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diesel
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 Posted: Tue Mar 06, 2007 7:48 pm Post subject: Alternative Energy Investment |
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Looking into allocating some capital into the alternative energy area as I see it as a good long term play based on the following:
1. Geopolitics
2. Continued secular rise in oil due to depletion etc.
3. Global Warming mitigation.
4. Increase in enviromentalism going forward.
I am thinking of taking positions in the Powershares Alternative Energy ETFs PZD & PBW as previous attempts to buy into certain stocks in this area have proven a liability. Has anyone else looked into this area and have any thoughts, recommendations?
Regards,
Diesel |
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rffrydr
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| Posted: Wed Aug 27, 2008 8:05 pm Post subject: |
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California Proposition 7: flying too close to the sun?
| Quote: | California Proposition 7
Posted on: August 18th, 2008 by Ed Ring
There is nothing wrong with encouraging clean, renewable, domestically produced energy. But California’s proposition 7 “would, if approved, require California utilities to procure half of their power from renewable resources by 2025″ (ref. Ballotpedia). Currently California’s public utilities are mandated to generate 25% of their electricity by 2025, and this is an ambitious goal. Just getting to 25% renewable electricity by 2025 would require more than doubling renewable power generation in California. Getting to 50% by that time would require renewable power generation in California to nearly quintuple.
To understand why accomplishing such an ambitious goal is not necessarily practical, you don’t have to be an economist or a renewable power expert. You simply need to take a look at the current cost for renewable power technology. While you’re at it, write off hydropower, which constitutes most of the renewable energy in California. The chances any significant new hydropower generation ever gets built in California are slim and none - despite whatever sentiments you may hold for or against hydro. This leaves geothermal, solar and wind.
While geothermal holds exceptional long term potential, ala enhanced geothermal drilling, today there isn’t a single operating example of a power station employing enhanced geothermal technology. And most of California’s conventional geothermal power resources have already been developed. So now you are down to wind and solar energy. And since Californians by 2025 are going to be consuming about 1,000 gigawatt-hours per day, if proposition 7 is enacted, 500 gWh per day will have to come from wind and solar power.
Solar power, installed - not including transmission or storage infrastructure - costs about $7.0 million per megawatt of output; this equates to $7.0 billion per gigawatt. If this sounds expensive, it is, but to get a truly accurate price you have to also take into account yield. Even in sunny California, solar energy (in terms of full-sun-equivalent hours), can only be harvested on average for 4.5 hours per day, which means to get 500 gWh of solar generated electricity each day in California, you would need to install 111 gigawatts of solar arrays (500/4.5), which would cost $777 billion dollars.
Wind power, installed - is a better deal currently than solar - insofar as you can probably get costs down to around $2.5 million per megawatt of output, or $2.5 billion per gigawatt. But the yield figures are also not promising. In California there is widespread disagreement on the yield for wind power - credible estimates range from 10% (2.4 hours per day) to 25% (6.0 hours per day). Given the magnitude of what is being proposed, it would be prudent to project wind yields in California somewhere in the middle of this range, say 17.5%, or 4.2 hours per day. This means to get 500 gWh of wind generated electricity in California you would need to install 119 gigawatts of solar arrays (55/4.2), which would cost $297 billion dollars.
It is tempting, and not entirely implausible, to expect prices for solar power to drop significantly over the next several years. But given the cost of balance of plant and installation labor, it is unlikely solar electricity is going to get measurably cheaper than wind power no matter how inexpensive the actual collector materials become. Moreover, the costs for new transmission lines and grid upgrades, the costs for massive energy storage units (since the sun and wind are only producing power during small portions of the day), and the costs for land aquisition, permitting and fighting environmentalist lawsuits will be substantial. For these reasons, estimating the total cost for California to deliver 50% renewable electricity at $300 billion is probably the very best case, if not fantastically optimistic. This is $20 billion per year for the next 15 years. Readers are encouraged to critique these projections.
