The Week in Cleantech

The Week in Cleantech is a weekly roundup of our favorite cleantech and alt energy blog posts and stories from across the web. If you know of a good piece that you think should be included here, don't hesitate to let us know! This week, we particularly liked... On Monday, Tate Dwinnell at SelfInvestors told us how to profit from the Advanced Energy Initiative, part II. Stocks discussed: Fuel Tech , Exelon Corp , Entergy Corp , Cameco Corp , Energy Metals Corp , Usec Inc. . On Monday, George Gutowski at Financial Skeptic...

Jeff Siegel September 25: Toyota (NYSE:TM) Scraps Electric Car 2012 Toyota Prius photographed in Washington, D.C., USA.. (Photo credit: IFCAR via Wikimedia Commons) Claiming the company misread the market, Toyota (NYSE:TM) is scrapping its plans for a global roll-out of an electric mini-car called the eQ. To be honest, I'm not particularly surprised. Toyota has not been very aggressive, or interested really, in pursuing the electric vehicle (EV) market. And I get it. When it comes to delivering a superior conventional hybrid vehicle, Toyota still runs...

The Week in Cleantech is a weekly roundup of our favorite cleantech and alt energy blog posts and stories from across the web. If you know of a good piece that you think should be included here, don't hesitate to let us know! This week, we particularly liked... On Monday, Tim Hussar at Finding Cents in the Market broke into biodiesel for us. Stocks discussed are: Nova Biosource Fuels and NewGen Technologies . Thanks to SeekingAlpha for this one. On Tuesday, Bret Arends at TheStreet.com told us how Cheney's fund manager wasn't too happy...

On Sunday, Technology Review showed us the first tidal power generator. Harnessing the ocean's power is the next frontier in utility-scale alternative power generation, but this has so far proven difficult given all that the sea can throw at what humans try to put in it. This installation produces power at a hefty 0.30 to 0.40/kWh, but scale can bring this down to 0.20/kWh. Cut that in half again and now you're talking. On Monday, Clean Edge told us that Schott was planning a partial spin-off of its PV unit through an IPO. Given the headwinds the Eurozone...

Jeff Siegel 7/2/13: LDK Sells Shares LDK Solar (NYSE:LDK) is down in pre-market this morning after announcing the sale of 25 million newly issued shares to Fulai Investments Limited for $1.03 per share with an aggregate purchase price of $25.75 million. LDK closed at $1.40 yesterday afternoon. 7/9/13: How High Can Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA), SolarCity (NASDAQ:SCTY) Go? First Energy Corp (NYSE:FE) has announced that it plans to deactivate two coal-fired power plants in Pennsylvania by the end of the year. The reason? FE claims its weak power prices and the high cost of complying with stricter environmental rules....

On Monday, GreenBiz informed us that new cars in California would have to display a global warming score. This is interesting, and it would be good to see data on whether it actually impacts consumer behavior. On Tuesday, David Ehrlich at the Cleantech Group reported that cleantech investments had hit a record high. Interesting results, though I suspect that if problems in capital markets persist and VCs can't find acceptable exits things could change. On Wednesday, Katie Fehrenbacher at earth2tech outlined ten things we should know about nat gas vehicles. An ambitious proposal by Pickens, but I...

On Tuesday, Dan Lewis warned us not to hold our breath for offshore wind (I really like the boat pic). As prime on-shore wind areas are exhausted over the next decade, especially in Europe, many people have their sight set on the ocean as the next wind frontier. However, technical and cost hurdles may not make this a viable proposition for a few more years yet. One factor that could help: the cost and availability of wind turbines. But that's showing little sign of improvement.  On Wednesday, Mike Millikin at Green Car Congress told us that a...

