Ag Goddess Smiles Favorably on Ceres, Investors Frown
by Debra Fiakas CFA Recently, in compiling our lists of remarkable small-cap stock trades, I was surprised to find the shares of Ceres, Inc. (CERE: Nasdaq) among stocks setting new 52-week lows. Ceres has only been trading since its initial public offering in February 2012, when the company sold 5.0 million shares at $13.00 per share. After a brief trade higher in the early spring, Ceres shares have been steadily losing ground, finally setting an all-time low of $6.02 last week. Named after the Greek Goddess of Agriculture, Ceres is a self-styled energy crop producer. Ceres...
Intrepid Prepares to Enter the California Energy Market
Intrepid Technology and Resources, Inc. (IESV) and the California Dairy Campaign (CDC) announce a partnership to make available ITR's proprietary digester technology to the California dairy industry. Gary Bullard, CDC's environmental project manager was one of the attendees at ITR's demonstration of their first methane bioreactor in Rupert, Idaho. on August 23. "I left the demonstration convinced that the technology and processes that I saw were of paramount importance to our member dairies". Mr. Bullard further stated, "California, which is the nation's largest dairy state, with many individual dairies that exceed 10,000 head, is facing an unprecedented environmental...
Don’t Let Waste Go to Waste
Marc Gunther Reduce. Reuse. Recycle. It sounds simple. It’s not. Just ask Bill Caesar, who runs the recycling and organic growth units of Waste Management (WM), America’s biggest trash company, which has $13.3 billion in revenues last year. It’s hard to get many cities and towns to embrace recycling. It’s hard to get homeowners to figure out which plastics go into which bin. It’s expensive to build out the infrastructure needed to separate materials, and ship them to customers. And now, to make matters worse, the prices that buyers are willing...
List of Biomass Stocks
Biomass stocks are publicly traded companies whose business involves growing, collecting, or using biological matter (biomass) which can be used to make some other form of energy. Biomass includes human waste, municipal solid waste, sewage sludge, as well as industrial wastes such leftover wood from logging operations.
4energy Invest (ENINV.BR)
Andritz Group (ADRZF)
Arcadia Biosciences, Inc. (RKDA)
BioAmber (BIOA)
Bion Environmental Technologies, Inc. (BNET)
Bunge, Ltd. (BG)
Claymore/Clear Global Timber Index (CUT)
Darling Ingredients (DAR)
Deltic Timber Corp. (DEL)
EcoSynthetix, Inc. (ECO.TO)
Enviva Partners, LP (EVA)
IQ Global Agribusiness Small Cap (CROP)
iShares Global Timber & Forestry Index Fund (WOOD)
John Deere (DE)
Market Vectors® Environmental Services ETF (EVX)
Pinnacle Renewable Holdings Inc. (PL.TO)
Plum Creek...
Toyota Considering Making Diesel-Electric Hybrid Vehicles
Toyota Motor Corp (TM) are developing a hybrid drivetrain system that can be used for gasoline, diesel, natural gas and fuel-cells.
Algae On The Cusp
By Dr. Rebecca White, Vice President of Operations, iWi (Qualitas Health, Inc.) for Biofuels Digest
This Wednesday marks a major milestone in the history of the American algae industry: the first meeting in which the Biomass R&D Board Technical Advisory Committee officials will discuss algae as an agricultural crop. Up until now, the vast majority of governmental funding and support has gone to one particular application of algae: biofuels. The success of biofuels is extremely important. But so is the success of algae in other applications, such as protein, omega-3s and fish and animal feed, which all have the potential to...
China and Green Energy Resources Open Renewable Energy Talks
Green Energy Resources, Inc. (GRGR) announced it has met with Chinese government ministers to discuss Renewable Energy. Negotiations were led by Mr. Andrew Tong of Green Energy Resources China office. China enacted a new Renewable Energy law in March, and signed the international Kyoto Treaty. Discussions center on a 10 year, 250 million ton deal to deliver wood biomass for Co-firing to China. Green Energy Resources would buy 10 woodchip ships built and manufactured in China valued around $350 million dollars, and provide shipping lease back options to the Chinese government in the future.
DynaMotive Announces MOU with Mitsubishi Canada Limited for Marketing and Distribution of Dynamotive’s Fast...
DynaMotive Energy Systems Corp. (DYMTF) announced today that the Company and Mitsubishi Canada Ltd., have entered into a wide-ranging Memorandum of Understanding ("MOU") which expresses their mutual intentions to develop definitive agreements for marketing and distribution of DynaMotive's patented technology in Canada and internationally. Clean Break has more to say about this agreement as well. This is the second MOU announcement they have made in the last month and it looks like something is happening here. This stock has been moving strong this last month and it has piqued my interest. I will have to...