California has already mandated utilities to accomplish a 25% RPS (renewable portfolio standard) by 2025. It would make sense to see how this already ambitious process unfolds, giving solar and wind technology - along with future technologies such as enhanced geothermal - time to mature, before leaping to a 50% RPS mandate. |
http://ecoworld.com/blog/
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rffrydr
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rffrydr
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rffrydr
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dknoester
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HenryTo
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| Posted: Mon Aug 18, 2008 9:32 am Post subject: |
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South Korea whole-heartedly embraces "green energy" initiatives:
http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/nation/2008/08/116_29427.html
| Quote: | He urged the people to join the government's drive to strengthen the rule of law, transparency in government, ethical business management and industrial relations. The absence of trust in society deepens conflict and makes integration less attainable, he added.
"The aging population is posing yet another daunting challenge for us. The average lifespan of Koreans did not even reach 50 in 1948. What mattered at that time was survival. Now, the average life expectancy has surpassed 80 years. It is getting longer and longer. What really matters now is not survival but quality of life,'' he said.
The government will make major investments to raise the share of new and renewable energy from two percent to more than 11 percent of the nation's power consumption by 2030, and further to more than 20 percent by 2050.
Investment in research and development of green technology will be doubled to make the country a world leader in green technology, a sector whose value will reach 3,000 trillion won by 2020.
Experiments on solar, wind and tidal energy will be done at Saemangeum, the tidal flats on the west coast that is being transformed into an industrial complex. The administration will also carry out the Green Home Project to allow one million homes to use new and renewable energy. |
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diesel
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| Posted: Tue Aug 12, 2008 4:48 pm Post subject: |
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Hi Henry,
I have only heard rumours to date. I do like the heritage of A123 though.
I have profound respect for MIT as a scientific and technological institution.
Regards,
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HenryTo
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| Posted: Tue Aug 12, 2008 10:10 am Post subject: |
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Thanks Diesel. This is a great time for both A123 and the investment bankers to go public. They desperately need those underwriting dollars!
Do you know who's supplying the batteries in the Chevy Volt? My money is on A123 - but it seems like they would announce that prior to filing for the IPO. |
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diesel
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| Posted: Tue Aug 12, 2008 3:22 am Post subject: |
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Nano battery maker A123 files to go public.
http://a123systems.com/#/news/news133
http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/08/08/is-the-ipo-window-opening-up-again-a123-systems-files/
| Quote: | Watertown, MA - August 08, 2008 - A123 Systems, Inc. announced today that it has filed a registration statement with the Securities and Exchange Commission relating to the proposed initial public offering of its common stock.
The joint book-running managers of the proposed offering will be Morgan Stanley & Co. Incorporated and Goldman Sachs & Co. Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith Incorporated will serve as co-lead manager, and Broadpoint Capital, Inc. and Lazard Capital Markets LLC will serve as co-managers. |
I will most likely pick a few of these up for the spec part of the portfolio.
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rffrydr
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rffrydr
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rffrydr
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| Posted: Sun Jul 06, 2008 7:26 am Post subject: |
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Speaking of gas and alternative energy:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=NwV1VZcPvt0
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HenryTo
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| Posted: Wed Jul 02, 2008 12:27 am Post subject: |
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Ottawa will build the first gasification facility in North America to make energy from waste - projected to turn 400 metric tons of garbage per day into 21 megawatts of net electricity--enough to power about 19,000 homes.
http://www.technologyreview.com/Energy/21029/?nlid=1184 |
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rffrydr
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| Posted: Mon Jun 30, 2008 10:25 am Post subject: |
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Contrast this with biofuels visionary Vinod Khosla
http://media.bloomberg.com/bb/avfile/Economics/On_Economy/vvQv2eU3F0MY.mp3 (repost from ethanol thread)
Who sees electricfication as a first world luxury. Hybridizing Tata's $2500 would raise the cost well over $10000 and is not an option according to him--and that's the growth.
