Tetra Tech’s Two-Penny Disappointment
by Debra Fiakas, CFA
Tetra Tech’s (TTEK: NASDAQ) quarter earnings report last week was met with high drama as traders reacted with surprisingly vehement disappointment over the recent financial performance of the engineering and technology business. The company’s stock price gapped down in the first day of trading following the announcement, falling through a significant line of price support. The shares continued to fall and finished the week at a price not seen since mid-April 2017 before the stock began its recent drive higher.
The drama unfolded after Tetra Tech reported net earnings of $0.52 per share on $498 million in total...
Tetra Tech: Energy Engineer
by Debra Fiakas CFA In the coming years power generators will be under pressure to meet new standards for lower carbon emissions embedded in the EPA’s Clean Power Plan. Each state has to meet a set of standards set by the EPA based that state’s particular circumstances in electrical generation. The carbon pollution limits begin in 2022 and ramp to full effect by 2030. Power generators could meet standards by reducing harmful emissions from existing fossil fuel-fire plants. Unfortunately, that may prove too costly at some of the older plants. It is logical that power generators...
What Shouldn’t Be in a Green Energy Portfolio
The London Accord took a look at what portfolio theory would suggest as the most effective ways to address Climate Change. Knowing which technologies don't make the cut is at least as useful as knowing which technologies do. Tom Konrad, Ph.D., CFA I recently looked at a paper from the London Accord which used portfolio theory to recommend the best mixes of technologies to deliver different levels of carbon abatement. The most useful technologies to achieve the needed levels of carbon abatement were Forestry, Hydropower, Biofuels, Wind, Efficiency, and Geothermal. I suggested stocks that investors might consider to invest in...
FuelTech: Pushing on a String of New Orders
by Debra Fiakas CFA Earlier this month Fuel Tech, Inc. (FTEK: Nasdaq) announced the receipt of order for air pollution control systems totaling $2.0 million. The customers are strung out across the U.S., Europe and China, but they all have dirty combustion systems and need to reduce toxic nitrogen oxide (NOx) and carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions or risk running afoul of government clean air standards. These shipments are just the most recent in a string of orders Fuel Tech has won in recent months. In late August 2015, the company received similar air pollution contracts from...
Carbon Capture and Storage: By the Numbers
"We have over 200 years of coal reserves, and we have to/will use them." I have heard some variation of this line far too many times, and I have little patience for it. Here's why: We don't have over 200 years of reserves. The real number for economically accessible coal is less than half that. A square, 100 miles on a side in the Southwestern deserts of the US could meet the electricity needs of the entire nation, if solar energy were converted to electricity at 10% efficiency. There's a lot of desert in the Southwest, and we're...
Plastics from Carbon Dioxide
by Debra Fiakas CFA In the last post, I promised to close out this series on carbon dioxide capture with a note on a third example of Department of Energy funding for innovations in turning carbon dioxide (CO2) into a valuable raw material. Besides changing the chemistry of inorganic compounds and feedstock for biofuel production, CO2 has some potential for plastics. In 2010, the DOE placed a bet of $18.4 million on Novomer, Inc., which is a self-described sustainable chemicals developer. The bet appears to be paying off as Novomer and its partners go into production...
OriginOil Renames Product – Will It Help The Business?
by Debra Fiakas CFA Mid-March 2014, OriginOil, Inc. (OOIL: OTC/QB) relaunched its waste water treatment process for shale gas producers. The company’s CLEAN-FRAC and CLEAN-FRAC PRIME products are now called OriginClear Petro. OriginOil is expanding into the industrial and agricultural waste water treatment markets using the product name OriginClear Waste. The company has been toiling away since 2007 perfecting its “Electro Water Separation” process that uses electrical impulses in a series of steps to disinfect and separate organic contaminants in waste water. In June 2014, OriginOil management declared its development stage completed and start of full...
While Others Seek to Inject CO2, Airgas Sells It
by Debra Fiakas CFA Just one of the many suppliers of industrial and commercial carbon dioxide, Airgas, Inc. (ARG: NYSE) recently announced plans to build a new carbon dioxide plant in Houston. The press release hit news wires right along with announcements of carbon capture projects and other investments to reduce greenhouse effect from too much CO2 in the atmosphere. In one those strange twists that makes our world so interesting and vexing at the same time, is the fact that we use carbon dioxide all the while we invest wildly to reduce CO2...
