new proposed carbon rules, one of the flagship efforts of the Obama Administration to address climate change. This shift is meant to move the country in the direction of inevitable changes coming to the energy economy. It is important for investors to know which companies and sectors stand to benefit from the...
Water Out Of Thin Air
It is an irony that surrounded by the flood waters of Hurricanes Harvey and Irma, a drink of fresh, clean water may be hard to come by. Of course, the all three levels of government make plans for stockpiling and deploying emergency bottled water well ahead of natural disasters. Yet in the hours and days following the worst of both the recent storms, the media was filled with stories of people who lacked water.
What if water could be made manufactured? If such a technology existed, what a boon it might be to thirsty storm victims.
Ambient Water Corporation (AWGI: OTC/PK) has...
Southern Company’s Carbon Capture Testing
by Debra Fiakas CFA Coal emissions photo via BigStock An electric utility of Southern Company’s size - $38.3 billion in market capitalization - is not among the typical company covered in the Small Cap Strategist weblog. Southern (SO: NYSE) owns and operates six dozen power plants in the southeastern U.S., generating 12,222 megawatts of power from a mix of fossil fuel, hydroelectric, nuclear and solar plant assets. The company earned $2.68 in earnings per share on $16.5 billion in total electric power sales. Sales dipped in 2012...
Three Water Recycling Stocks
by Debra Fiakas CFA The water series continues as we attempt to get arms around the very large market to package, deliver, purify, treat, and recycle water. As the need for water increases with population and economic activity, the use of waste waters has become an imperative. In this post we look at three companies helping to clean up, reclaim and otherwise recycle waste water. Ecosphere Technologies, Inc. (ESPH: PK) has introduced several water solutions that can be used in agriculture, mining, industry, or municipal applications. The company’s flagship Ozonix Technology is a chemical-free system to recycle...
Earnings Roundup: Metals Prices Boost Covanta and Umicore
By Tom Konrad, Ph.D., CFA
You don’t have to own mining companies to benefit from rising metals prices.
This is a roundup of first quarter earnings notes shared with my Patreon supporters over the last week. Waste to energy operator Covanta and specialty metals recycler Umicore are both benefiting from skyrocketing metals prices.
Just as renewable energy and energy efficiency stocks have long shown that investors don’t have to own fossil fuel companies to benefit from rising prices of fossil fuels, recyclers like Covanta and Umicore are showing that you don’t have to own environmentally damaging mining companies to benefit from rising...
Carbon Capture and Storage: By the Numbers
"We have over 200 years of coal reserves, and we have to/will use them." I have heard some variation of this line far too many times, and I have little patience for it. Here's why: We don't have over 200 years of reserves. The real number for economically accessible coal is less than half that. A square, 100 miles on a side in the Southwestern deserts of the US could meet the electricity needs of the entire nation, if solar energy were converted to electricity at 10% efficiency. There's a lot of desert in the Southwest, and we're...
List of Pollution Control Stocks
Pollution control stocks are publicly traded companies whose business involves technologies for removing or reducing the emissions of harmful pollutants, contaminants, and/or waste from human activity, or removing these pollutants from the environment or water.
This article was last updated on 6/25/2020.
Advanced Emissions Solutions, Inc. (ADES)
Advanced Disposal Services (ADSW)
Babcock & Wilcox Enterprises, Inc. (BW)
Bion Environmental Technologies (BNET)
Biorem Inc. (BRM.V, BIRMF)
Casella Waste Systems (CWST)
CECO Environmental Corp. (CECE)
CDTi Advanced Materials, Inc. (CDTI)
Clearsign Combustion Corp. (CLIR)
CO2 Solutions, Inc. (CST.V, COSLF)
Donaldson Company, Inc. (DCI)
Ecolab, Inc. (ECL)
EcoSphere Technologies, Inc. (ESPH)
Euro Tech Holdings (CLWT)
Fuel Tech (FTEK)
iPath Global Carbon ETN (GRN)
OriginClear (OCLN)
Pacific Green Technologies Inc. (PGTK)
Republic Services,...
Chinese and EU Clash Over Airline Emissions
Doug Young China’s increasingly contentious trade relations with Europe suffered another setback late last week, when the EU threatened to fine Chinese airlines that were refusing to comply with a new controversial program to reduce greenhouse gases. China responded with its own threat by saying it won’t accept the EU’s planned carbon tax, raising the prospect of a dangerous new trade war. This latest in a recent series of trade conflicts between China and both Europe and the US is developing into a troublesome pattern that could spin out of control, endangering the nascent global economic...
