If Energy Were Free and Unlimited…

David Gold As soon as gas prices rise, our nation becomes focused on energy.  When they drop again, it falls off most consumers’ radar.  Yet the importance of energy goes way beyond the cost of filling up your gas tank or paying your electric bill.  In often-extraordinary ways, energy is interwoven into absolutely everything that we need to live or that we love to do.  One of the most useful tricks I learned in engineering school is that to put any problem in perspective, it helps to ask what if things were...

The MacArthur Foundation Invests In Climate Solutions- And In Fossil Fuels

By Marc Gunther.  Eighteen months ago, the people who manage the endowment at the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation got some bad news: Investments they had made in funds managed by EnerVest, a Houston-based private equity firm that operates more than 33,000 oil and gas wells across the US, had plummeted in value to almost nothing. The losses were small, relatively speaking — roughly $15 million, a fraction of the foundation’s $7 billion endowment — but they were unwelcome, if only because they called attention to the fact that MacArthur, whose mission is, famously, to build a “more just, verdant and peaceful world,” had...

China: The Rise of the Global New Energy Scavenger

Doug Young King Vulture Sarcoramphus papa. Photo by Hein waschefort via Wikimedia Commons. New reports that major car maker Dongfeng Motor (HKEx: 489) is bidding to buy a struggling US hybrid car maker are casting a spotlight on China's emerging role as scavenger for global new energy companies struggling to stay in business. A number of factors are driving this budding trend, led by the fact that many of these Chinese suitors are relatively cash rich and in a good position to provide much-needed funds for cash-starved western new...

Will Rare Earths Cripple the Green Economy? Part 3

Eamon Keane This is Part Three of a three part series based on a rare earth elements (REE) review which is available for download at slideshare, where references can be viewed. Part 1 is an introduction to REEs. Part 2 analyzes REE consumption and refining and Part 3 looks at how REEs might affect the green economy. There have been several forecasts made for future demand. Approximate data was derived from Byron Capital Market’s own estimate and the data contained in Oakdene Hollins’ May 2010 report “Lanthanide Resources and Alternatives” for others . Figure...

SEC Charges Chinese Units of Five Accounting Firms; Chinese Cos Defect

Doug Young Media are buzzing with word that the US securities regulator is once again tussling with major auditors over access to the accounting records of US-listed Chinese firms, in the latest chapter of an ongoing story; but what has me more intrigued is the scramble that is probably taking place behind the scenes, as those same auditors try to figure out what they will do when the inevitable happens and they are forced to share their records with the US Securities and Exchange Administration (SEC). Right now I can imagine what is happening: the auditors, including big...

Power Plant Costs & The Case For Energy Efficiency

A few weeks ago, I stumbled upon a presentation that was given by FERC officials on the phenomenon of rapidly rising costs in US power generation (presentation link at the end of this post). The FERC, or Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, is America's energy watchdog. The presentation begins by noting that across America's major electricity hubs, power prices are up significantly on last year (between 62% in the Midwest and 123% in NYC) and that, unfortunately, this probably isn't an anomaly. In fact, the presentation argues, there may be something secular at play. Two main trends are noted....

Presentation from May 10, 2008 NREL Seminar

For those who attened my presentation yesterday, thank you for all the great questions. I'm having trouble uploading the presentation (it's too large for my server.) However, it should soon appear on NREL's presentation's page. As usual, I own most of the stocks mentioned in the presentation (too many to list,) and the Guiness Atkinson Alternative Energy fund (also mentioned) is an advertiser on AltEnergyStocks.com. UPDATE: It's still not on NREL's page, but I uploaded it on another server here. Although I had to cut it off because of time, if you have...

Can Public Equity Investing Have Impact?

by Garvin Jabusch There’s an argument in the world of impact investing that goes something like, "impact happens only through private investments; there is no real impact, apart from shareholder engagement efforts, in public equity investing." An associated perception is that investment impact means capitalizing an enterprise beyond what would happen otherwise, meaning private equity alone has the power to provide real impact. But is this true? Publicly traded corporations are the largest and most visible social and environmental bellwethers of the global economy, and the high allocation to public equities in most investor portfolios means public equity...