The Best Peak Oil Investments, Part V: Algae
Tom Konrad CFA There are many proposed solutions to the liquid fuels scarcity caused be stagnating (and eventually falling) oil supplies combined with growing demand in emerging economies. Some will be good investments, others won't. Here is where I'm putting my money, and why. This fifth part takes a look at the growing consensus that our biofuels should come from non-food crops grown on land that is not otherwise productive, and the one crop that shows promise of delivering the high yields needed to satisfy our enormous thirst for fuel is algae. In part I of...
Cellulosic Ethanol and Advanced Biofuels Investments
There's much excitement about second generation biofuels made from cellulosic feedstocks and algae, be they cellulosic ethanol, biodiesel, biocrude, or electricity from biomass. There will be winners, but they may not be the technology companies. Tom Konrad, Ph.D., CFA At the 2009 Advanced Biofuels Workshop, there were two major themes: developing new feedstocks, especially algae, and the development of new pathways to take biomass into products such as biocrude, which can be used in exiting oil refineries. Big Market, Many Competitors The current federal Renewable Fuel Standard requires the use of 36 million gallons of biofuels, including at...
Investing In Wood Pellets, Part II – A Stock
Two weeks ago, I wrote about the emerging wood pellets industry and how this form of biomass was experiencing rapid growth as a coal substitute in power generation, mostly in Europe as a result of renewable energy and climate regulations. In the time since I wrote that article, I have been looking for ways to invest in the global wood pellets sector. Unfortunately, my search came up mostly empty (except for 1 stock discussed below). In response to my previous post, a reader pointed me to an article Joe Romm at Climate Progress had recently written...
Casella Waste Systems: Cheap Enough to Recycle?
by Debra Fiakas CFA Solid waste has been one of the business types that has a natural hedge against macroeconomic distress. No matter how bad things get, as long as our neighbors draw breath there will be trash to handle. Casella Waste Systems, Inc. (CWST: Nasdaq) sits in the shadow of larger waste handlers such as Waste Management (WM: NYSE) and Republic Services (RSG: NYSE). Consequently, it is often passed over by investors despite a significantly better profit margin. One of the reasons investors might not take Casella seriously is its history of net losses. However, the...
Intrepid Receives Clean Air Exemption
Intrepid Technology and Resources, Inc. (IESV) announces that the Idaho Department of Environmental Quality has provided written concurrence that the Whitesides Biogas Facility meets the permit to construct exemption requirements of Idaho rules for the control of air pollution. Intrepid submitted an exemption request based on calculations and modeling of air emissions for the plant. To the company's knowledge, no other dairy digester system has produced the emissions modeling to receive an exemption. Two compounds of sulfur in digester emissions, hydrogen sulfide and sulfur dioxide, are regulated under the Clean Air Act. The Whitesides Biogas facility has sulfur removal...
Rentech: Pulp, Pellets and Fertilizer
by Debra Fiakas CFA A shareholder group has taken aim at alternative energy and fertilizer producer Rentech, Inc. (RTK: Nasdaq), offering a slate of nominees for the next election of directors. They claim Rentech management is overpaid and doing a very poor job of executing on the company’s strategic plans. The nominees were a focus of discussion in the last post. Now we will take a closer look at Rentech’s operations. The majority of Rentech’s revenue is generated from the sale of fertilizer products from the Company’s plants in Dubuque, Iowa and Pasadena, California. Rentech earns...
ENER1 to Turn Florida’s Tourism Waste and Citrus Peel Waste into Renewable Energy
ENER1 INC (ENEI) announced that it had received an award of $550,000 from the Florida Hydrogen Initiative to develop a renewable energy source that will power a rest area on an interstate highway. ENER1's 10 Kilowatt (KW) fuel-cell based energy source uses methanol created from Florida's two largest industries food waste from theme parks and orange peels from citrus processing. The project, known as the HyTech Rest Area, is an example of Florida's commitment to developing its hydrogen infrastructure. To be completed in 18 months, it will provide not only a demonstration and test-bed for the technology,...
Cosan: Brazillian Sweetheart
by Debra Fiakas CFA The first thing we think about Brazil in the context of alternative energy is sugar cane and ethanol. In the last growing season Brazil producer 596 million tons of sugar cane, a feat that secured Brazil’s position as the largest sugar cane grower in the world. About 55% of the crop was used to producer ethanol and the balance ended up as sugar. Brazil’s sugar cane industry association has predicted that despite a severe drought, the 2014-2015 growing season will be even more productive with expected sugar cane production in the range 632...
