The Best Peak Oil Investments: Why Invest for Peak Oil?
...and Why Not Invest in Oil Companies? Tom Konrad CFA The purpose of this series on peak oil investments has been to highlight companies outside the oil sector that are likely to benefit from increasing oil prices. This article explains why we should expect oil prices to rise. What is Peak Oil? There are many definitions for peak oil. In its most basic form, Peak Oil is the moment of highest production. World oil supplies are finite, and so we cannot continue to produce oil in increasing quantities forever. It's a mathematical certainty that at...
The Best Peak Oil Investments, Part VIII: Alternative Fuel Report Card
Tom Konrad CFA There are two types of solution to the liquid fuels scarcity caused by stagnating (and eventually falling) oil supplies combined with growing demand in emerging economies. The most obvious is to find a substitute to replace oil. Each potential substitute has barriers to its use which stand in the way of it from becoming a complete substitute for petroleum based fuel. Understanding those barriers also leads us to the investment opportunities that arise from these substitutes. In the last two articles of this series, I looked at barriers to adoption for alternative...
The Best Peak Oil Investments, Part IX: The Methadone Economy
Tom Konrad CFA No alternative fuel or combination of alternative fuels will allow our transportation system to operate the way it does today on oil. As oil becomes increasingly scarce and expensive, the way we get our transportation needs met will have to change. Understanding what the future of transportation may look like is key to making good investments in transportation. If the measure of success for alternative fuels is the ability to continue to live in suburbs and commute in multi-ton boxes of metal on congested freeways for hours each day, then alternative fuels will...
Do You Need To Invest In Oil To Benefit From Expensive Oil?
Two months ago, Tom told us how he'd dipped a toe into the black stuff (i.e. bought the OIL etf) on grounds that current supply destruction related to the depressed price of crude oil would eventually lead to the same kind of supply-demand crunch that led oil to spike during the 2004 to mid-2008 period. If you need evidence that the current price of crude is wreaking havoc in the world of oil & gas exploration, look no further than Alberta and its oil sands. The oil sands contain the second largest oil reserves in the world after...
Green swan, Black swan: No matter as long as it reduces stranded spending
by Prashant Vaze, The Climate bonds Initiative
In January, authors from several institutions under the aegis of BiS, published The Green Swan Central banking and financial stability in the age of climate change setting out their take on the epistemological foundations for, and obstacles against, central banks acting to mitigate climate change risk.
The book’s early chapters provide a cogent and up-to-date analysis of climate change’s profound and irreversible impacts on ecosystems and society. The authors are critical of overly simplistic solutions such as relying on just carbon taxes. They also recognize the all-too-evident deficits in global policy to respond to the threat.
In short, they accept the need for central banks to act.
The Two Arguments
The paper makes two powerful arguments setting out the challenges central banks face using their usual mode of working.
Firstly, climate change’s impact on financial systems is an unknowable unknown – a...
LNG Exports Would Help the Environment
Tom Konrad CFA Photo: Robin Lucas, via Wikimedia Commo With friends like these, who needs enemies? The Sierra Club is fighting new Liquified Natural Gas (LNG) export terminals, because they believe LNG exports would reward and encourage producers of shale gas. Fighting shale gas has blinded them to the bigger picture. If LNG exports were to reward shale gas producers, they would have to be significant enough to raise the price of domestic natural gas. Such large exports would also lower...
Conversions To Renewable Diesel
by Helena Tavares Kennedy
The seasons are changing in many parts of the world right now, but what really is changing this autumn is how the world is looking at renewable diesel. Phillips 66 and REG’s announcement about a new renewable diesel plant on the U.S. West Coast planned for 2021 comes after a notable increase in refineries that are being converted and changed over to renewable diesel. Change is good, especially in this case.
As Bob Dylan sang, “For the loser now, Will be later to win, For the times they are a-changin’.” And who knew he was singing about the RFS...
Crude Oil & Alt Energy: The Non-Relationship That Just Won’t Go Away
Charles Morand The relationship - or lack thereof - between oil prices and the performance of alt energy stocks has been a long-time interest of mine. I discussed it last in late March when I looked at correlations between the daily returns of alt energy and fossil energy ETFs. At the time, I found that only a weak relationship existed between the two and that if someone wanted to make a thematic investment play on Peak Oil, alt energy ETFs were not an ideal way to do so. Seeing as the popular press and countless "experts"...
