The Week in Cleantech

On Monday, Richard Blackwell at the Globe & Mail told us how the center of the Earth may power our portfolios. Geothermal is a sector we believe is poised for solid growth over the next few years, and the Toronto Stock Exchange is a good place to look for geothermal plays. On Tuesday, John Addison at the Cleantech Blog gave us a few highlights from the Fuel Cell 2007 Conference. With all the talk around batteries, plug-in hybrids and biofuels, fuel cells have somewhat fallen out of favor recently. This article is a good way to catch up...

On Tuesday, Carl T. Delfeld at Seeking Alpha told us about the new kid on the cleantech ETF block, the PowerShares Global Clean Energy ETF (AMEX:PBD). For more details, check out Powershares section on PBD. This fund tracks the WilderHill New Energy Global Innovation Index - an index put together by New Energy Finance (NEF) of London. NEF is, in my opinion, one of the most interesting organizations in the clantech finance space at the moment. On Tuesday, Jack Uldrich at The Motley Fool reminded us that a bill is just a bill. At AltEnergyStocks.com, we view...

The Week in Cleantech is a weekly roundup of our favorite cleantech and alt energy blog posts and stories from across the web. If you know of a good piece that you think should be included here, don't hesitate to let us know! This week, we particularly liked... On Sunday, Marc Gunther told us all about the greening of Goldman Sachs. As our regular readers know, Wall Street's involvement in environmental finance is one of our preferred topic of discussion. On Monday, Dana Childs at Inside Greentech told us that there might be some good...

Over the Weekend, Craig Mackintosh at Celsias struck a note of cautious optimism about the outcome of the UN Climate Change Conference in Bali. Jim Fraser at the Energy Blog transmitted the findings of a study of interconnected wind as baseload power. On Monday, The Biopact team reported on as study the potential for bio-based bulk chemicals to cut the consumption of non-renewable energy and greenhouse gas emissions. On Tuesday,  Rachel Barron at Greentech Media splashed the news of PG&E's agreement to purchase wave power from Finavera Renewables...

On Sunday, Cory Jenkins at Seeking Alpha told us about the next green energy phenomenon. The carbon offset space where credit origination is coupled with commoditization of what would otherwise be 'waste' (i.e. methane from livestock can be used to produce power instead of vented into the atmosphere) is a space I am very excited about. Some of you may have read the article in the December edition of Bloomberg Magazine on privately-owned Blue Source, and, if you haven't, I'd definitely recommend it. I think the business model makes an increasing amount of sense the more whatever you initially...

On Monday, Richard Stuebi at Cleantech Blog highlighted the extent to which NBC is in the dark about energy efficiency. I couldn't agree more with Stuebi here - this idea is so painfully bad that it's a bit of a mystery why anyone in their right minds would agree to it. In the space of a few minutes, GE likely managed to undermine over two years of flashy press events and other publicity stunts aimed at convincing investors and the populace that "green is green." If Alt Energy Stocks awarded a prize for misplay of the week, this would...

The December edition of Bloomberg Markets Magazine is devoted partly to the rise of carbon capitalism. An interesting series of articles on the budding carbon economy. While there are currently few ways for North American investors to play this, I continue to believe that this is an area the environmental investor must keep an eye on. On Monday, Jim Kingsdale at Seeking Alpha discussed ethanol and biodiesel: two very different biofuels. This is an interesting piece with a bullish outlook for two biodiesel stocks. Biodiesel often lingers in the shadow of ethanol in North America, yet it is...

On Sunday, Tom Philpott at Peak Energy told us about The End of Food. The book, that is. While food is neither alt energy not cleantech, it is a key environmental theme in my view and will grow in importance as the effects of climate change are felt across the globe. On Monday, David McClellan at Solve Climate argued that the costs of nuclear energy were rising out of reach. A good attempt at coming up with a comparison of wind and nuclear prices, and interesting in the context of my earlier article on power plant costs. ...

