Live Interview/Call in on Denver PBS Station KBDI 12
A quick note to Denver area readers: AltEnergyStocks.com Analyst Tom Konrad will be a guest on local PBS show Studio 12 from 8-9PM CDT Wednesday, September 2. This will be a panel discussion on Alternative Energy, and other guests are likely to be a representative of the natural gas industry, and one of the authors of Energy Sprawl or Energy Efficiency: Climate Policy Impacts on Natural Habitat for the United States of America from the Nature Conservancy. They're also trying to get local environmental bête noire, Stan Lewandowski. Viewers will be able to call in and ask questions of...
A Clean Energy Inflection Point in 2013? The Best ETF to Play the Trend
Tom Konrad In 2007, it seemed like clean energy was finally becoming mainstream. Both candidates for the US Presidency accepted the need to act on global warming, even if they did not agree on the degree, and clean energy stocks were rising even faster than the broad stock market. Then came the 2008 financial crisis, and many Americans discovered they had much more immediate worries than the slow but inexorable warming of the planet. Fossil fuel interests and the politicians who benefited from their donations played to the new mood by providing a worried populace with the excuse they wanted...
They’ll Put the Cellulose in Cellulosic Ethanol
One of the keys to staying ahead of the game in money management is lateral thinking. I start with the trend, and then try to think of industries or companies that might benefit, but are not on everyone else's radar. With Peak Oil-driven demand for biofuels, regular readers know that I consider the people who produce the feedstock (farmers, and industries whose waste can fairly easily be converted into biofuel) to be the most certain winners. One direction this chain of logic has taken me is to forestry companies. I'm far from a forestry analyst, so I decided to...
Cleantech Venture Capital – Still Rising
As part of our ongoing series on stories on investment in the cleantech sector, we had a chance to discuss the sector with one of the venture capitalists at Emerald Technology Ventures. Scott MacDonald is an Investment Director with Emerald Technology Ventures, a global leader in cleantech venture capital. Founded in 2000 under the name SAM Private Equity, Emerald is a pioneer in this rapidly emerging sector and is focused on innovative technologies in energy, materials and water. With offices in Zurich, Switzerland and Montreal, Canada, Emerald manages three venture capital funds and two venture capital portfolio mandates...
Three Money Managers See LED Industry Shining in 2013; Their Stock Picks
Tom Konrad LED lights on an outdoor tree. Photo by author This is the third article in my series based on my panel of green money managers’ predictions for 2013. The first article looked at what they expect 2013 holds for the Solar industry, and the second looked at their predictions for the Smart Grid. This installment focuses on the LED industry. Jeff Cianci: Faster than Anyone Expects Jeff Cianci is Chief Investment Officer at equity investment fund Green Science Partners. Cianci says “The trend toward LED lighting for...
Are the Declines in Solar and Wind Stocks Structural, or Cyclical?
Tom Konrad, CFA Last week, I asked three green money managers if they thought cleantech stocks, especially solar and wind sectors were near a bottom. While they did tell me about eight cleantech value stocks, they were not ready to call the bottom. Commoditization in Clean Energy In response to my questions, Rafael Coven, the manager of the Cleantech Index (^CTIUS), which is the index behind the Powershares Cleantech Portfolio ETF (PZD,) ...
Royalties: a Financial Innovation for Renewable Energy
The following interview with RE Royalties (RE.V, RROYF) CEO Bernard Tan was conducted in September by AltEnergyStocks.com Editor Tom Konrad. Links and ticker symbols were not included in his original responses, but added by AltEnergyStocks.com as a resource for readers.
Q: What exactly is a renewable energy royalty?
A renewable energy royalty is a stream of cash flows generated by a renewable energy project. When the project generates electricity and sells its electricity, we receive a percentage of the revenues from the electricity sales, otherwise known as a gross revenue royalty. We receive that gross revenue royalty, on average, for about...
