Clean Transportation

Tom Konrad CFA Many investors find the prospect of selecting individual stocks simply too daunting.  For those investors interested in investing in peak oil, but uncomfortable with the risks and moral dilemmas inherent in oil company stocks, there is another option: Powershares Global Progressive Transportation Portfolio (PTRP).  I've been researching and writing this series about investments that will benefit from peak oil for half a year.  If you've read the 20+ articles in the series so far, you've learned about several stocks that should be well positioned to benefit from rising oil prices, and you should...

Investors act in irrational, but predictably irrational, ways.    That is the basic tenet of Behavioral Economics.  (Looking for references, I came across an interesting book by that title, by the Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Behavioral Economics at MIT’s Sloan School of Management.)   For me, these predictable irrationalities provide ways to profit from the mistakes of others in the market, so long as I do not fall into the same (or other) cognitive traps which cause the market opportunities in the first place.  I describe one such technique in this article. Applications to Policy Design In addition to those...

Charles Morand In an upcoming article in the journal Resources Policy, David Humphreys, former Chief Economist at Rio Tinto and Norilsk Nickel, argues that skeptics are right to question the notion that mineral prices in the 2003 to 2008 period were rapidly uptrending as part of an emerging multi-decade supercycle. He argues that the rise in demand underpinning steep mineral price increases had two distinct causes: (1) an "extended economic upswing" driven by an ample supply of cheap credit (we know now where that got us); and (2) a "deeper-rooted structural shift in the economy" resulting from...

SatCon Technology Corporation (SATC) announced that it has been awarded a Phase I SBIR contract with the U. S. Army to develop an Integrated Starter/Generator (ISG) for hybrid powertrain military vehicles. SatCon's Applied Technology division is currently developing DC/DC converters (pulse power and battery chargers), starter generators, auxiliary power units, and main generators for hybrid electric vehicles for U. S. Army advanced technology vehicles. This award expands SatCon's portfolio of vehicle power technologies with the development of an integrated starter/generator based on advanced permanent magnet machinery design concepts.

John Petersen Last week I spent three days at the 11th European Lead Battery Conference in Istanbul where I learned that I've been far too conservative in earlier articles that discuss the likely impact of stop-start idle elimination systems on the battery sector. To put things in perspective, the 10th ELBC in 2008 had 500 participants and two papers on stop-start systems. The 11th ELBC in Istanbul had 700 participants and 15 papers on stop-start, including three from major automakers. The stop-start papers took a full day of the 2-1/2 day conference program. The high-level overview...

DaimlerChrysler AG (DCX) may sell gasoline-electric cars and trucks to U.S. consumers as early as 2006, adding another fuel-efficient option to its main strategy of diesel-powered vehicles. Chrysler, the maker of Jeep, Dodge and Chrysler brand cars and trucks, is studying whether to add gasoline-electric hybrid versions of some of its vehicles, according to Chrysler Group CEO Dieter Zetsche. He didn't say which models. Chrysler already plans to sell 100 diesel-electric Dodge Ram pickup trucks to fleet customers later this year.

Unique Mobility Inc (UQM) announced that it has received a contract from the U.S. Army's Tank Automotive and Armaments Command (TACOM) to develop an advanced vehicle propulsion motor for application as a wheel mounted electric propulsion system for hybrid electric combat vehicles being developed under the Army's Future Combat Systems (FCS) program. The one year development effort will focus on the validation of a proprietary new design for a permanent magnet electric motor that has the potential to triple the torque capability compared to existing UQM(R) propulsion motors. Army funding for the cost-share project is $242,548 or 77...

Romm v. Kholsa In a persuasive series of articles, entitled "Pragmatists vs. Environmentalists" (Parts I, II, and III) on Gristmill, Vinod Khosla provides the reasoning behind his "dissing" of plug-in hybrids, which drew the ire of Joeseph Romm.  Neither seems to think the argument is settled, and Joeseph Romm returns fire here. As someone who knows as much about investing as Joe Romm and has written as much about Climate Change and Energy Policy as Vinod Khosla, I feel the need to jump into the debate and settle the matter.  (Will either of them will notice?)...

Green Car Congress has an excellent writeup about the recently announced Honda 2005 Civic Hybrid. Compared to the 2005 Civic Hybrid, the 2006 model with the new IMA is 18% more powerful than its predecessor while delivering a combined EPA estimated fuel economy of 50 mpg US compared to 47–48 mpg US of the 2005 hybrid. The new IMA also adds the ability to cruise only under the power of the electric motor. Honda Motor Co (HMC) has been playing catchup with Toyota in the hybrid marketplace and they are looking strong with this new offering....

By Jeff Siegel Clean Energy Fuels (NASDAQ: CLNE) has been having a pretty good year. The stock reached a 2015 high of $10.48 on May 4. Up from $5.03 at the start of the year. But the natural gas fueling company co-founded by legendary oilman T. Boone Pickens took it on the chin today after missing analysts’ estimates for earnings and revenue in Q1. When CLNE first came on the scene, I was a fan. I even recommended the company shortly after it went public. And we did pretty well, eventually clocking out with a gain in...

John Petersen On August 28th, the Office of the Inspector General of the U.S. Postal Service published the results of a feasibility study titled, "Electrification of Delivery Vehicles." While the feasibility study reaches a foregone conclusion and recommends the purchase of a 3,000 unit demonstration fleet, I was surprised by the high level of Federal subsidies the Inspector General thought necessary to bring EVs within Postal Service capital investment policies. I was even more surprised by the conclusion that the tipping point in the economic analysis was revenue from ancillary vehicle to grid, or V2G, services. The...

John Petersen Last week the stock of A123 Systems (AONE) soared 52% in a day after it announced that an enhanced chemistry would improve the cold and hot weather performance of its LiFePO4 batteries, reduce the need for ancillary temperature control systems and make them more competitive in a rapidly evolving micro-hybrid battery market that's dominated by lead-acid battery manufacturers like Johnson Controls (JCI) and Exide Technologies (XIDE). Investors seem to understand that micro-hybrids will generate several billion dollars of incremental annual revenue for battery manufacturers by 2015, but they haven't quite figured out who the winners will...

Tom Konrad, CFA I included the Powershares Global Progressive Transport Portfolio (PTRP) as an investment option instead of three stocks in my Ten Clean Energy Stocks for 2010, as part of a simplified portfolio for small investors wanting to minimize costs by making fewer trades.  The other Exchange Traded Fund I used in this way was the First Trust Nasdaq Clean Edge Smart Grid Infrastructure Index Fund (GRID).  I took a look at the holdings of the Smart Grid ETF here, and they are not exactly what you would expect from the name.  Since it makes sense to know...

Here is an interesting article on the Carbon Tax Blog about dropping gas usage in the US due to sustained high prices.  As I've said before, now that peaking oil supply has made gasoline supply inelastic, price will have to be set by marginal demand... we're beginning to get a look at what the demand elasticity for gasoline is. But gas prices are not dropping.  US demand may actually be elastic, but world demand is not yet showing elasticity.  In large part, this is because most emerging economies and oil producing company consumers enjoy fixed price oil, courtesy of...