Alternative Energy Stocks

UPDATE: I just looked into the 7 Series vs the Trilogy 40 in more detail here and came to a slightly different conclusion. Tom Konrad CFA Geothermal heat pump diagram via Bigstock Waterfurnace Renewable Energy (TSX:WFI, OTC:WFIFF) launched its new highly efficient 7 Series geothermal heat pumps (GHP) today.  The 7 Series commercial release beats Climatemaster’s (a division of LSB Industries (NYSE:LXU)) Trilogy 40 as the first commercially available GHP with a variable speed compressor.  The Trilogy 40 is currently available as part of a pilot program, and is expected to be commercially available...

John Petersen In June an anonymous blogger at Clean Technica dubbed me the “EV Black Knight,” the mortal enemy of electric cars.  While I was flattered by the tribute, I was deeply offended by the suggestion that I might be foolish enough to impale a lithium-ion battery pack with the burnished broadsword of economics. Seriously, anybody who’s spent any time studying battery safety knows that shockingly bad things can happen when you puncture a lithium-ion battery pack with a conductor and even a full metal jacket wouldn’t be enough to protect a knight errant from...

Jim Lane Mud/salt formations on the Badwater, Death Valley plain. Image by Daniel Mayer. What makes a winner in advanced biofuels? Five companies – Abengoa (ABGOY), INEOS Bio, Mascoma, Gevo (GEVO), and American Process reflect on the essential ingredients for success. “We are industrial technology businesses, making a commodity, we have to control costs everywhere and learn, learn, learn.” – American Process CEO Theodora Retsina You could call it VODville, VOD for valley of death that is – a stretch of hard desert that...

Tom Konrad CFA A new report from GTM research, “PV Technology, Production and Cost Outlook: 2012-2016” predicts continued contraction in PV manufacturing.  While recent price declines have driven record-breaking installations, it has also driven most manufacturers’ margins into the red.  You can’t make up for negative margins on volume. For a stock market investor, the best approach to a cut-throat industry is to stay away until competition and lower prices remove or absorb the excess capacity, and to buy the remaining players just before the industry’s prospects revive. As you can see from the chart above,...

Tom Konrad CFA June was a month of recovery for the stock market in general and clean energy stocks to a somewhat lesser extent.   The Russell 2000 index (^RUT, which I use as a broad market benchmark in this series) was up 9% in June, while the Powershares Wilderhill Clean Energy ETF (PBW) gained 5.3%.  So far for the year, ^RUT has produced a total return of 9.5%, while PBW shows a loss off 12.2%. My model portfolio introduced in January of 11 equally-weighted clean stocks lost ground yet continues to outperform the clean energy...

Tom Konrad CFA I sometimes think Alterra Power (TSX:AXY, OTC:MGMXF) is unfairly lumped with other small, renewable energy developers. A typical problem for small developers over the last few years has been raising the funds to invest, even when they have compelling prospects.  For instance, Western Wind Energy stock (TSX:WND,OTC:WNDEF) has been beat up recently because a large Federal cash grant is delayed.  Finavera Wind Energy (TSXV:FVR, OTC:FNVRF) has been declining for most of the year as they look for a strategic partner to help fund their permitted wind developments, despite significant progress permitting those projects and...

Jim Lane Dire US media headlines abound: “Drought!” What’s real, what’s hype, and what are the impacts? More importantly, what alternatives does science give us now, and in the future, with more drought-tolerant energy and food crops? The Reuters report could not have been more stark this week from a field in Illinois. “We’re in a critical point, could be the beginning of the end,” said Dave Kestel, a farmer, in a Reuters report that ran yesterday. Kestel’s plants in Manhattan, Illinois, the news service reported, “are almost two feet shorter than they should be at...

Tom Konrad CFA  On March 22, Western Wind Energy (TSX-V:WND, OTC:WNDEF) applied for a $90,556,707 tax-free 1603 grant from the US Treasury on behalf of the completed 120MW Windstar project.  The press release stated that the grant is subject to approval by the Treasury and payable within sixty days. The Windstar Wind Farm. Photo credit: Western Wind Energy It’s now more than three months later, and no tax grant.  The stock is down 24% since May 22, when the grant was expected, but management remains confident they will get...

