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 fall, given that the environmental disaster in the Gulf likely will focus increased political and media attention on the extensive environmental damage caused by tar-sands extraction. It would seem to be just a matter of time before some reporter asks Canadian officials how they feel about the US basically outsourcing the environmental destruction caused by the US’s insatiable thirst for oil.

One Canadian newspaper – the Prince Albert Daily Herald – has already reported that the CEO of oil-sands firm Cenovus Energy (CVE) doesn’t think such a catastrophe could occur in the tar sands region, a conclusion environmentalists no doubt will disagree with.

That BP is as big in Canadian tar sands extraction as it is in Gulf of Mexico oil drilling only adds to the likelihood of an attention-grabbing front-page story in, say, the New York Times.

In addition to Cenovus, several companies’ shares stand to be impacted, among them: EnCana (ECA), Canadian Natural Resources (CNQ), Suncor (SU) and Royal Dutch Shell (RDS.A).

Disclosure: No positions

Disclaimer: This is a news article.  Please read terms and policy.

Bill Paul is Managing Editor of EnergyTechStocks.com.

The post What Will the Oil Spill Do For Oil Sands Stocks? appeared first on Alternative Energy Stocks.

Bill Paul

In the wake of the massive Gulf of Mexico oil spill, it’s clear the U.S. needs to end its crude-oil addiction as much to protect its economy as the environment.

To move the future forward, America needs one company in particular to come through on behalf of all Americans. In a cruel twist of fate, that company is ExxonMobil (XOM), which is working on arguably the most important energy-research project in the world today. Namely, a project to replace crude with genetically-modified algae that can be cost-effectively refined using existing refinery equipment.

A year ago when Exxon announced its algae project with biotech pioneer J. Craig Venter, the company said that it would take at least 5-10 years to produce commercial quantities of algae-based fuels. “My suspicion, and it’s just a suspicion, is that they still see it as five to 10 years away,” says Addison Wiggin, editorial director of The Daily Reckoning, who has been looking into the Exxon-Venter project for a forthcoming documentary on entrepreneurs in the post-crisis financial world.

Too long. As video of the black death pouring out of that ruptured pipeline gushes onto every American TV and computer screen, it’s time for President Obama to declare a new Manhattan Project, a new man-to-moon space race. The goal must be to take America off its crude addiction in less than five years with a literally home-grown industry that will create tens of thousands of agricultural and other jobs without jeopardizing the existing oil industry’s trillion-dollar infrastructure.

Exxon shares would surge the moment this plan became publicly known; however, the President can’t allow the investor payoff to be too bountiful. There will have to be safeguards against Exxon controlling the applicable patents in order to prevent the company from controlling America’s energy future.

Algae oil is no panacea, the President will further need to say. Accelerated development of plug-in electric and all-electric vehicles is needed in order for the U.S. to have, by 2020 or sooner, a nationally-secure, environmentally-sound transportation infrastructure.

In a second twist of fate, not only would Exxon shares likely surge in price, so too might the shares of utilities that generate a lot of electricity from coal. Companies such as Duke Energy (DUK), Southern (SO) and FirstEnergy (FE) might lose their pariah image if part of the President’s strategy were to capture coal plants’ carbon dioxide and use it to accelerate algae growth.

For risk-inclined investors who believe that all this may be on the way, a company that might be worth a closer look right now is tiny OriginOil. (OOIL.OB). The company has started signing up customers as it begins commercializing a technology for producing biofuel from algae using CO2 emissions captured from smokestacks.

Disclosure: No positions

ED NOTE: Follow this link for a look at four algae oil companies, including OriginOil.

The post Exxon Could Be the Answer to America’s Energy Problems appeared first on Alternative Energy Stocks.

 Bill Paul

For investors to benefit fully from the alternative energy revolution, they must first see it for what it is, namely, some 30 different businesses, separate yet interconnected in their goal to reduce the use of oil, coal and/or natural gas and, with it, the emissions these fossil fuels generate.

While wind and solar dominate the news, analysts’ research reports, and alternative energy ETFs, there are many other prospective long-term winners receiving far less attention.

