Air Products Goes Operational with Carbon Capture

by Debra Fiakas CFA   In October 2009, the U.S. Department of Energy selected a dozen projects aimed at bringing relief to a planet suffocating in a cloud of toxic carbon dioxide emissions. The DOE called the program it’s Large-Scale Industrial Carbon Capture Storage Projects and wrote checks for $575 million out of American Recovery and Reconstruction (ARRA) funds.  A little more than a year later the DOE weeded out all but three projects for the second phase of the program.  Besides Leucadia Energy (subsidiary of Leucadia National, LUK:  NYSE) and Archer Daniels Midland...

Tetra Tech: Energy Engineer

by Debra Fiakas CFA In the coming years power generators will be under pressure to meet new standards for lower carbon emissions embedded in the EPA’s Clean Power Plan.  Each state has to meet a set of standards set by the EPA based that state’s particular circumstances in electrical generation.  The carbon pollution limits begin in 2022 and ramp to full effect by 2030. Power generators could meet standards by reducing harmful emissions from existing fossil fuel-fire plants.  Unfortunately, that may prove too costly at some of the older plants.  It is logical that power generators...

Carbon Capture and Storage: By the Numbers

"We have over 200 years of coal reserves, and we have to/will use them." I have heard some variation of this line far too many times, and I have little patience for it.  Here's why: We don't have over 200 years of reserves.  The real number for economically accessible coal is less than half that. A square, 100 miles on a side in the Southwestern deserts of the US could meet the electricity needs of the entire nation, if solar energy were converted to electricity at 10% efficiency.  There's a lot of desert in the Southwest, and we're...

Phycal Captures CO2 Funding for Biofuel

by Debra Fiakas CFA As part of its program to promote beneficial reuse of carbon dioxide, the Department of Energy awarded a total of $27.2 million ($3.0 million in the first phase and $24.2 million in a second phase) to a consortium led by alternative energy developer Phycal, Inc. (private).  According to the DOE website, Phycal is to develop an integrated system to produce biofuel from microalgae cultivated with captured carbon dioxide (CO2).  The biofuel is to be blended with other fuels for power generation or as drop-in diesel or jet fuel. It is a bit of...

What Shouldn’t Be in a Green Energy Portfolio

The London Accord took a look at what portfolio theory would suggest as the most effective ways to address Climate Change.  Knowing which technologies don't make the cut is at least as useful as knowing which technologies do. Tom Konrad, Ph.D., CFA I recently looked at a paper from the London Accord which used portfolio theory to recommend the best mixes of technologies to deliver different levels of carbon abatement.  The most useful technologies to achieve the needed levels of carbon abatement were Forestry, Hydropower, Biofuels, Wind, Efficiency, and Geothermal. I suggested stocks that investors might consider to invest in...

Kadant: Will Investors Clean Up With This Bargain Green Stock?

Everybody likes a bargain.  Investors really like a good cheap buy.  A review of our four alternative energy industries revealed three stocks trading below industry average multiples of forecasted earnings. This is the second article in the series, thee first looked at Ormat (ORA:NYSE).    A couple of weeks ago shares of Kadant, Inc. (KAI:  NYSE) registered an particularly bullish formation  -  at least from a technical standpoint.  A ‘triple top breakout’ was formed in a point and figure chart, suggesting demand for the stock outpaces supply.  Given the new momentum that has developed, the stock could reach...

BioNitrogen: Valuable Technology, Management Questions

by Debra Fiakas CFA My last post outlined how  Bion Environmental Technologies, Inc. (BNET: OTC/QB) is transforming livestock waste into organic fertilizer.  Bion is not the only aspiring fertilizer producer.  BioNitrogen Holdings Corp. (BION:  OTC/PK) was recently patent protection for a process to produce urea from stranded natural gas.  Instead of burning off the unwanted gases, oil and gas operators can turn it into an economically viable by-product. There is more than just cash flow at stake for oil and gas producers.  Burning off stranded gas increases harmful emission that can lead to penalties in the...
pollution

List of Pollution Control Stocks

Pollution control stocks are publicly traded companies whose business involves technologies for removing or reducing the emissions of harmful pollutants, contaminants, and/or waste from human activity, or removing these pollutants from the environment or water. This article was last updated on 6/25/2020. Advanced Emissions Solutions, Inc. (ADES) Advanced Disposal Services (ADSW) Babcock & Wilcox Enterprises, Inc. (BW) Bion Environmental Technologies (BNET) Biorem Inc. (BRM.V, BIRMF) Casella Waste Systems (CWST) CECO Environmental Corp. (CECE) CDTi Advanced Materials, Inc. (CDTI) Clearsign Combustion Corp. (CLIR) CO2 Solutions, Inc. (CST.V, COSLF) Donaldson Company, Inc. (DCI) Ecolab, Inc. (ECL) EcoSphere Technologies, Inc. (ESPH) Euro Tech Holdings (CLWT) Fuel Tech (FTEK) iPath Global Carbon ETN (GRN) OriginClear (OCLN) Pacific Green Technologies Inc. (PGTK) Republic Services,...

