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...
BioNitrogen: Valuable Technology, Management Questions
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...
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,...
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...
Praxair’s Long Road to Capturing Carbon
by Debra Fiakas CFA In 2007, industrial gas supplier Praxair (PX: NYSE) teamed up with power plant equipment dealer Foster Wheeler (FSLT: Nadaq) to work on demonstration projects for cleaning up coal-fired electric generating plants. At first the duo planned to pursue clean coal technologies and oxygenated coal combustion systems. The joint press release at the time indicated Praxair’s “oxy-coal’ technology would be applied to Foster Wheeler’s ‘circulating fluidized-bed steam generators.’ The oxycombustion process is one of several proposed methods to capture carbon dioxide from coal-fired power plants. In a retrofit situation, pure oxygen would replace air...
Plastics from Carbon Dioxide
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...
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...
A Concrete Proposal
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...
While Others Seek to Inject CO2, Airgas Sells It
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...
Ten Insights into Carbon Policy and Its Implications
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...
OriginClear Gambles on Marketing Program
by Debra Fiakas, CFA
Last week waste water treatment developer OriginClear (OCLN: OTC/QB) announced pilot projects for rental of its commercial water systems for pool cleaning. The company has several patents to its credit, protecting its innovations. OriginClear has developed a proprietary catalytic process to clean up solids from waste water as well as an oxidation technology to eliminate microtoxins in water. Unfortunately, the company has struggled to extract value from its efforts. OriginClear has yet to report profits. Indeed in the most recently reported fiscal year ending December 2019, revenue of $3.588 million only barely covered cost of goods of $3.217 million, let alone operating expenses that...
What Shouldn’t Be in a Green Energy Portfolio
The London Accord took a look at what portfolio theory would suggest as the most effective ways to address Climate Change. Knowing which technologies don't make the cut is at least as useful as knowing which technologies do. Tom Konrad, Ph.D., CFA I recently looked at a paper from the London Accord which used portfolio theory to recommend the best mixes of technologies to deliver different levels of carbon abatement. The most useful technologies to achieve the needed levels of carbon abatement were Forestry, Hydropower, Biofuels, Wind, Efficiency, and Geothermal. I suggested stocks that investors might consider to invest in...
The Worst Waste
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...
Greenhouse Gas Management Stocks: Key To A Real Climate Change Portfolio?
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...
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...
Boiler Maker in Need of a Shot
by Debra Fiakas, CFA
A reserve split is in the works to keep shares of Babcock & Wilcox Enterprises(B&W) listed under the symbol BW on the NYSE. The stock price of this storied environmental engineering had slipped below the Exchange’s minimum price requirements. Ten shares will be melded into one beginning July 23, 2019.
Reverse merger math alone will not solve B&W’s problems. One hundred and fifty two years in business, B&W has been providing environmental technologies and services for energy and industrial customers since the company’s first boiler was sold right after the American Civil War. The company boasts that Thomas Edison was one of...