Some are developing other alternative energy sources, such as geothermal, biomass and biogas, wave and tidal, and algae. Some are developing various forms of energy storage, such as flywheels, fuel cells and ultracapacitors.

Others are making a vast array of energy-saving products, from LED light bulbs to ‘stop-and-start’ motor vehicle systems. Still others are developing components for the coming era of electrified transportation other than lithium-ion batteries, for example, electric bikes and scooters and electric-vehicle recharging equipment (aka, the electric gas pump).

Other companies are involved in alternative energy as consultants and information providers, as investors in green and smart-grid developers, and as renewable energy insurance providers.

To be sure finding technology-based pure-play companies that are still small and undiscovered represents the biggest potential payoff. But especially if you have a low risk tolerance, multinational giants generally associated with other sectors also have the potential to pay off big, given all the money governments are throwing at green energy, energy efficiency, electrified transportation, the smart grid, carbon trading, and more.

Indeed, as much as everyone is looking for the next Cree (CREE) and First Solar (FSLR), over the long-term alternative energy’s biggest winners likely will also include Siemens (SI), General Electric (GE), Microsoft (MSFT) and Apple (AAPL).

For more on all this, investors might want to sign up for a free webinar taking place tomorrow, May 11 at 1 pm EDT. For information, please go to:

http://2greenenergy.com/bill-paul-webinar/

The post Redefining Alternative Energy – Not One Business but 30 Different Businesses appeared first on Alternative Energy Stocks.

Bill Paul

Having been a Wall Street Journal energy and environment reporter, one of the first experts I would have called before running a story on privately-held solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) developer Bloom Energy would have been Neal Dikeman, who in addition to being a prominent alternative energy investor and the writer of an authoritative blog on clean technology, was involved in developing a fuel cell company.

But as Dikeman posted lasted week – Saving Cleantech: Bloom town Silicon Valley? – he didn’t get a call from the folks at CBS’s 60 Minutes, so the raft of legitimate technical questions Dikeman raised in his column went unanswered even as breathless 60 Minutes correspondent Lesley Stahl all-but-declared the energy crisis over thanks to Bloom.

To its credit, CBS did include an interview with a Bloom skeptic; however, he was more-or-less a prop inserted to make the story look balanced. If you read Dikeman’s list of unanswered technical questions surrounding Bloom’s technology, you realize that CBS never should have aired this piece in the first place, at least not without a lot more on-camera independent expert testimony.

But if Bloom Energy is over-hyped, investors might want to look closer at two fuel cell companies Dikeman says “are arguably shipping commercial product today,” FuelCell Energy (Symbol FCEL) and SFC Smart Fuel Cell. (Symbol SSMFF).

In announcing last week that it was initiating coverage on FuelCell Energy, Liberty Analytics noted that the company is the “world leader in the development and production of stationary fuel cells for commercial, industrial, municipal and utility customers,” and that its direct fuel cells (DFC) are generating power at over 55 locations worldwide.

Although still in the red, FuelCell Energy recently hired a seasoned senior executive in a bid to accelerate market penetration. The company is scheduled to announce its first-quarter results on March 10.

Smart Fuel is a German company that EnergyTechStocks.com has previously suggested investors might want to look at more closely. While also still in he red, the company’s losses have been narrowing significantly. The company describes itself as the market leader in fuel cell technologies for mobile and off-grid power applications serving leisure, industrial and military markets. Importantly, the company, in partnership with DuPont (Symbol DD), recently got a glowing review from the U.S. Defense Department for its lightweight power packs that soldiers can use in the field. DOD said the power pack “could offer a significant advancement in the area of soldier portable power in the field. (For more see From Small Fries to Big Shots? CBD Energy and SFC Smart Fuel Cell Look Promising.)

DISCLOSURE: No position.

DISCLAIMER: This is a news article.  Please read terms and policy.

Bill Paul is Managing Editor of EnergyTechStocks.com.

The post What’s the Stock Play in Wake of the Over-hyped Story About Fuel Cell Developer Bloom Energy? appeared first on Alternative Energy Stocks.

Bill Paul

As it scrambles to develop an offshore wind power industry that potentially may generate as much as 200 gigawatts of electricity, China has decided to hamstring all would-be foreign developers, which should provide a big lift to certain Chinese companies.