Current Picks: Busses and Energy Efficiency
Over the weekend, EnergyTechStocks published two articles based on an interview with me. The first was about my conviction that Peak Oil induced rising gas prices is going to lead to a rush into mass transit building by cities, or investing in mode-shifting last September. I've since written about opportunities in rail transit stocks, (P.TO, TRN, PRPX, and WAB), and more recently Hedging your peak oil risk with your lifestyle. However, I have been frustrated until now that the only pure play bus stock I've been able to find is Firstgroup PLC (FGP.L, FGROF.PK), the British based owner of...
Money Managers See Value in Clean Energy Sector, but Hesitate to Call the Bottom
Tom Konrad CFA Three green stock specialists see individual stocks at attractive values, but think it's too soon to call the bottom for the sector as a whole. Last month, I wrote that I'm again finding clean energy stocks that I think are bargains, and listed ten. I was not ready to call a bottom for clean energy, and in fact said I expected the market to get worse before it gets better, so investors should keep some money on the sidelines to wait for more opportunities to emerge. In a little over a month...
Hither and Yon: Transmission and Biofuels
In the most recent two installments of Energy Tech Stocks' interview with me cover my views on transmission stocks, and biofuel stocks. Readers of AltEnergyStocks know that I am a big fan of electricity transmission, a theme I keep coming back to. You also know that I have a very ambivalent relationship with both ethanol and biodiesel. So I liked Bill's transmission article, but I just wasn't able to convey to him the subtleties of how I feel about biofuels. But he got one thing right: the owners of biofuel feedstock are likely going to be the biggest winners....
A Conversation with Ambassador Sklar on Solar in San Francisco
By Neal Dikeman, Partner, Jane Capital Partners LLC, Founding Contributor, Cleantechblog.com, and Contributing Editor, AltEnergyStocks.com. This week I had an opportunity to have a conversation with Ambassador Richard Sklar, the President of the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission, on renewables and solar power in San Francisco. This is his second stint at the SF PUC, and besides a time in politics, Ambassador Sklar has served as an executive in and advisor to private manufacturing and engineering firms. I had met him and several of the top SF PUC team at Solar 2006 in San Jose, and had been...
Interview with Dr. Mike Gallagher, President & COO of Westport Innovations
One of the companies I have followed for some time is Westport Innovations, Inc., (TSX:WPT or WPIVF.PK) out of Vancouver. The technology and product suite allows large diesel trucks to run standard diesels on a 95% natural gas mix, enabling fuel switching as well as significantly improved NOx and PM, as well as CO2 emissions. The company's rapid expansions date from a late 1990s joint venture with Cummins (NYSE:CMI), and Westport has led this market sector since then. I had the opportunity at the recent Greenvest 2007 Conference I chaired in San Francisco to hear...
The Biggest Unheard Boom of 2006 in Cleantech, Smart Metering, and Energy
Author Neal Dikeman is a founding partner at Jane Capital Partners LLC, a boutique merchant bank advising strategic investors and startups in cleantech. He is the founding contributor of Cleantech Blog, and a Contributing Editor to AltEnergyStocks.com. In one of the less talked about cleantech mergers and acquisitions of 2006 (but one I think will have a deep impact on alternative energy and the smart metering and AMI market for years to come), First Data recently acquired Peace Software, an early provider of IT, billing, and CRM software to the deregulated utility sector, in a bid to get...
Alt Energy Stocks Analyst Tom Konrad On PBS’s WealthTrack
Alt Energy Stocks Analyst Tom Konrad will join a televised roundtable discussion with EnergyTechStocks' Managing Editor Bill Paul and Ardour Global Indexes' Joseph LaCorte this Friday. The discussion will center around the topic of investing in alternative energy. The program, entitled WealthTrack with Consuelo Mack, will air on PBS between November 9th and 12th, after which it will be available for online viewing here. You can find a listing of stations carrying the show with airtimes at the end of this article. Bill Paul may be familiar to our readers because of the series of articles he wrote following...