Steve Leone   Delays and cancellations photo via Bigstock Now, energy giant General Electric (GE) said it is putting plans for its Aurora, Colo., plant on hold for 18 months in reaction to the continued drop in crystalline silicon solar panels. When the company announced its plans to jump into American thin-film manufacturing nine months ago, it did so in grand fashion. Company officials unveiled a plan for a 400-megawatt (MW) facility that would churn out cadmium telluride (CdTe) panels, the same thin-film technology deployed by...

Tom Konrad CFA The Once Bright Future of CSP Solúcar PS10 solar tower. Photo by afloresm via Flickr Since before I started writing about investing in clean energy in 2006, I’ve been fascinated by Concentrating Solar Thermal Power (CSP.)  CSP held the promise of much cheaper energy than was then available from photovoltiac (PV) solar, combined with thermal storage, which eliminated the variability problems of PV.  Unlike other renewable energy able to produce baseload power (geothermal, biomass, and hydro), CSP is scaleable: The solar resource in areas...

Jim Lane Independence Day Celebration photo via BigStock  Yesterday, in the United States the bands and bunting were on display, because it was Independence Day. But is freedom really sustainable, without energy independence too? It would be a sweeter thing, political independence, if it were accompanied by more energy independence. For examples, choices at the pump that didn’t involve wealth transfers to people who oppose the principle of ballot boxes. But before there is energy independence, there has to be more freedom from the entropy that...

by Debra Fiakas CFA   Diagram of a battery with a polymer separator. Lithium ion batteries make it possible to recharge your smart phone, camera and a multitude of other have-to-have-with-us-every­-moment devices.  Yet the average person knows very little of the inner workings of something so important to our daily lives.  One little item in a battery is a highly specialized membrane that fits neatly between opposing electrodes  -  the positive and negative poles that make an electrical charge.  This membrane manages the charge and discharge process. ...

Ed Gunther Has a permanent swerve or shift downward of the PV (Photovoltaic) Learning Curve been caused by PV industry overcapacity, normalized polysilicon prices, and the aggressive SunShot goals? From SunShot Grand Challenge: The SunShot Swerve On the second day of the SunShot Grand Challenge Summit and Technology Forum, SunPower Corporation (NASDAQ:SPWR) President Emeritus Dr. Richard Swanson presented “The SunShot Swerve” providing his perspectives on where the PV industry is today and how SunShot has influenced the industry’s direction. After explaining the book that motivated the title, Dr....

Jennifer Runyon Powerful Ocean Wave photo via Bigstock That was the question posed to industry experts at the EnergyOcean International conference and exhibition that took place in Danvers, Mass., this week. Referring to three levels of development Epoch 1, 2, and 3 Andrew Tyler, CEO of Marine Current Turbines (MCT), a company now owned by Siemens (SI), gave a few key pointers to companies interested getting beyond the “very expensive hobby” stage of ocean energy development. While his tongue-in-cheek...

Tom Konrad CFA The Tesla Model S, from the unveiling on 26-Mar-2009. (Photo credit: Wikipedia) An EV for the 1% The chatter among electric vehicle (EV) enthusiasts and investors is all about the launch of the Tesla (NASD:TSLA) model S.  A cool ride, no doubt, but not many of us are ever going to buy a sedan that starts at $49,900, even after the $7,500 tax subsidy. Fortunately for the rest of us, this week also brought news about two much more affordable EVs. An EV for the 99% Chicago...

John Petersen While I jumped the gun last week and published my third quarter outlook for the energy storage and vehicle electrification sectors early, it's worthwhile to take a look back and see how my tracking list of companies performed over the last quarter and examine the past to see what the tea leaves in the bottom of the cup portend for the coming quarter. So without further delay I'll present my price performance table for the second quarter that ended on Friday. Q-2 was a dreadful quarter for Maxwell Technologies (MXWL) and ZBB Energy...