The Week in Cleantech

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...

Last week, Paul Davidson at USA Today told us about how Sodium-sulfur (NaS) batteries can increase the reliability and efficiency of the grid. On Monday, Keith Johnson of The Wall Street Journal told us that Wind Turbine Makers can't keep up with demand.   Investment tip: this should be good for 2nd and 3rd-teir turbine makers who otherwise would not be able to sell their products.  I've noticed this in a flurry of turbine sales by Composite Technology Corp.  (CPTC.ob), a company I own not for their turbine business, but instead because I see great potential for their transmission...

On Monday, Joe Carroll and Mario Parker at Bloomberg News argued that the current ethanol bust was making losers of Bush, Gates and D.E. Shaw. We are proud to say that at AltEnergyStocks.com, we have always been corn ethanol bears, even when many of these stocks were trending up. But beyond bragging about our foresight, which, by the way, was shared by several people, the current fiasco is a cautionary tale of the dangers of government trying to create a winner industry when that industry makes no sense on most levels. Things may change, but to date all that...

On Monday, Todd Sullivan at Seeking Alpha informed us that ADM (NYSE:ADM) was planning on entering the Brazilian sugar cane ethanol market. It's no mystery that Brazil is an ethanol powerhouse and will be looking, in the years ahead, to export much of its output to the lucrative US and European markets. There is a lot of talk about China becoming an emerging market cleantech powerhouse, but don't forget about Brazil! On Monday, Mark Gongloff at the WSJ's Energy Roundup reported that Shell (NYSE:RDS-B) CEO Jeroen van der Veer was a big believer in energy efficiency, but not...

Jeff Siegel August 1: Siemens (NYSE:SI) Lands Major Australian Wind Turbine Deal Yesterday morning, New Jersey's Public Service Enterprise Group announced that it's now looking to invest up to $833 million for an expansion of the the utility's solar power programs. This investment seeks to facilitate the developing of an additional 233 megawatts of solar capacity. The expansion is expected to create about 300 direct jobs annually over the next five years. In 30 days, Mitsubishi Motors will launch its all-new Mirage global compact car in Japan. At a cost of between US$12,800...

jcwinnie at After Gutenberg detailed the Mcgyan process which promises to convert a much array of oil feedstocks into biodiesel with a reusable catalyst and less waste. AutoblogGreen plugged us in to Zap's new Prius PHEV conversion kit, but Green Car Congress brought us a study that warned we might need to do some serious water planning before such too many people start using them. On Monday, Craig Rubens at Earth-to-Tech painted a picture of a new photovoltaic coating from Corus Colors. On Wednesday, David Erlich at Cleantech.com rolled out the story of GE's...

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...

Jeff Siegel and Tom Konrad June 4: Public Transit Ridership Rising Sharply The American Public Transportation Association reported Monday that Americans took almost 125 million more rides on public transit in January, February and March than they did in the same period last year an increase of 4.98 percent, the largest since the first quarter of 1999.  The rise was due to a combination of high gas prices and economic growth.  Good news for mass transit stocks, like New Flyer (NFYEF), which just unveiled a battery-electric bus prototype. June 5: World Environment Day TK: ...

On Tuesday, Carl T. Delfeld at Seeking Alpha told us about the new kid on the cleantech ETF block, the PowerShares Global Clean Energy ETF (AMEX:PBD). For more details, check out Powershares section on PBD. This fund tracks the WilderHill New Energy Global Innovation Index - an index put together by New Energy Finance (NEF) of London. NEF is, in my opinion, one of the most interesting organizations in the clantech finance space at the moment. On Tuesday, Jack Uldrich at The Motley Fool reminded us that a bill is just a bill. At AltEnergyStocks.com, we view...

In General Industry News, The Wall Street Journal's Environmental Capital told us about the Green Meltdown. There is no doubt that alternative energy stocks have a rough ride ahead of them. On the one hand, revenue-less companies whose business model is heavily leveraged to technological innovation may not be able to access sufficient funding to go on for an extensive period of time. On the other hand, business models that rely on cheap credit and large amounts of debt, like large wind and solar parks, will get squeezed by credit tightness. In Environmental Markets, McKinsey discussed...

The Week in Cleantech is a weekly roundup of our favorite clean tech 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 Wednesday, Himanshu Pandya at Financial Nirvana made some predictions about which alt energy stocks could see some upside from the upcoming State of the Union Address. On Wednesday, Jim Jubak at TheStreet.com told us how to turn a profit from global warming stocks. On Wednesday,...

On Wednesday, Energy Tech Stocks gave us the heads up on a recent warning by Raymond James & Associate about declining oil production. Interesting to see a thesis that was derided as pure fantasy as recently as two years ago slowly creeping up into the mainstream. On Thursday, Sam Abuelsamid at Autoblog Green opined that CO2 regulations in Europe could place the balance of power on the auto parts suppliers' side in the fight for profit margins. We have noted in the past how some of the most interesting (and 'safest') clean car investment opportunities rested with parts...

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 Tuesday, Rob Day at Cleantech Investing debunked the "cleantech bubble" myth for us. An interesting and fresh look at the issue of whether or not cleantech is getting too hot for its own good. On Wednesday, Adena DeMonte at Red Herring discussed an interesting energy storage...

On Tuesday, Todd Woody at Green Wombat told us the the clock was ticking on the crucial solar investment tax credit. When the solar ITC was dropped, the potential impacts were unclear although many folks had a good idea of what might happen. It now seems as though this is indeed throwing a spoke in the wheel of more solar development in the US, although industry leaders apparently remain sanguine. Given the amount of debt financing solar developments typically get, throw on top of ITC concerns high levels of uncertainty in capital markets over the direction of the...

On Monday, Richard Blackwell at the Globe & Mail told us how the center of the Earth may power our portfolios. Geothermal is a sector we believe is poised for solid growth over the next few years, and the Toronto Stock Exchange is a good place to look for geothermal plays. On Tuesday, John Addison at the Cleantech Blog gave us a few highlights from the Fuel Cell 2007 Conference. With all the talk around batteries, plug-in hybrids and biofuels, fuel cells have somewhat fallen out of favor recently. This article is a good way to catch up...

On Monday, Cassandra Vinograd at the WSJ's Energy Roundup told us about Merrill Lynch's new Energy Efficiency Index. You can read more about the index here. As our regular readers know, we are big believers in energy efficiency as an investment thesis, and think significant opportunities will materialize in this space in the coming years. On Tuesday, Todd Woody at Business 2.0 wondered whether a small Norwegian company was about to reverse 100 years of automotive history. Could we be looking at the next wonder-boy of the clean automotive movement? On Wednesday, Dan Lewis at AEI shared...