The Week in Cleantech

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...

Jeff Siegel and Tom Konrad May 21: Are more wind deals a sign that the bottom is in sight? TK: Western Wind Energy (WNDEF.PK) and Alterra Power (MGMXF.PK) both announced deals to acquire wind development pipelines last week.  Is the recent flurry of deals a sign that the worst may be over for wind developers?  More here. New tests conducted at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base have revealed that US warplanes are capable of flying faster and carry more payload on missions, when flying with synthetic fuels, including biofuels, compared to conventional military jet fuels made...

Jeff Siegel and Tom Konrad October 14: Is a Heating Oil Crisis Coming? Heating Oil Furnace.  Photo by Tom Konrad “People still use heating oil?” Those were the words said to me by a friend of mine who's spent 41 of his 45 years on earth in Southern California. To be honest, I'm not sure he's ever even seen an oil delivery truck. But here in the Northeast, there are still plenty of folks that rely on heating oil. Particularly those living in older homes in the cities,...

On Tuesday, Dallas Kachan at Inside Greentech gave us the scoop on a recent GE move (NYSE:GE) to gain greater access to the European wind market. Interesting how GE is leveraging its capacity in the finance realm to complement its Ecomagination efforts. On Tuesday, Chris Coad at Seeking Alpha wondered whether high gas prices where increasing demand for hybrids. The reverse begs asking: would a collapse in gas prices lead to a material drop in demand for hybrid cars? On Wednesday, Dan Lewis at AEI directed us to an interesting article on vanadium redox-flow batteries (VRBs) (PDF...

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, Ed Pilkington at The Guardian informed us that a leading climate scientist was going to push for oil company leaders to be tried. I'm not sure one will ever be able to draw exact parallels between fossil energy and cigarettes, seeing as the latter had no bearing on industrialization and economic growth. Nevertheless, alt energy investors would benefit greatly if fossil fuels were given the same treatment as cigarettes by local policy-makers. Are potential bans on drive-thrus a sign that such times are upon us? On Monday, Martin LaMonica at CNET News told us that...

Jeff Siegel August 21: What Will Happen to Trina Solar (NYSE:TSL)? Following the hypocritical “unfair subsidy” complaint against China solar panel producers along with the 31 percent import duty placed on them by the US government, the Chinese have now responded through their Commerce Ministry by stating that the United States must cut support for six government-backed renewable energy programs or face unspecified penalties. And so continues the trade war, which was launched by the sour-grapes management of SolarWorld,(PINK SHEETS:SRWRF) and supported by those in Washington who have no clue how bad this could be for the...

The December edition of Bloomberg Markets Magazine is devoted partly to the rise of carbon capitalism. An interesting series of articles on the budding carbon economy. While there are currently few ways for North American investors to play this, I continue to believe that this is an area the environmental investor must keep an eye on. On Monday, Jim Kingsdale at Seeking Alpha discussed ethanol and biodiesel: two very different biofuels. This is an interesting piece with a bullish outlook for two biodiesel stocks. Biodiesel often lingers in the shadow of ethanol in North America, yet it is...

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...

On Tuesday, Carl T. Delfeld at Seeking Alpha told us about the new kid on the cleantech ETF block, the PowerShares Global Clean Energy ETF (AMEX:PBD). For more details, check out Powershares section on PBD. This fund tracks the WilderHill New Energy Global Innovation Index - an index put together by New Energy Finance (NEF) of London. NEF is, in my opinion, one of the most interesting organizations in the clantech finance space at the moment. On Tuesday, Jack Uldrich at The Motley Fool reminded us that a bill is just a bill. At AltEnergyStocks.com, we view...

On Monday, Todd Sullivan at Seeking Alpha informed us that ADM (NYSE:ADM) was planning on entering the Brazilian sugar cane ethanol market. It's no mystery that Brazil is an ethanol powerhouse and will be looking, in the years ahead, to export much of its output to the lucrative US and European markets. There is a lot of talk about China becoming an emerging market cleantech powerhouse, but don't forget about Brazil! On Monday, Mark Gongloff at the WSJ's Energy Roundup reported that Shell (NYSE:RDS-B) CEO Jeroen van der Veer was a big believer in energy efficiency, but not...

On Monday, Lisa Lee at Reuters informed us that banks were to weigh CO2 emissions in power lending. This is, without a doubt, the story of the week. However, anybody who has been following this space knew that the writing was on the wall. Cai Steger at The Invisible Green Hand put together a comprehensive list of coal power projects that have either been canceled or put on hold due to environmental concerns in the recent past. Somewhat paradoxically, the same week, a major US coal export terminal announced that it was boosting capacity. Don't be fooled, although coal...

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: ...

In Solar, Eric Savitz at Barron's Tech Trader Daily wondered whether stock loan deals would be repaid. It's always important for shareholders to pay attention to which financing structures companies chose. In this case, if you understood this well, it could have a been good lateral short play on Lehman's problems. However, if you were long ESLR and had not paid this financing too much attention, you were probably not pleasantly surprised. Good CleanTech let us know about a new report claiming that thin-film will make up a whooping 40% of the solar PV market by 2012....

The Week in Cleantech is a weekly roundup of our favorite clean tech and alt energy blog posts and stories from across the web. If you know of a good piece that you think should be included here, don't hesitate to let us know! This week, we particularly liked... On Wednesday, Himanshu Pandya at Financial Nirvana made some predictions about which alt energy stocks could see some upside from the upcoming State of the Union Address. On Wednesday, Jim Jubak at TheStreet.com told us how to turn a profit from global warming stocks. On Wednesday,...

In General Industry News, The Wall Street Journal's Environmental Capital told us about the Green Meltdown. There is no doubt that alternative energy stocks have a rough ride ahead of them. On the one hand, revenue-less companies whose business model is heavily leveraged to technological innovation may not be able to access sufficient funding to go on for an extensive period of time. On the other hand, business models that rely on cheap credit and large amounts of debt, like large wind and solar parks, will get squeezed by credit tightness. In Environmental Markets, McKinsey discussed...