The Week in Cleantech

On Monday, Michael Graham Richard at TreeHugger told us that Toyota was boosting production of the Prius by 70% next year. This follows on the footsteps of Ford announcing plans to nix production of trucks in North America and retool factories to make smaller cars typically sold in Europe. The thing to note about such commitments is that they have to be anchored in pretty credible forecasts. It's one thing for pundits on CNBC to tell you where they think the price of oil is going based on a 20-day moving average. It's quite another for a global business...

Jeff Siegel and Tom Konrad April 23: Solar Grade Silicon Industry Under Pressure TK: Ed Gunther reports that the RSi (Renewable Silicon International) Easton facility has been shuttered.  Closure is attributed to pricing pressure in the solar silicon industry. April 24: Will PowerSecure (NASDAQ:POWR) Bounce Today? JS: PowerSecure International (NASDAQ:POWR) announced today that it landed $10 million worth of new orders for its smart grid power systems and LED area lights. Some of these deals are actually repeat orders, which certainly offers some confidence for the company's products....

Jeff Siegel This Car gets 108 Miles per Gallon Although it's little more than a compliance car (which is why it's only being sold in California), the electric Fiat 500e actually offers some pretty impressive fuel economy numbers. The official EPA numbers indicate 108 MPGe. This makes it the most efficient highway car in the marketplace. The range clocks in at around 87 miles, so that means it probably gets anywhere from 60 to 90 miles, depending on driving style and conditions. With a level 2 charger, you can juice it up in about 4 hours. I-wind Although...

Tom Konrad and Jeff Siegel June 18: Is First Wind's New Joint Venture Worth $3 Billion? JS: First Wind Holdings, LLC (First Wind) and Emera Inc. (TSX: EMA) announced today the closing of their transaction to jointly own and operate wind energy projects in the Northeast U.S. through a new company called Northeast Wind Partners.  More here. June 19: Rio Earth Summit Looks Unlikely to Mend Broken Promises TK: The optimism of 20 years ago has been replaced by disillusionment and an uncertain future.  More here. June 20: Renewable Energy Industry Pushes Back Against Bad Press TK:...

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: ...

Jeff Siegel March 13: Do Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) Shorts Get Burned? LED-maker Energy Focus, Inc. (OTCBB:EFOI) announced this morning that it entered into a 5-year cooperation agreement with Communal International, Inc. Under the terms of the deal, Communal will introduce Energy Focus to new potential customers in Asia and assist in reducing manufacturing cost. This is a stock we played a few years ago for massive gains after the company landed a number of deals with the U.S. Military. Not sure how today's news will impact the stock, but it could be good for a quick pop....

Tom Konrad CFA May 29: Chinese City of Hangzou Planning Electric Leasing Program to Include EVs This article in Zhejiang Online does not mention Kandi Technologies (KNDI) by name, but it does say the city of Hangzhou is planning on adding electric cars to its electric vehicle rental system, and the price will be the same as electric bike rentals.  To keep the price and space usage down, Kandi Technologies mini-EVs and Smart Vertical Parking System (described here) seem ideal. What Goldman's $40 billion investment pledge means, and what it doesn't mean. Neste Oil's...

Technology Review, my favorite science publication, gave us last week a wrap-up of the year in energy. It's a recap of the main energy-related stories the magazine published in 2007, and is well-worth a read if you want to start 2008 up-to-date on where the science is on most issues of relevance to alt energy investors. On Monday, Jerome Ball at Alternative Energy Trading argued that the solar PV industry would veer into oversupply in 2008. This is one of the most cogent analysis of the solar PV market I have read in a while, and it takes...

On Monday, Chris Baltimore at Reuters discussed how Democratic candidates were playing up "clean coal". It's always interesting to read about politicians courting different audiences. In this case, out of convenience, both candidates are avoiding substantive debate on energy policy, during which it would certainly emerge that clean coal is more dream than reality. On Monday, Julian Murdoch at Hard Assets Investor told us that it was in the wind. An interesting piece on one of my favorite sectors, wind, with a discussion of a few good plays. Speaking of wind, T Boone Pickens was responsible for the...