Air Products Goes Operational with Carbon Capture
by Debra Fiakas CFA In October 2009, the U.S. Department of Energy selected a dozen projects aimed at bringing relief to a planet suffocating in a cloud of toxic carbon dioxide emissions. The DOE called the program it’s Large-Scale Industrial Carbon Capture Storage Projects and wrote checks for $575 million out of American Recovery and Reconstruction (ARRA) funds. A little more than a year later the DOE weeded out all but three projects for the second phase of the program. Besides Leucadia Energy (subsidiary of Leucadia National, LUK: NYSE) and Archer Daniels Midland...
Bion: Waste To Dollars
Earlier this week Bion Environmental Technologies (BNET) received approval of a patent for its proprietary ammonia recovery process. Bion’s technology converts livestock wastes into ammonium bicarbonate. Patent protection in the U.S. paves the way for Bion to deliver an environmentally friendly chemical to the market at attractive profit margins.
Ammonium bicarbonate is used for a variety of purposes from leavening to crop additives. It is the fertilizer market that has caught Bion’s attention. The company intends to ‘close the loop’ for the agricultural sector by helping livestock producers economically dispose of waste and then delivering a fertilizer for food crops that qualifies as organic.
It is an attractive...
OriginClear: Metals out of the Muck
After the worst of the wind and rain had died down from Hurricanes Harvey and Irma, and people began making their way back home, it became apparent that citizens of Texas and Florida would have more worries. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency disclosed that at least thirteen toxic waste sites in Texas were flooded and damaged by Hurricane Harvey and another forty-one Superfund sites were negatively affected. Legacy contamination includes lead, arsenic, polychlorinated biphenyls, benzene and other carcinogenic compounds from historic industrial processes. After Hurricane Irma over six million gallons of wastewater reportedly flowed out to the coast and...
Greenhouse Gas Management Stocks: Key To A Real Climate Change Portfolio?
There has been a lot written lately about how to turn climate change into an investment opportunity, including on this site. Not all of it is, however, especially useful or relevant. In the worst cases, commentators have ascribed the 'climate change investment opportunity' label to just about any industry out there, indiscriminate of whether or not there really is a strong and direct connection. If you are seriously interested in playing the climate story, you should stay focused on near and medium term opportunities with real and tangible links to what is currently going on with the climate...
Mantra’s Promise of Innovation
by Debra Fiakas CFA How often do we see the crowd rooting for the underdog? You could hear the cheers for Mantra Energy (MVTG: OTC) last week at the Marcum Microcap Conference in New York City. Mantra is a developmental stage company pursuing technologies to harness carbon dioxide for energy. Of course, the company has no revenue and therefore no earnings. Indeed, its technologies are so unique and as yet at such an early stage some might find them almost fanciful. Yet for some investors, a fanciful underdog is even better than another. Mantra sees itself...
Chinese and EU Clash Over Airline Emissions
Doug Young China’s increasingly contentious trade relations with Europe suffered another setback late last week, when the EU threatened to fine Chinese airlines that were refusing to comply with a new controversial program to reduce greenhouse gases. China responded with its own threat by saying it won’t accept the EU’s planned carbon tax, raising the prospect of a dangerous new trade war. This latest in a recent series of trade conflicts between China and both Europe and the US is developing into a troublesome pattern that could spin out of control, endangering the nascent global economic...
Ten Insights into Carbon Policy and Its Implications
On November 27, I attended the National Renewable Energy Laboratory's (NREL) Fifth Energy Analysis Forum, hosted by NREL's Strategic Energy Analysis & Applications Center. The forum focused on carbon policy design, the implications for Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency. As a stock analyst focused on that sector, I am extremely lucky to have NREL as a local resource: the quality and the level of the experts at NREL and the ones they bring in is probably not matched anywhere in the country, and conferences like these provide priceless insights into what these Energy Analysts are thinking. Why should investors...
Three Water Recycling Stocks
by Debra Fiakas CFA The water series continues as we attempt to get arms around the very large market to package, deliver, purify, treat, and recycle water. As the need for water increases with population and economic activity, the use of waste waters has become an imperative. In this post we look at three companies helping to clean up, reclaim and otherwise recycle waste water. Ecosphere Technologies, Inc. (ESPH: PK) has introduced several water solutions that can be used in agriculture, mining, industry, or municipal applications. The company’s flagship Ozonix Technology is a chemical-free system to recycle...