The Four Best Peak Oil Investments
Tom Konrad CFA The best four stocks I've found in my six month quest to find the best peak oil investments. I apologize for being a tease. Since March, I've been writing this series I've called "The Best Peak Oil Investments," but in many cases what I've actually done is to warn readers to stay away from particular sectors. This bait-and-switch was compounded for my syndicated readers at Seeking Alpha when their editors decided to re-title the early articles in this series "Peak Oil Investments I'm Putting My Money On." If you've stuck...
Peak Oil & Energy Efficiency In The News
A couple of interesting items in the news yesterday on topics dear to alt energy investors' hearts. Firstly, a new report (PDF document) by CIBC World Markets arguing that globalization could be reversed by high oil prices. The folks at CIBC WM contend that growing shipping costs driven by higher prices for transportation fuels could erase the Asian labor cost advantage, driving a renaissance in North America's manufacturing sector. What's the main culprit? Peak Oil, albeit not called directly Peak Oil. I watched an interview with Jeff Rubin, CIBC WM's Chief Economist, on Bloomberg's In Focus yesterday, and...
Ten Economic Risks of Fossil Fuels
Garvin Jabusch A train, loaded with coal, crashed into the back of a passenger train in Czechloslovakia in 1868. Securities of fossil fuels firms, as an economic sector, may soon be on the decline. Predictions as to when oil, gas and coal will become a smaller part of the investment society makes into its total energy mix in favor of renewables (such as solar, wind and ocean energies) vary, ranging from 2060 on the long side (this prediction from oil industry powerhouse Shell) to 2030 or even...
New York State Pension $ 22 Billion Poorer By Not Divesting 10 Years Ago
Research firm Corporate Knights revealed that the pension fund would be $22 billion richer had it divested from fossil fuel stocks in 2008. That's almost $20,000 for of each of the pension fund’s 1.1 million members & retirees.
A new in-depth analysis by the research firm Corporate Knights, shows that New York State pension fund would be $22 billion richer had it divested from fossil fuel stocks 10 years ago. That works out to almost $20,000 for of each of the pension fund’s 1.1 million members and retirees. To perform their analysis, Corporate Knights looked at the stock holdings of the pension fund in...
What Will the Oil Spill Do For Oil Sands Stocks?
Bill Paul Will shares of the oil companies that are major players in Canada’s tar sands region rise or fall? Logically, shares should rise in the wake of the deepwater drilling moratorium ordered by President Obama following the BP (BP) oil spill, as Wall Street begins to reflect on the fact that Alberta’s tar sands region is the second biggest crude-oil deposit in the world. Even before the spill, a report from IHS CERA had concluded that Canadian tar sands would be the single biggest source of US crude imports in 2010. Just as logically, however, shares should...
De-Carbonizing Electricity – Will King Coal Finally Be Dethroned?
Charles Morand Last Friday, the WSJ's Environmental Capital blog noted how, according to HSBC, growing government efforts to de-carbonize the electricity supply across the developed world would hurt makers of power generation technology with high exposure to coal. Yesterday, the EIA released its Electric Power Monthly report for April 2009. In it, the agency notes the following: The drop in coal-fired generation was the largest absolute fuel-specific decline from April 2008 to April 2009 as it fell by 20,551 thousand megawatthours, or 13.9 percent The April decline was the third consecutive month of historically large drops...
The Best Peak Oil Investments, Part VI: Barriers to Substitution
Tom Konrad CFA There are two types of solution to the liquid fuels scarcity caused by stagnating (and eventually falling) oil supplies combined with growing demand in emerging economies. The most obvious is to find a substitute to replace oil. These substitute have barriers to their use as a replacment petroleum based fuel. Understanding those barriers also leads us to the investment opportunities that arise from these substitutes. As I wrote the first five parts of this series, looking into potential substitutes for gasoline and diesel, it was clear that many potential substitutes would need...
The Best Peak Oil Investments, Part VII: Peak Substitutes?
Tom Konrad CFA There are two types of solutions to the liquid fuels scarcity caused by stagnating (and eventually falling) oil supplies combined with growing demand in emerging economies. The most obvious is to find a substitute to replace oil. Supply constraints limit the full replacement of oil by most potential substitutes. Understanding those constraints leads us to the investment opportunities that arise from these substitutes. Increasing demand and constrained supply of oil is fueling the search for oil substitutes to use in its place. Unfortunately, almost all of these potential substitutes also have limited...
