Campaign for renewable energy begins
Colorado House Speaker Lola Spradley, R-Beulah. and U.S. Rep. Mark Udall, D-Eldorado Springs, co-chairs of Amendment 37—the Renewable Energy Initiative—kicked-off their statewide campaign Thursday with stops throughout Colorado. Amendment 37 would require 10 percent of Colorado's electricity be generated from renewable energy by 2015. The program is scaled beginning with a 3 percent requirement by 2007, 6 percent by 2011, and 10 percent by 2015.
Water Treatment With a Latin Beat
by Debra Fiakas, CFA
The post “Water: Invisible Crisis” on December 6th highlighted the building problem of inadequate supplies of quality water in Latin America. The World Water Council’s Comision Nacional Del Agua reports that As much as one-third of the Latin America population lacks access to safe water. Unabated pollution and lack of water treatment have been identified as culprits. In South America, for example, 40% to 60% of water comes from aquifers that are subject to increasing pollution from untreated run-off from mining and agriculture operations.
Our survey of Latin America water sector in South America found an interesting mix of pollution abatement and water treatment...
Internal Hydro International Inc. Enters Phase II of Operations
Internal Hydro International Inc. (IHDR) is now entering the Second Phase of its business plan, which will be deployment of the company's patented energy production technology, called the Energy Commander IV (EC IV). The Company has entered into a sales agreement that will place ten units in applications in the Southwest United States, while placing other units in the Eastern United States in various areas of use.
Must Renewable Energy Be Diversified?
Dana Blankenhorn Most renewable energy companies specialize. Solar companies do solar. Wind companies do wind. Geothermal companies do geothermal. Biomass companies do biomass. But a small Canadian merger challenges that assumption. Magma Energy (MGMXF.PK), a geothermal company, said it will spend about $100 million in stock to buy Plutonic Power (PUOPF.PK), which has wind and hydropower projects, and ambitions to get into solar. The combined companies will go by the name Alterra Power. Both companies are based in Vancouver. Size really does matter, crowed Magma CEO Ross Beatty on a conference call announcing...
Internal Hydro International, Inc. Enters Into Discussions To Acquire Worldwide Licenses For Turbine Electric...
Internal Hydro International, Inc. (IHDR) has entered into discussions with a USA corporation, Turbine Electric Power, Inc. for the purpose of structuring an LOI between the companies. Turbine Electric Power, Inc. holds the 'exclusive worldwide rights' to install, sell, market and distribute a new 'high tech' micro turbine electric power generator on all electric powered vehicles. This new micro turbine will provide 'on board' continuous electric power to recharge battery systems and additional 'on demand' power directly to the electric motors of all electric powered vehicles. This turbine charging system will preclude the necessity of electric powered...
Income From Hydroelectric Power
by Debra Fiakas CFA Are you an investor hungry for current income? Is there a green line of global warming fear running through your investment selections? I have stock that fulfills both requirements. Brookfield Renewable Energy Partners (BEP: NYSE) is a renewable power producer with assets in Canada, the U.S. and Brazil. Brookfield generates over 5,900 megawatts of power each year from plants running on river water, wind or natural gas. Another 2,000 megawatts is apparently under development in Canada and Brazil. What Brookfield does best is hydroelectric production. The company claims over 170...
Focus On Clean Power Income Trusts
Last week, Tom brought you a piece on the Algonquin Power Income Fund (AGQNF.PK), in which he opined that shift in investor attention away from capital gains toward yield might eventually provide a catalyst for the prices of yield-focused securities such as income trusts to rise. So-called utility trusts, or income trusts where the underlying corporation is engaged in utility activities such as power generation, are a common feature of the Canadian income trust sector (the mother of all income trust sectors). A sub-set of utility trusts is the clean power utility trust, where the power generation...
Five Alternative Energy Stocks I’ll Research “One of These Days”
I have more ideas than I have time to explore them, and it's getting out of hand. I still need to write the promised articles on Evergreen Solar (ESLR) and Lithium Technology Corp (LTHU), but there are many others that have caught my attention over the last six months or so. Since the list keeps getting longer, I thought I'd just give you a taste of some of the companies in my inbox, and why they seem interesting. Since I may or may not ever write articles about any of these, I thought I'd give people the opportunity to...
