Pollution Control

by Debra Fiakas CFA   Just one of the many suppliers of industrial and commercial carbon dioxide, Airgas, Inc. (ARG:  NYSE) recently announced plans to build a new carbon dioxide plant in Houston.  The press release hit news wires right along with announcements of carbon capture projects and other investments to reduce greenhouse effect from too much CO2 in the atmosphere. In one those strange twists that makes our world so interesting and vexing at the same time, is the fact that we use carbon dioxide all the while we invest wildly to reduce CO2...

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...

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...

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...

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...

The Economist recently had a story on how the cement industry is beginning to confront the fact that the industry produces 5% of the world's emissions of greenhouse gasses.  Carbon dioxide is emitted not only by the fossil fuels used to create the heat used in the creation of cement, and by the chemical reaction in that process. Unfortunately for us, cement is a remarkably useful building material, not least as a structural material which can also serve as thermal mass in passive solar buildings.   All the large cement firms: Lafarge, Holcim, and Cemex (NYSE:CX) have joined a voluntary...

There has been a lot written lately about how to turn climate change into an investment opportunity, including on this site. Not all of it is, however, especially useful or relevant. In the worst cases, commentators have ascribed the 'climate change investment opportunity' label to just about any industry out there, indiscriminate of whether or not there really is a strong and direct connection. If you are seriously interested in playing the climate story, you should stay focused on near and medium term opportunities with real and tangible links to what is currently going on with the climate...

"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...

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...

On November 27, I attended the National Renewable Energy Laboratory's (NREL) Fifth Energy Analysis Forum, hosted by NREL's Strategic Energy Analysis & Applications Center.  The forum focused on carbon policy design, the implications for Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency.  As a stock analyst focused on that sector, I am extremely lucky to have NREL as a local resource: the quality and the level of the experts at NREL and the ones they bring in is probably not matched anywhere in the country, and conferences like these provide priceless insights into what these Energy Analysts are thinking.   Why should investors...

Jim Lane Peter Brown of FFA Fuels, promotes his company these days with the pithy slogan, “Fuels from the Worst Waste Around.” Which of course raises the legitimate question, what is the worst waste, and can we find a use for it? Discussions of worst waste will usually focus on the obvious say, landfill or the odious say, medical or nuclear waste. Toxicity and longevity are typical concerns, and that’s one of the reasons why nuclear energy remains controversial to this day. No Waste in Nature As LanzaTech’s Jennifer Holmgren observed in a recent article by...

by Debra Fiakas CFA   In October 2009, the U.S. Department of Energy selected a dozen projects aimed at bringing relief to a planet suffocating in a cloud of toxic carbon dioxide emissions. The DOE called the program it’s Large-Scale Industrial Carbon Capture Storage Projects and wrote checks for $575 million out of American Recovery and Reconstruction (ARRA) funds.  A little more than a year later the DOE weeded out all but three projects for the second phase of the program.  Besides Leucadia Energy (subsidiary of Leucadia National, LUK:  NYSE) and Archer Daniels Midland...

by Debra Fiakas CFA In the last post, I promised to close out this series on carbon dioxide capture with a note on a third example of Department of Energy funding for innovations in turning carbon dioxide (CO2) into a valuable raw material.  Besides changing the chemistry of inorganic compounds and feedstock for biofuel production, CO2 has some potential for plastics.  In 2010, the DOE placed a bet of $18.4 million on Novomer, Inc., which is a self-described sustainable chemicals developer.   The bet appears to be paying off as Novomer and its partners go into production...

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...

by Debra Fiakas CFA My last post outlined how  Bion Environmental Technologies, Inc. (BNET: OTC/QB) is transforming livestock waste into organic fertilizer.  Bion is not the only aspiring fertilizer producer.  BioNitrogen Holdings Corp. (BION:  OTC/PK) was recently patent protection for a process to produce urea from stranded natural gas.  Instead of burning off the unwanted gases, oil and gas operators can turn it into an economically viable by-product. There is more than just cash flow at stake for oil and gas producers.  Burning off stranded gas increases harmful emission that can lead to penalties in the...