The Week in Cleantech is a weekly roundup of our favorite cleantech 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 Tuesday, Tyler Hamilton at Clean Break informed us that solar growth was expected to shine strong. The numbers are very impressive indeed, but it could be argued that a lot of that future growth is already priced in many of the more high-profile solar plays. On Wednesday, Mike Millikin at the Green Car Congress told us that California would sue if the EPA was too slow on awarding it the waiver it needs to implement its climate change bill. Suffices to say that the precedent in this case is not in the EPA’s favor. On Thursday, Rob Day at Cleantech Investing (for the record, this is hands down one of my favorite blogs in the cleantech space) went over the Q1 2007 numbers for cleantech investing. Very interesting yet concise comparison of the various organizations that compile data on VC and cleantech. On Friday, Sebastian Blanco at AutoBlog Green discussed the latest ethanol conspiracy theory in the cleantech world. While I have no doubt that Big Oil will fight tooth-and-nail to preserve its monopoly over liquid fuels, especially in the automotive market, I’m always reluctant to label academics ‘corrupt’ unless I see hard evidence…but I may be naive. See also this post by Mike Millikin at the Green Car Congress for further criticisms of the Stanford study. On Friday, Simon Robinson at The Big Biofuel Blog informed us that CBOT was launching small corn contracts suitable for smaller players who want to trade electronically. This is an interesting step and may provide retail investors with a good opportunity to play this very interesting angle of the ethanol story. On Friday, the Clean Slate Report told us all about the new economics of the smart grid. We at AltEnergyStocks.com are big believers in the future of energy efficiency and believe that there will be good investment opportunities in this space. See the recent piece on the Comverge IPO by The Motley Fool for an idea of the opportunities related to energy efficiency and smart grid.
I work for a futures brokerage in Chicago, we are the first brokerage to use 100% Green Power. I would like to extend an offer to AltEnergy Stock and its readers who would like to trade the small corn contracts the ability to do so. Please call or email saying you were referred by AltEnergy Stocks and you can trade for $5.00 commission mini corn as well as any other contract.
Ethanol is looking bubbly… whenver we start seeing all sorts of new instruments “suitable for smaller players” in a sector, it’s time to question if that sector is bubbling, or simply booming. Caveat Emptor.