China Everbright Greentech

by Debra Fiakas CFA Investors based in the U.S. need to look far and wide for new stock issues from renewable energy companies.  Capital markets activity has slowed in the last couple of years, in part to due to their own success.  In reaching new efficiency in energy production, renewable energy companies are generating their own internal capital and are not as dependent upon the capital markets.  The Hong Kong market has come to the rescue of U.S. investors with a ‘green’ offering China Everbright Greentech Ltd. is now trading on the Hong Kong Exchange with the...

Plastics from Carbon Dioxide

by Debra Fiakas CFA In the last post, I promised to close out this series on carbon dioxide capture with a note on a third example of Department of Energy funding for innovations in turning carbon dioxide (CO2) into a valuable raw material.  Besides changing the chemistry of inorganic compounds and feedstock for biofuel production, CO2 has some potential for plastics.  In 2010, the DOE placed a bet of $18.4 million on Novomer, Inc., which is a self-described sustainable chemicals developer.   The bet appears to be paying off as Novomer and its partners go into production...
BW history

Boiler Maker in Need of a Shot

by Debra Fiakas, CFA A reserve split is in the works to keep shares of Babcock & Wilcox Enterprises(B&W) listed under the symbol BW on the NYSE.  The stock price of this storied environmental engineering had slipped below the Exchange’s minimum price requirements.  Ten shares will be melded into one beginning July 23, 2019. Reverse merger math alone will not solve B&W’s problems.  One hundred and fifty two years in business, B&W has been providing environmental technologies and services for energy and industrial customers since the company’s first boiler was sold right after the American Civil War.  The company boasts that Thomas Edison was one of...

While Others Seek to Inject CO2, Airgas Sells It

by Debra Fiakas CFA   Just one of the many suppliers of industrial and commercial carbon dioxide, Airgas, Inc. (ARG:  NYSE) recently announced plans to build a new carbon dioxide plant in Houston.  The press release hit news wires right along with announcements of carbon capture projects and other investments to reduce greenhouse effect from too much CO2 in the atmosphere. In one those strange twists that makes our world so interesting and vexing at the same time, is the fact that we use carbon dioxide all the while we invest wildly to reduce CO2...

OriginClear: Metals out of the Muck

After the worst of the wind and rain had died down from Hurricanes Harvey and Irma, and people began making their way back home, it became apparent that citizens of Texas and Florida would have more worries.  The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency disclosed that at least thirteen toxic waste sites in Texas were flooded and damaged by Hurricane Harvey and another forty-one Superfund sites were negatively affected.  Legacy contamination includes lead, arsenic, polychlorinated biphenyls, benzene and other carcinogenic compounds from historic industrial processes.  After Hurricane Irma over six million gallons of wastewater reportedly flowed out to the coast and...

Water Out Of Thin Air

It is an irony that surrounded by the flood waters of Hurricanes Harvey and Irma, a drink of fresh, clean water may be hard to come by.  Of course, the all three levels of government make plans for stockpiling and deploying emergency bottled water well ahead of natural disasters.  Yet in the hours and days following the worst of both the recent storms, the media was filled with stories of people who lacked water. What if water could be made manufactured?  If such a technology existed, what a boon it might be to thirsty storm victims. Ambient Water Corporation (AWGI:  OTC/PK) has...

The Low Cow-bon e-Cow-nomy

Jim Lane This month in Finland, a team of intrepid researchers herded one thousand European cows one-by-one into a glass “metabolic chamber” to measure their methane emissions, digestion, production characteristics, energy-efficiency, metabolism, and the microbial make-up of their rumens. The Project is known as RuminOmics, but if it had been titled The Truman Show II: When the Cows Come Home, we wouldn’t have been a bit surprised. The Cow Emission Crisis. No Kidding Around. The ultimate aim of the study was to find an optimal, low-emission, high-yield cow, and the team noted in its premise that of all greenhouse...

Greenhouse Gas Management Stocks: Key To A Real Climate Change Portfolio?

There has been a lot written lately about how to turn climate change into an investment opportunity, including on this site. Not all of it is, however, especially useful or relevant. In the worst cases, commentators have ascribed the 'climate change investment opportunity' label to just about any industry out there, indiscriminate of whether or not there really is a strong and direct connection. If you are seriously interested in playing the climate story, you should stay focused on near and medium term opportunities with real and tangible links to what is currently going on with the climate...
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