On Sunday, Dan Lewis at AEI wondered what we could re-weight the dollar exposure of alternative energy into. An interesting take on global monetary policy and alternative energy investing. On Monday, Kevin Bullis at Technology Review informed us that novel batteries were getting a boost. This is a big vote of confidence for A123. The growing interest from consumers and policy-makers in hybrids and HEVs will make batteries an essential area to keep an eye on for the cleantech investor. On Thursday, Todd Woody at Green Wombat informed us that big banks were backing big solar. The growing involvement of major financial institutions in large-scale alternative energy projects, most notably wind and solar, is indeed a good indication that the industry is reaching a certain degree of maturity in North America. As the scale of these projects increases and their cost of capital decreases, alternative energy will become increasingly competitive with conventional power generation sources. On Thursday, Jim Fraser at The Energy Blog told us about a new report on the thin-film solar market. Thin-film is indeed an exciting development and has been very much on the radar of investors lately, as evidenced by the stellar rise of First Solar (NASDAQ:FSLR) over the past few months. Although valuations in the solar space may have appeared a bit high over the past while, the current correction will provide good opportunities to gain exposure to fast-growing thin-film. On Thursday, Jack Uldrich at The Motley Fool made us aware of the biggest economic opportunity of the century. An interesting expos̩ of where investment opportunities could materialize in four main areas: climate change regulation, renewable energy generation, biofuels and removing greenhouse gases from the atmosphere. On Thursday, Neal Dikeman at The Cleantech Blog wondered where the shakeout was. As always, Neal does a good job of shedding a different light on a hot industry Рin this case solar.