New York to rely more on renewable power
New York will dramatically boost its reliance on renewable energy sources like wind and water over the next nine years under a policy approved by state regulators Wednesday. Clean energy advocates and state officials said the action by the state Public Service Commission places New York among the leaders nationwide in the development of renewable energy. It comes 20 months after Gov. George Pataki first called for a statewide standard that would encourage the production of environmentally friendly energy.
Clearing Up Some Confusion Over Community Solar In New York
Community Solar in New York has a messaging problem. It is confusing, and even some industry professionals have given up in disgust because of aggressive marketing and a lack of clarity.
Fortunately, aggressive marketing is not universal among community solar developers.
Unfortunately, the lack of clarity is almost universal.
How Community Solar Works in New York
The system the New York utility regulator set up for community distributed generation (CDG, a term which includes community hydropower and community wind as well as community solar) is counter intuitive for most potential customers.
As shown in the diagram above, the electric utility pays for a project's...
Internal Hyrdo Sets Alternative Energy Unit Deployment for U.S.
Internal Hydro International Inc. (IHDR) announces that it will be field testing production units of the Energy Commander V 30 Kw small hydro product. These EC V untils are able to supply a constant 30 kilowatts of constantly available electricity via the natural flows of water from dams, water pipelines, streams and rivers.
Hydropower: The Renewable Energy Elephant in Room
There is a form of renewable energy which accounts for approximately one sixth of world electrical generation, and unlike wind and solar has a natural form of storage which costs a fraction of any other form of electricity storage, and has black start capability. Given all these positive characteristics, it may seem surprising that we have not yet written about it. The renewable energy in question is Hydropower, and the reason we've not covered it before is that the facilities are typically owned and run by governments or diversified utilities. Until now, the only Hydropower investments I have been...
The Magma/Plutonic Merger
A Great Deal for Plutonic Shareholders, Not bad for Magma Tom Konrad CFA As a shareholder of Magma Energy Corp. (MGMXF.PK), I'm reading through the joint information circular on the proposed merger of Plutonic Power Corp (PUOPF.PK) and Magma to form "Alterra Power Corp." I'm not thrilled with the merger, although I plan to vote for it, now that it's arranged. Overall, I think the merged Alterra will be a stronger company than either company alone. Both companies are in capital intensive niche Renewable Energy industries, so the added scale and diversification of Alterra should better...
ENDESA Will Invest Euro 286 Million in New Wind Farms and Mini Hydro Plants...
ENDESA (ELE) has received authorisation to build and start up new wind farms and mini hydro plants this year, requiring an investment of Euro 286 million. The start-up of these projects, part of ENDESA's Strategic Plan, will add 277 MW to ENDESA's generation capacity, 252 MW in wind (for a Euro 250 million) and 25 MW in mini hydro capacity (for an investment of around Euro 60 million). Facilities already under construction and expected to come on stream in 2005 include the wind farms at Pena Ventosa and Chan do Tenon in Galicia, Las Hoyuelas in Castilla La...
Administration Lays the Groundwork for Hydropower Boom
Tom Konrad CFA The US Department of the Interior, the Department of Energy (DOE), and the US Army Corps of Engineers are quietly laying the groundwork for a renewable energy boom that you might not expect. What they've done is announce a memorandum of understanding to work together to support environmentally sustainable hydropower. They're not talking about building new dams, which have questionable environmental benefit, but rather to remove barriers to developing cost-effective hydropower at existing dams and waterworks. Hydropower does not get much attention from investors. In large part, that's because of the lack...
Large Hydro Power: The Underloved Energy Source
Charles Morand While browsing Cleantech News, I came across an interesting post on Energy Outlook on the lack of attention hydro power is receiving in the latest of round of policy efforts aimed at greening the U.S.' energy supply and combating climate change. Besides having been been scuffed at in Waxman-Markey, hydro power has effectively been ignored in the ARRA, receiving a measly $32 million, peanuts in comparison to the $786.5 million awarded to biofuels, the $350 million for geothermal power and the $117.6 million going to solar. Not mention the millions of dollars that will flow...
