Books, Reports, Webcasts & Podcasts

John Petersen Last week I stumbled across a link that led to a 2010 report from the National Research Council titled "Hidden Costs of Energy, Unpriced Consequences of Energy Production and Use." This free 506-page book takes a life-cycle approach – from fuel extraction to energy production, distribution, and use to disposal of waste products – and attempts to quantify the health, climate and other unpriced damages that arise from the use of various energy sources for electricity, transportation and heat. After studying the NRC's discussion of the unpriced health effects, other nonclimate damages and greenhouse gas...

I just got around to reading a new report by Merrill Lynch (link at the end of this article) identifying cleantech as "The Sixth Revolution" (the other five being: Industrial Revolution; Age of Steam & Railways; Age of Steel, Electricity and Heavy Engineering; Age of Oil, the Automobile and Mass Production; and Age of Info and Telecommunications). Periodically, sell-side firms will release free cleantech/alt energy reports, which lay out their macro theses but stop short of providing stock picks to non-clients. I don't generally pay these reports too much attention as I find they rarely - if ever...

The Distributed Energy Financial Group LLC (DEFG) and Market Strategies Inc. (MSI) released, on Wednesday, the results of their Third Annual Alternative Energy Market Survey. This report is based on a online survey of 450 "industry leaders". Unsurprisingly, survey participants remain very bullish on revenue growth in the sector, expecting aggregate revenues to grow by 87% in 2007. That growth, several agree, will continue to be driven in part by strong support by various levels of governments. Some other interesting bits information from the survey: - While energy is forecasted to continue being...

Ernst & Young recently released its Q2 2007 Renewable Energy Country Attractiveness Indices . As part of this initiative, E&Y typically publishes three forward-looking indices that rank countries based on their alternative energy investment friendliness. The indices are: the All-renewable Index, the Long-term Wind Index and the Near-term Wind Index (2-year time horizon). This edition of the Renewable Energy Country Attractiveness Indices report also contains a short discussion on supply-chain gluts in the alternative energy space. We have already discussed some of the potential investment opportunities related to...

Many of our Canadian readers will have heard about this already, but better later than never. CIBC World Markets, the corporate banking arm of Canadian bank CIBC, made "a significant realignment in equity portfolio this month by reducing position in energy stocks from a 4.5-percentage-point overweight to a 3-percentage-point overweight", citing increasing risks linked to efforts by North American governments to reduce energy consumption and limit greenhouse gas emissions. CIBC WM made the announcement in its latest Canadian Portfolio Strategy Outlook report (PDF document), released on Monday Feb. 5. I decided to discuss this...

Alt Energy Stocks Analyst Tom Konrad will join a televised roundtable discussion with EnergyTechStocks' Managing Editor Bill Paul and Ardour Global Indexes' Joseph LaCorte this Friday. The discussion will center around the topic of investing in alternative energy. The program, entitled WealthTrack with Consuelo Mack, will air on PBS between November 9th and 12th, after which it will be available for online viewing here.  You can find a listing of stations carrying the show with airtimes at the end of this article. Bill Paul may be familiar to our readers because of the series of articles he wrote following...

The American Council On Renewable Energy (ACORE), the Renewable Energy Resources Committee of the American Bar Association (SEER Section) and the Renewable Energy Committee of the Energy Bar Association are organizing a teleconference on the state of play with climate change regulations across the US. The teleconference is entitled State and Federal Green House Gas Regulation: Current Status, Outlook, and Implications for Renewable Energy (click on the link for details). The good thing about it is that it's only $20 to participate and free if you are a student. (DISCLOSURE: We are not affiliated with, or otherwise...

Greentech Media is hosting a one-hour webinar at 12:00 PM ET Wednesday, September 19th, entitled "The Advance of the Solar PPA: When an Organization is Ready for a Power Purchase Agreement." PPAs are an interesting new area of activity in alternative energy, and definitely something worth understanding for the alt energy investor. For further details and registration, visit Greentech Media's special section for this event.

A new report by Merril Lynch and the World Resources Institute (WRI), entitled “Alternatives for the clean car evolution��?, provides good background on regulatory and other forces driving the trend toward cleaner cars, as well as 3 ways to play this trend. The report first looks at air quality-related issues and lists 3 things to watch out for in the near term: (1) legal issues surrounding the classification of CO2 as a pollutant in the Clean Air Act, (2) whether governments, especially in Europe but eventually in the US, include road transport in their plans to fight climate...

A few weeks ago, a reader sent me a link to the second edition of Lehman Brothers' The Business of Climate Change report (PDF document). I unfortunately only got around to reading through it tonight. Over the past two years, several of the big sell-side shops have published reports discussing the major investment opportunities and risks related to global warming. This one is a tad different from other such reports. The discussion is far more academic (rather than focused around actionable information) and the authors do not provide a list of potential outperformers organized by sector. Nevertheless,...