As reported last week by Environmental Finance magazine in its online edition, Beijing has effectively shut out international operators with new regulations requiring any foreign offshore developer to enter into a joint venture with a Chinese company under which the foreign firm must be a minority partner. “In reality, most of the international developers cannot, or are not willing to, do a joint venture with (a) Chinese partner,” Environmental Finance quoted the policy director of the Global Wind Energy Council as saying.

The wind council official called the new regulations “shocking,” but for investors they may be inviting.

With China expected to rapidly ramp up offshore wind generation, certain Chinese wind power companies could see their underlying valuations rise the more Beijing’s new offshore policy becomes apparent.

One in particular is China Longyuan (Symbol CGYG.OB), which just went public in December. Another possible beneficiary is Xinjiang Goldwind, which trades locally under the symbol 002202. Goldwind has announced plans to ramp up production of offshore turbine machines.

Still another potential beneficiary is Datang International Power (Symbol DIPGY). World wind-power leader Vestas of Norway (Symbol VWDRY) has called Datang an important wind development company.

DISCLOSURE: No position.

DISCLAIMER: This is a news article.  Please read terms and policy.

Bill Paul is Managing Editor of  EnergyTechStocks.com.

The post Beijing Cramps Foreign Offshore Wind Developers, Giving Boost to Domestic Firms appeared first on Alternative Energy Stocks.

Bill Paul

For my money, energy efficiency (aka, the “fifth fuel”) is the best alternative energy sector for investors because it’s primarily about saving money, only secondarily about saving the planet.

The energy services industry reportedly has grown by more than 20% per year every year since 2004 and efficiency service providers now pull in an estimated $5.6 billion a year just on U.S. commercial buildings. Pike Research says there is a reservoir of untapped projects worth $400 billion. “There’s this huge untapped potential” for energy efficiency, a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency spokesperson was recently quoted as saying. Indeed, of the approximately 70 billion square feet of U.S. office space, only about one billion is believed to have undergone retrofits.

Although Washington can be as dull as a 40-watt light bulb, eventually DC is going to figure out that energy efficiency is the best way to create green jobs here in the U.S., unlike all those other green jobs – like making solar and wind components – that are going to China and Europe. When that finally happens, look for Goldman Sachs (Symbol GS), Morgan Stanley (Symbol MS) or some other big outfit to put out a report that wakes the world up to energy efficiency’s tremendous potential.

By then, investors should have already taken action. Like so much in energy, the bigger the company, the more likely it is to pull in big-buck contracts, so it may be worth laying a few bob on the leaders of the energy efficiency services industry, namely: Johnson Controls (Symbol JCI), United Technologies (Symbol UTX), IBM (Symbol IBM) and my personal favorite: Siemens (Symbol SI). (For more on Siemens, please see If I Could Own Only One Alternative Energy Stock, It Would Be . . ..)

DISCLOSURE: No position.

DISCLAIMER: This is a news article.  Please read terms and policy.

Bill Paul is Managing Editor of  EnergyTechStocks.com.

The post Investors: Concentrate on This Alternative Energy Sector and You Should Make a Lot of $$$$$ appeared first on Alternative Energy Stocks.

Bill Paul

Lux Research forecast last week that the global smart grid market will grow some 250% over the next five years, reaching nearly $16 billion by 2015 compared with today’s $4.5 billion. Interestingly, Lux further forecast that only a few select firms will take full advantage of this looming largesse.

It’s understandable why the payoff won’t be widely shared. As regulated entities (on the transmission and distribution side), electric utilities have an obligation (specifically, the time-honored “obligation to serve”) that effectively requires that they be conservative when partnering with IT firms that can provide the money-saving, blackout-avoiding technologies which are at the heart of the smart grid. In other words, big is better.

This is why most of the more than $11 billion of new smart-grid-related revenue that Lux expects to be generated over the next five years will be pocketed by the IT beasts that already are pocketing the yeoman’s share of the $4.5 billion currently being spent.

For at least one firm – demand response leader EnerNOC (ENOC) the potential payoff is life-changing, and only further adds to my purely personal suspicion that EnerNOC is going to be acquired at some point by a much larger firm.