Capstone(CPST), Siemens (SI) and China BAK(CBAK) announce deals; Brightsource withdraws IPO. Jeff Siegel and Tom Konrad April 9: Capstone Turbine (NASDAQ:CPST) Lands Another 10 Megawatts JS: Capstone Turbine (NASDAQ:CPST) announced this morning that it received about 10 megawatts worth of new orders from two oil and gas producers in the Eagle Ford shale play. For the past few years we've seen Capstone become one of the many beneficiaries of the oil & gas boom in the U.S. I expect to see Capstone continue to benefit from this space. That's the good news....

Jeff Siegel August 15: First Solar (NASDAQ:FSLR) Moves to Thailand In an effort to continue its steady expansion, First Solar (NASDAQ:FSLR) has set up a Thailand operating subsidy and has officially opened its Bangkok office. The Thai subsidiary is charged with the responsibility of expanding FSLR's market for utility-scale solar projects. Senior Manger of Business Development told reporters. . . “The long-term energy fundamentals in Thailand are very favorable for a solar power solution to meet their growing energy needs, and we will continue to invest here as part of our strategy to develop sustainable,...

On Tuesday, Eize de Vries at Renewable Energy World described the challenges of growth for us. A very detailed article on where the main tension points are in the global wind value chain. On Tuesday, Tate Dwinnell at Self Investors told us that wind ETFs were coming. At last North American can play wind directly. On Wednesday, Energy Tech Stocks informed us that a new FERC forecast indicates U.S. demand response firms should do well this summer. An interesting piece of insight from FERC, and noteworthy that demand response is increasingly seen as an effective peak...

On Sunday, Tom Philpott at Peak Energy told us about The End of Food. The book, that is. While food is neither alt energy not cleantech, it is a key environmental theme in my view and will grow in importance as the effects of climate change are felt across the globe. On Monday, David McClellan at Solve Climate argued that the costs of nuclear energy were rising out of reach. A good attempt at coming up with a comparison of wind and nuclear prices, and interesting in the context of my earlier article on power plant costs. ...

Jeff Siegel and Tom Konrad April 30: Orion Energy Systems (OESX) Triples Stock Buyback TK: Sometimes microcap stocks fall just because no one is paying attention.  The directors of Orion Energy Systems (AMEX:OESX) clearly think their company is one such. Orion is an energy management company with a focus on high efficiency lighting systems and alternative energy system integration in commercial buildings.  The company is profitable, with a trailing Price/Earnings ratio of 18, a Price/Sales ratio of 0.5, and sold at less than half of book value ($4.05) when the market closed on Friday...

Jeff Siegel March 20: Another Solar Stock Disappoints IBC Advanced Alloys Corp. (TSX-V:IB) (PINK SHEETS:IAALF), a beryllium alloy producer that's doing some ground-breaking work in the world of nuclear fuels, announced this morning that its advanced castings are being supplied for the European Space Agency's Automated Transfer Vehicle, which is expected to dock with the International Space Station in a little over a week. For the sake of clarification, IBC serves a variety of industries, including automotive, telecommunications and a number of industrial applications. But I actually started following this one after discovering the...

On Wednesday, Cramer at TheStreet.com inherited some wind stocks for us. The article begins by claiming that Cramer is a "longtime bull of the wind power business." I'm not sure what 'long-term' means for Cramer, but in January 2007 the extent of his knowledge on Energy Conversion Devices (NASDAQ:ENER), which is not a wind play but is nonetheless a good proxy for understanding of the alt energy sector overall, was that since oil prices were expected to trend down the stock was a "sell! sell! sell!", presumably because there was nothing more to this company than oil prices...oups...But I...