Industry General

A few weeks ago, I stumbled upon a presentation that was given by FERC officials on the phenomenon of rapidly rising costs in US power generation (presentation link at the end of this post). The FERC, or Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, is America's energy watchdog. The presentation begins by noting that across America's major electricity hubs, power prices are up significantly on last year (between 62% in the Midwest and 123% in NYC) and that, unfortunately, this probably isn't an anomaly. In fact, the presentation argues, there may be something secular at play. Two main trends are noted....

Last Thursday, General Electric's (NYSE: GE) CEO, Jeffrey Immelt, reported on the progress to date of the company's Ecomagination project. Ecomagination seeks to position GE as a global environmental technology heavyweight, and Immelt is confident that this initiative will contribute substantially to the eventual emergence of GE's share price from the funk it's been over the past seven years. The Globe & Mail ran an interesting piece on Ecomagination the following day. Rob Day at Cleantech Investing also briefly touched on on the topic on Monday. The jury is still out - will Ecomagination be GE's...

As most of you will probably know by now, the US Senate voted tonight to pass the $700 billion bailout package for the financial sector. As part of the this new version of the bill full of so-called "sweeteners", or measures meant entice certain individuals to vote in favor, lawmakers included a one-year extension of the Production Tax Credit for wind and an eight-year extension of the Investment Tax Credit for solar. Now the House must still vote on Friday, so this isn't a done deal just yet. However, although it probably won't get much attention in the...

by Kidela Capital Group Necessity is the mother of invention and Japanese industry is discovering just how true that old saying is. Last year, a diplomatic spat between Japan and China led the world’s largest supplier of Rare Earth Elements (REEs) to suspend exports of Rare Earth oxides and other critical metals to its largest single client. Japan, like the rest of the world, is almost totally reliant on Chinese Rare Earth (RE) exports and the China’s action, which came as a shock to Japanese industry, is a sentient warning for the rest of the world....

Eamon Keane Rare Earth Elements Eamon Keane This is Part One of a three part series based on a rare earth elements (REE) review which is available for download at slideshare, where references can be viewed. Part 1 is an introduction to REEs. Part 2 analyzes REE consumption and refining and Part 3 looks at how REEs might affect the green economy.  Rare earths captured the popular imagination a year or two ago. Since then a bonfire of reports, presentations and analyses have been published, with many generating more consulting fees...

by Debra Fiakas CFA Smaller companies frequently avoid debt as a capital source, relying instead mostly on equity.  After all common stock  holders are often content to wait for years for a dividend as the small, young company secures its market position and builds profits.  Pesky creditors are always knocking on the door for interest payments and principal return. Yet, a number of smaller companies included in our Beach Boys Index of alternative fuel producers have chosen to use debt. We reviewed a group of them to determine the impact of increase in interest rates that could...

Last night, a recent finance graduate introduced himself to me, telling me he had attended my presentation at the Colorado Renewable Energy Society on July 24th. (the whole presentation is available after the link, scroll down to Jul 24.)  He said he wasn't invested in clean energy because "Investing is about making money... there's nothing moral about it."   I'm sure I was quite sarcastic when I replied, "That sounds like a finance major." I believe that finance and economics, as they are currently taught, make people less moral.  I'm not talking about God.  I'm personally agnostic with tendencies towards...

Bottom line: Weak share reactions to upbeat news from Trina, ReneSola and Ming Yang reflect investor skepticism towards new energy stocks, as they face lingering issues of overcapacity and phasing out of government subsidies. A flurry of upbeat news is in the headlines today from 3 of China’s largest new energy equipment makers, led by a return to the profit column for solar panel maker ReneSola (NYSE: SOL) after a year in the red. At the same time, wind power equipment maker Ming Yang (NYSE: MY) also announced its latest quarterly results that were quite upbeat, and solar panel...

by Sneha Shah Raja Ravi Varma's portrait of the Hindu goddess of wealth, Lakshmi, ലക്ഷ്മി ദേവി. via Wikimedia Commons Why Invest in Indian Green Energy India is set to become the 3rd largest market for wind energy after USA and China and is set to enter the top 10 club of countries in installing solar energy capacity in 2012. Massive power deficits, millions of people without power, billions of dollars in oil, gas and coal imports imply that India offers massive opportunities for renewable energy generation. In fact Indian solar ...

By Harris Roen If you follow the energy sector closely, then you know that many questions regarding the direction of alternative energy companies were looming during the 2012 campaign season. Was the country going to continue with the Obama Administration’s “all-of-the-above” strategy with its strong emphasis on renewables, or would there be an accelerated domestic drilling and pipeline bonanza under Republican leadership. When the election finally ended last week, many pundits expected investors to pour money into the beleaguered alternative energy sector resulting in a surge of stock prices. So why, instead, did alternative energy...

I attended Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth lecture in Toronto tonight. I assume many of you have seen the movie so I'm not going to go into the details of the presentation, which is essentially the same as the movie give-or-take a couple of slides. Instead, I'm going to share with you some of the thoughts I had as I was listening to the former VP. Firstly, I bought this whole climate change thing a long time ago and I've seen the movie, so substantively I got very little out of this. As with the movie, I...

For those who attened my presentation yesterday, thank you for all the great questions. I'm having trouble uploading the presentation (it's too large for my server.) However, it should soon appear on NREL's presentation's page. As usual, I own most of the stocks mentioned in the presentation (too many to list,) and the Guiness Atkinson Alternative Energy fund (also mentioned) is an advertiser on AltEnergyStocks.com. UPDATE: It's still not on NREL's page, but I uploaded it on another server here. Although I had to cut it off because of time, if you have...

Green Alpha Advisors' Annual Client Letter and Portfolio Commentary Garvin Jabusch and Jeremy Deems 2012 saw a return to positive performance for the next economy and for markets overall. Generally, global economic conditions, as indicated by some jobs growth, slowly improving industrial output and a housing rebound, improved marginally, but debt crises in Europe and America, exacerbated by eternal dithering, gamesmanship and posturing by politicians and other policy makers on both continents, kept optimism in check and moderated expectations for growth. With respect to the next economy, though, growth and expectations for growth began showing real signs of building...