Two logical buyers of EnerNOC would be Accenture (ACN) and IBM (IBM). The two are jockeying for leadership in the rapidly-developing smart-grid analysis and services market, which Lux Research believes is “poised for explosive growth” led by demand response applications.

Still another IT behemoth in line to gobble up billions of new smart-grid revenue is Cisco Systems (CSCO). Think of Cisco as the smart grid’s Mr. Goodwrench. Whether it’s routers, switches or other equipment, Cisco’s goal is to provide the IT components that utilities (with the help of consultants led by Accenture and IBM) will fashion into a system that automates the power industry from end to end – from generation to transmission to distribution to consumption.

DISCLOSURE: No position.

DISCLAIMER: This is a news article.  Please read terms and policy.

Bill Paul is Managing Editor of EnergyTechStocks.com.

The post Smart Grid’s Expected 250% 5-Yr Growth Rate is Great News for Cisco, IBM, Accenture, EnerNOC appeared first on Alternative Energy Stocks.

Bill Paul

Not every investor wants to be a green investor, but every investor – institutional and individual alike – should be prepared to take advantage of a company’s greenness.

According to a recent study sponsored by Environmental Leader, an online publisher, consumers are willing to spend more on products and services that they consider to be environmentally-friendly. That’s why 82% of respondents said they plan to use more green messaging in their marketing.

But how can an investor tell a genuinely green firm from the phony ones that practice “greenwashing?” One place to look is Portfolio 21.

As we note on EnergyTechStocks.com, Portfolio 21 is a well-established mutual fund that looks for environmentally-friendly business practices by companies in a variety of industries. The fund’s shares are up over 37% from a year ago and the other day it announced its list of “Top 10 Green Companies.” While greenness certainly isn’t the only factor that goes into a company’s share price, the following 10 firms have products and services that figure to have a little extra going for them.

Autodesk (Symbol ADSK) made the list because, according to Portfolio 21, the company makes software that supports sustainable building practices. East Japan Railway (Symbol EJPRY) made the list because rail transportation is inherently more energy efficient than trucking, and because the company keeps reducing its own energy consumption.

Henkel (Symbol HENKY) was recognized for its wide range of bio-based detergents and adhesives. Itron (Symbol ITRI), meanwhile, was cited because its core business is metering and software that serve to reduce energy consumption.

Brazil’s Natura Cosmeticos (Symbol NUACF) was recognized for its sustainable use of natural resources. Similarly, Potlatch (Symbol PCH) was recognized for its sustainable forestry practices.

Red Electrica (Symbol RDEIY), Spain’s leading power transmission company, was cited for its role in facilitating Spain’s rapidly-growing alternative power generation business. Japanese consumer products giant Sharp (Symbol SHCAY) made the list for manufacturing products that incorporate energy and resource efficiency and recyclability.

Belgium’s Umicore (Symbol UMI) was recognized for being the world’s leading recycler of precious metals, while Denmark’s Vestas (Symbol VWDRY) was recognized not just for being a wind power manufacturer but for its own sustainable manufacturing practices.

DISCLOSURE: No position.

DISCLAIMER: This is a news article.  Please read terms and policy.

Bill Paul is Managing Editor of EnergyTechStocks.com.

The post Why Investors Should Pay Attention to Portfolio 21’s Top 10 Green Companies appeared first on Alternative Energy Stocks.

Maintaining and expanding the world’s electric power grids in order to avoid stupendous blackouts, add gigawatts of green power, and bring electricity to a billion additional people, will cost hundreds of billions of dollars over the next 10 years.

Retrofitting just the U.S. power grid will cost $130 billion, estimates the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI). China has earmarked $135 billion to upgrade and expand its high-voltage grid. India will need to spend billions if it has any hope of reaching its goal of increasing electrical generation capacity to 200 GW by 2012 from roughly 150 GW currently. Among the many planned projects that will cost billions are the super grids that will connect North Sea offshore wind farms to northern Europe and North African desert solar installations to southern Europe.