On Tuesday, Andrea Quong at Red Herring told us that investors reaped returns on clean energy. A quick look at returns in the European cleantech VC and PE spaces. On Wednesday, Emily Gertz at World Changing gave us the run-down on the legal climate on climate change. This action by NY's Attorney General formalizes what many have been saying for a while - certain power gen companies, and the investors that own them, could be exposed to serious regulatory risks related to global warming in the years ahead. Strangely, those companies and their investors often seem to favor...

The Week in Cleantech is a weekly roundup of our favorite cleantech and alt energy blog posts and stories from across the web. If you know of a good piece that you think should be included here, don't hesitate to let us know! This week, we particularly liked... On Monday, Jefferies revealed that investors were bullish on solar power, ethanol and hybrid transportation. The results of this survey will surely surprise some people. On Wednesday, Travis Johnson at One Guy's Investments told us all about indirect investing. This is indeed a great strategy for investors...

In Geothermal, Richard T. Stuebi at Cleantech Blog told us about geothermal heat pumps, the forgotten one. Matthew McDermott at TreeHugger informed us that Ormat had bought exploration rights on an Alaskan volcano. In Solar, Eric Savitz at Barron's gave us more details of Cypress Semiconductor's spin-off of its SunPower unit. He also provided growing evidence of an impending shake-out in the solar PV sector driven by panel oversupply. Jeff St. John at Greentech Media told us that LG was plotting a partnership with Conergy. He also discusses plans by large South Korean firms,...

On Monday, Chris Baltimore at Reuters discussed how Democratic candidates were playing up "clean coal". It's always interesting to read about politicians courting different audiences. In this case, out of convenience, both candidates are avoiding substantive debate on energy policy, during which it would certainly emerge that clean coal is more dream than reality. On Monday, Julian Murdoch at Hard Assets Investor told us that it was in the wind. An interesting piece on one of my favorite sectors, wind, with a discussion of a few good plays. Speaking of wind, T Boone Pickens was responsible for the...

Jeff Siegel and Tom Konrad October 14: Is a Heating Oil Crisis Coming? Heating Oil Furnace.  Photo by Tom Konrad “People still use heating oil?” Those were the words said to me by a friend of mine who's spent 41 of his 45 years on earth in Southern California. To be honest, I'm not sure he's ever even seen an oil delivery truck. But here in the Northeast, there are still plenty of folks that rely on heating oil. Particularly those living in older homes in the cities,...

Easter Treats for Energy Focus, Solazyme, Capstone, Alstom, and Iberdrola; SemiLEDS Lays an Egg

On Monday, Maria Surma Manka at Green Options told us how Kansas killed coal plants. This is an interesting precedent, and it certainly buttresses the argument that coal will increasingly mean uncertainty and risk in the US power gen industry. On a related note, on Tuesday, David Ehrlich at Cleantech.com reported on NY's greenhouse gas cap-and-trade plans. This is the first of the RGGI states to flesh out its plan in some detail. On Tuesday, Jim Fraser at The Energy Blog discussed the timeline for solar power parity with fossil fuels. Does this mean that there is...

On Sunday, TraderMark at Fund My Mutual Fund opined that the solar sector was headed for a shakeout. Well, he didn't quite opine that...he reported the major points from Greentech Media's Solar Market Outlook event. The main conclusion is that it's not only 2008 that's going to be a tough year for solar, but rather the next 3 to 4 years as the industry matures and consolidates. TraderMark argues that the solar sector will follow a boom-bust-echo path; we're currently just exiting boom times (read: incredibly rich valuations times) and the whole think is about to go bust, but...

On Monday, Michael Kanellos at CNET's Green Tech Blog told us that cellulosic ethanol was to surpass corn...in 14 years. Turns out he got that info from one of the leaders in making enzymes to break down cellulose. So if it takes about 14 years for cellulosic ethanol to scale up production levels to about 15 billion gallons annually, or roughly 10% of current liquid fuel consumption in the US, could there be a risk that cellulosic misses the boat altogether? Most of the estimates thrown out there for the cost of cellulosic to be competitive with corn are...