Capturing CO2 for Environmental Remediation
by Debra Fiakas CFA In 2009, the Department of Energy (DOE) awarded $17.4 million in funding to a gaggle of companies pursuing practical uses for carbon dioxide. The recipients were asked to kick in a total of $7.7 million. A year later in 2010, the DOE picked six projects to a second round of support totaling $82.6 million. Industrial giant Alcoa, Inc. (AA: NYSE) leads one of the winning groups, including partners U.S. Nels, CO2 Solutions (CST: V or COSLF: OTC/BB) and Strategic Solutions. The DOE gave the Alcoa team $13.5 million to complete a pilot...
OriginOil Renames Product – Will It Help The Business?
by Debra Fiakas CFA Mid-March 2014, OriginOil, Inc. (OOIL: OTC/QB) relaunched its waste water treatment process for shale gas producers. The company’s CLEAN-FRAC and CLEAN-FRAC PRIME products are now called OriginClear Petro. OriginOil is expanding into the industrial and agricultural waste water treatment markets using the product name OriginClear Waste. The company has been toiling away since 2007 perfecting its “Electro Water Separation” process that uses electrical impulses in a series of steps to disinfect and separate organic contaminants in waste water. In June 2014, OriginOil management declared its development stage completed and start of full...
A Coal Stock…Almost
This morning, I read an article in this week's Economist that summarized well what I've been hearing over the past few weeks: coal is back in fashion with power utilities. As pointed out in the article, on a BTU basis, coal remains the cheapest fuel for thermal generation, an the prospect of high carbon prices is not deterring even European power generators from investing in coal-fired assets. A few months ago, Tom discussed his peak coal portfolio. The long-term perspective is of course critical to keep in mind, and that piece helps putting recent news around...
Tetra Tech: Energy Engineer
by Debra Fiakas CFA In the coming years power generators will be under pressure to meet new standards for lower carbon emissions embedded in the EPA’s Clean Power Plan. Each state has to meet a set of standards set by the EPA based that state’s particular circumstances in electrical generation. The carbon pollution limits begin in 2022 and ramp to full effect by 2030. Power generators could meet standards by reducing harmful emissions from existing fossil fuel-fire plants. Unfortunately, that may prove too costly at some of the older plants. It is logical that power generators...
Kadant: Will Investors Clean Up With This Bargain Green Stock?
Everybody likes a bargain. Investors really like a good cheap buy. A review of our four alternative energy industries revealed three stocks trading below industry average multiples of forecasted earnings. This is the second article in the series, thee first looked at Ormat (ORA:NYSE). A couple of weeks ago shares of Kadant, Inc. (KAI: NYSE) registered an particularly bullish formation - at least from a technical standpoint. A ‘triple top breakout’ was formed in a point and figure chart, suggesting demand for the stock outpaces supply. Given the new momentum that has developed, the stock could reach...
The Low Cow-bon e-Cow-nomy
Jim Lane This month in Finland, a team of intrepid researchers herded one thousand European cows one-by-one into a glass “metabolic chamber” to measure their methane emissions, digestion, production characteristics, energy-efficiency, metabolism, and the microbial make-up of their rumens. The Project is known as RuminOmics, but if it had been titled The Truman Show II: When the Cows Come Home, we wouldn’t have been a bit surprised. The Cow Emission Crisis. No Kidding Around. The ultimate aim of the study was to find an optimal, low-emission, high-yield cow, and the team noted in its premise that of all greenhouse...
Mantra’s Promise of Innovation
by Debra Fiakas CFA How often do we see the crowd rooting for the underdog? You could hear the cheers for Mantra Energy (MVTG: OTC) last week at the Marcum Microcap Conference in New York City. Mantra is a developmental stage company pursuing technologies to harness carbon dioxide for energy. Of course, the company has no revenue and therefore no earnings. Indeed, its technologies are so unique and as yet at such an early stage some might find them almost fanciful. Yet for some investors, a fanciful underdog is even better than another. Mantra sees itself...
China Everbright Greentech
by Debra Fiakas CFA Investors based in the U.S. need to look far and wide for new stock issues from renewable energy companies. Capital markets activity has slowed in the last couple of years, in part to due to their own success. In reaching new efficiency in energy production, renewable energy companies are generating their own internal capital and are not as dependent upon the capital markets. The Hong Kong market has come to the rescue of U.S. investors with a ‘green’ offering China Everbright Greentech Ltd. is now trading on the Hong Kong Exchange with the...