Energy Investing: What To Expect In 2015

By Jeff Siegel Tonight, I will welcome in the New Year with family. We'll feast on cured meats, pickled vegetables, and lamb neck stew. We'll sip an old fashioned or two with apple and sage, share some laughs, and maybe even shed a few tears as we remember those we lost in 2014. When the ball drops, we'll hug, kiss, and cheer on all that waits to be discovered in 2015. There will be good and there will be bad, but I suppose it's the uncertainty of it all that makes life worth living. Don't Fear the Uncertain It...

Climate Change & Corporate Disclosure: Should Investors Care?

Charles Morand On Monday morning, I received an e-copy of a new research note by BofA Merrill Lynch arguing that disclosure by publicly-listed companies on the issue of climate change was becoming increasingly "important". The note claimed: "e believe smart investors and companies will recognize the edge they can gain by understanding low carbon trends." I couldn't agree more with that statement. It was no coincidence that on that same day the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP), a non-profit UK-based organization that surveys public companies each year on the state of their climate change awareness, was...

New Energy IPOs

by Debra Fiakas CFA IPO Wordcloud photo via BigStock Investors looking for a piece of the public offering action from the alternative energy industry have been sorely disappointed in recent months.  The last big initial public offering in the sector was SolarCity, Inc. (SCTY:  Nasdaq) in December 2012.  Then in April 2013, there was an initial public offering of the REIT Hannon Armstrong Sustainable Infrastructure Capital (HASI:  Nasdaq).  Anyone looking for bragging rights to IPO shares will have to look to the...

Inevitable Shifts and Indispensable Technologies

Next Economy Inflection, Pt. III Garvin Jabusch Back at the New Year, I thought it’d be fun to write up a short recap of some of the evidence that, finally, the world is waking up to the real need to get our economies on a footing that can allow it to persist indefinitely. In that post I wrote of those observations that “these are just the first few recent ‘tipping point’-like stories to come to mind. I've read dozens more examples recently, and I feel the fact that I can no longer be aware of all the evidence...

Minimizing a Key Threat: State of the Union Address 2012

Garvin Jabusch Americans, rightly, prefer specifics and plans, as opposed to rhetorical vision and platitudes, from their president in their State of the Union addresses. We couldn't agree more, so here are our thoughts about President Obama's 2012 address, with respect to our area, the next economy and investing therein. President Barack Obama delivers the 2012 State of the Union Address (Image source: whitehouse.gov) Two years ago, President Obama in his State of the Union Address said, "The nation that leads the clean energy economy will lead the global economy and America must be that...

Big Money Looking For Green Investments

Sean Kidney Climate Finance session at UN Summit is electric.  Insurers go wild with promises; investors plead for green investments; Jim Kim almost breaks out in song about green bonds. It's the day after the UN Climate Summit party in New York. Yes I do feel as if I'm hungover; but it was a gas. If you're one of those who worry about the world, there is something magical in being inside the totemic General Assembly, with it's embodiment of one world idealism. Ban Ki Moon's audacious Summit convening (that's really the only power we allow...

Renewable Energy Stocks By The kWh

Tom Konrad CFA Disclosure: Long BEP.  Short PEGI $20 and $25 puts, short PEGI $30 and $35 calls, short NYLD $40 and $45 calls. I recently sized up five renewable energy power producers using the metric that’s most often used for solar panels: Dollars per Watt ($/W).  It’s an intuitive metric, but has serious flaws both for evaluating solar installations and stocks.  Slightly better is Watts per Dollar (or W/$100 to make the numbers look nice) as shown in the chart from that article below. The main advantage of W/$100 over $/W is that it’s additive: I can meaningfully...

Alternative Energy Investing Unfazed By Defeat of Proposition 87

Proposition 87 sure got a lot of attention in the past few months, not least because high-profile venture capitalist (and clean tech enthusiast) Vinod Khosla threw his full weight behind it. Proposition 87 would have created a tax set at between 1.5% and 6% (depending on the price of the barrel of oil) on producers of oil extracted in California, and would have established, with the proceeds, a $4 billion fund to invest in alternative energy. Unfortunately for Khosla and his bunch, California voters defeated Proposition 87 at the ballot box on Tuesday. Unsurprisingly, this had no impact...
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