Of the many players in the "global grid game," two in particular that appear to have strong long-term positions are Japan’s NGK Insulators Ltd. (Symbol NGKIF.PK) and Indo Tech Transformers Ltd., an Indian company that trades in Mumbai (Symbol 532717) in which General Electric Co. (Symbol GE) recently acquired a majority stake through a joint venture with a Mexican firm.

As Jesse Berst – whose web site, SmartGridNews, should be required reading – noted last month, "When it comes to the suppliers of grid-scale storage, there’s Japan’s NGK and its proven product line and then there is everybody else."

Given the growing need to "store" electricity from wind, solar and other so-called intermittent power sources, grid-scale energy storage will be a $4.1 billion market by 2018 compared with just $329 million in 2008, according to Pike Research, and NGK has already "garnered several significant multiyear battery orders," according to Berst.

To be sure, shares of power-storage companies (including NGK) have been performing well for many months. But with governments around the world due to spend upwards of $200 billion in green stimulus money this year and next, NGK’s upward climb would logically appear to have a ways to go.

As for Indo Tech, while it’s just one of several power transformer manufacturers in India, it’s the one that GE appears to be using to spearhead its growth in the fast-growing Indian power market. "As generation ramps up, I think there are going to be a lot of opportunities for growth in the transmission and distribution sector," GE Energy’s man in India was recently quoted as saying.

Think of Indo Tech as a purer play that may generate bigger absolute returns than GE itself will in a global market that everyone agrees is, and will continue, growing by leaps and bounds.

DISCLOSURE: No position.

DISCLAIMER: This is a news article.  Please read terms and policy.

Bill Paul is Managing Editor of EnergyTechStocks.com.

The post Playing the ‘Global Grid Game’ – Japan’s NGK, GE Majority-Owned Indo Tech Look Strong appeared first on Alternative Energy Stocks.

Bill Paul

Nobody knows the alternative energy landscape better than Clint Wheelock, whose firm, Pike Research, generates in-depth research on everything from smart meters to carbon capture and sequestration.

Now here’s a forecast deserving of far wider attention than it has so far received: by 2020 total revenue generated by energy services companies (ESCOs) could hit $37.7 billion, up a monstrous 573% over 2009’s $5.6 billion. At a minimum, Wheelock expects ESCOs’ revenue to hit $19.9 billion by 2020, a 255% increase.

In an exclusive interview last week, Wheelock explained that as much as demand is already growing for services that cut a commercial building’s energy and operating costs, he’s starting to see what he called a “shift in mindset” by building owners that promises to send ESCO demand into the stratosphere.

Building owners are starting to “see energy as an asset to be managed, not as a cost,” Wheelock said. They’re starting to realize that improving lighting, HVAC and other energy-consuming building systems both decreases operating costs and, in an ever more eco-conscious society, increases the value of the building. “A big difference,” Wheelock added, is that building owners are increasingly willing to accept a two-to-three-year payback on their efficiency investments, compared with only 12 to 18 months previously.

To be sure, Wheelock’s 573% ESCO revenue growth forecast comes with caveats, most notably that the still-nascent trend of counties and other government entities selling bonds that help pay for energy-efficiency improvements in buildings catches on, which he thinks will happen over the next few years. Right now, he said, ESCO demand is concentrated in single-tenant buildings owned by government, educational institutions, etc. With so-called PACE financing (short for property-assessed clean energy), Wheelock sees ESCO demand spreading throughout the commercial sector and even penetrating the residential sector.

And so we come to the drum roll: if Clint’s new forecast is spot on, which companies could give investors the most bang for their buck?

He agreed with me on the usual suspects, namely: Johnson Controls (Symbol JCI), Honeywell International (Symbol HON) and Siemens (Symbol SI). (Click here for more on Siemens)

Then, citing the growing interconnect between energy efficiency and information and communications technology, Wheelock offered up three untraditional “green” choices: Cisco Systems (Symbol CSCO), IBM (Symbol IBM), and General Electric (Symbol GE).

DISCLOSURE: No position.

DISCLAIMER: This is a news article.  Please read terms and policy.

Bill Paul is Managing Editor of EnergyTechStocks.com.

The post This ‘Green’ Sector May Grow 573% to $37.7 Billion by 2020 – And the Big Winners Will Be . . . appeared first on Alternative Energy Stocks.