Jeff Siegel and Tom Konrad April 16: Canadian Solar (NASDAQ:CSIQ) Soars in Pre-Market JS: Capstone Turbine (NASDAQ:CPST) announced this morning that it landed a deal with a Michigan hospital to supply a dual-mode C1000 Power Package. The unit will provide both prime and backup power to save energy and increase reliability at the facility. Not sure how much this will do for the stock today, but I still maintain that Capstone Turbine below $1.00 is a gift. Particularly for those who can exercise a little patience. Consolidation looks to continue in the...

Last year, I used a special run of AltEnergyStocks.com's new Cleantech News (CTN) aggregator to bring you the ten stories of 2007 which bloggers found most interesting or controversial. Continuing the tradition, below are the ten stories of 2008 which Cleantech and Green Bloggers were talking about. One of my favorite features of CTN is how it not only provides links to the original articles, but also links to the articles referencing it. Hence the list below includes links to the entire conversation. Unsustainable Biofuels In January, The Gaurdian kicked things off with an article saying...

Last Week, Jacques Diouf at Biofuel Review reminded us that biofuels are a great opportunity for the worlds poor. James Fraser at The Energy Blog told us about Penn State's new method of converting black liquor into DME for biofuel, and Green Car Congress, told us about the partnership which is exploring commercialization. On Monday, Tyler Hamilton at Clean Break told us about Vinod Khosla's big bet on Concentrating Solar Power.  Excellent article, especially since Khosla slams half-measures that don't make a big difference in the global warming problem.  He also...

On Wednesday, Energy Tech Stocks gave us the heads up on a recent warning by Raymond James & Associate about declining oil production. Interesting to see a thesis that was derided as pure fantasy as recently as two years ago slowly creeping up into the mainstream. On Thursday, Sam Abuelsamid at Autoblog Green opined that CO2 regulations in Europe could place the balance of power on the auto parts suppliers' side in the fight for profit margins. We have noted in the past how some of the most interesting (and 'safest') clean car investment opportunities rested with parts...

The Week in Cleantech is a weekly roundup of our favorite cleantech and alt energy blog posts and stories from across the web. If you know of a good piece that you think should be included here, don't hesitate to let us know! This week, we particularly liked... On Monday, Tate Dwinnell at SelfInvestors told us how to profit from the Advanced Energy Initiative, part II. Stocks discussed: Fuel Tech , Exelon Corp , Entergy Corp , Cameco Corp , Energy Metals Corp , Usec Inc. . On Monday, George Gutowski at Financial Skeptic...

On Monday, Joe Carroll and Mario Parker at Bloomberg News argued that the current ethanol bust was making losers of Bush, Gates and D.E. Shaw. We are proud to say that at AltEnergyStocks.com, we have always been corn ethanol bears, even when many of these stocks were trending up. But beyond bragging about our foresight, which, by the way, was shared by several people, the current fiasco is a cautionary tale of the dangers of government trying to create a winner industry when that industry makes no sense on most levels. Things may change, but to date all that...

On Monday, Ian Talley at the WSJ's Energy Roundup informed us that there were no alternatives at NYMEX. While the reasons behind this delay may be unclear, the US Futures Exchange is moving ahead with what I believe are the first US wind power futures to be traded on a US exchange. On Wednesday, Dan Lewis at AEI informed us that Vestas was closing a second manufacturing plant in Australia. Not supporting the emergence of a strong renewables industry is, to say the least, an interesting policy choice on the part of the Federal and the various State...

The Economist is currently running an interesting poll on whether we can solve our energy problems with existing technologies or whether we will need breakthrough innovations. Add your vote! On Sunday, Domenick Yoney at AutoBlog Green told us that electric bike sales were soaring world-wide. I'm not sure what's a good play on this, but an interesting trend to note nonetheless. On Monday, Matthew McDermott at TreeHugger told us about another biofuel feedstock we may not have considered. Earlier this summer, David Pauly at Bloomberg was telling us about yet another such potential feedstock, which apparently is...