As matter of public policy it would be an obvious benefit to launch a carrot-stick program aimed at "gross polluters." This was done effectively in early 90's in Los Angeles County with bounty of 20-50% premium paid to scrap registered vehicals. Steel scrap could provide over half the funding of that now. Throw in some hyundai coupons and a low-income loan guarantee program--or, even microfinancing, and you can start counting barrels tomorrow, OPEC or no.
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HenryTo
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| Posted: Mon Jun 30, 2008 12:54 am Post subject: |
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Andy Grove an enthusiastic proponent of the plug-in hybrid and electricity movement in the transportation sector:
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AP Interview: Ex-Intel head pushes electric cars
Sunday June 29, 1:51 pm ET
By Ken Thomas, Associated Press Writer
AP Interview: Ex-Intel chairman pushes electric transportation to move away from imported oil
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Former Intel Corp. Chairman Andy Grove has a knack for sensing when circumstances should force changes at a company or an industry -- and how to respond.
He even has coined a term for it: the "strategic inflection point." Now the retired chairman of the world's largest computer chip maker thinks the term applies to energy and transportation, where record-high gasoline and oil prices have spurred interest in alternative energy sources and next-generation vehicles.
During the past year and a half, Grove has created his own crash course in electric power, plug-in hybrid vehicles and finding ways of shifting the nation's fleet of vehicles from gasoline. His goal: To draw more attention to electric vehicles.
"The most important thing I would like to do is light that almost half-assumed truth up in neon lights: Electricity in transportation has to be done. It is urgent. It is important that everything else is secondary," Grove said in a recent interview with The Associated Press.
"The drumbeat of the electrical transportation is accelerating like nothing I've ever seen in my life," he said.
Grove, 71, who was Time Magazine's Man of the Year in 1997, is the latest industry and government heavyweight to push plug-in hybrids and electric cars. Former CIA director James Woolsey, former Secretary of State George Schultz and Google Inc.'s philanthropic arm, Google.org, have touted the benefits of cars that could plug into a standard wall outlet to recharge the battery.
Several automakers are testing plug-in prototypes that would allow the vehicle to run on electric power for the first 40 miles. The technology hinges on the development of advanced lithium-ion batteries and companies such as General Motors Corp. and Toyota Motor Corp. hope to have an extended range plug-in available in limited quantities by 2010.
In the latest edition of The American, published by the American Enterprise Institute, Grove writes that the beauty of electric power is its ability to be produced through multiple sources such as coal, wind and nuclear, and its "stickiness" -- it can be transported only over land.
Oil, by contrast, "flows to the highest bidder," making the United States more susceptible to price increases caused by voracious demand for petroleum from growing economies such as China.
While car makers have been developing plug-ins, Grove says the nation should consider ways of retrofitting the 80 million low-mileage pickups, sport utility vehicles and vans on the road to make them capable of running on both gasoline and electric power.
Giving these vehicles "dual fuel" functions would be similar to changes made in other technologies. DVD players, for example, were often combined with VCR tape players when they were first introduced to help consumers make the transition.
To push the technology along, Grove suggests tax incentives to take the risk out of battery development and help offset the costs of conversion kits. Utilities, he says, could subsidize the early adopters of plug-ins by providing free electric power to the vehicles for the first year to 18 months.
"I think it is a legitimate place for the government to fund, to accelerate it," he said.
Automakers have urged the government to provide more consumer tax incentives and research aid to develop advanced batteries, but they have questioned efforts to retrofit the vehicles.
Any changes to the engine would void the warranty, and the alterations could undermine the vehicle's reliability and safety functions, automakers say.
"We strongly discourage consumers from retrofitting vehicles," said GM spokesman Greg Martin.
Grove says the fledgling plug-in hybrid movement offers parallels to the Homebrew Computer Club from the mid-1970s that helped electronic hobbyists in Northern California set the stage for personal computers. Plug-in hybrid conversion shops could spread the technology in similar ways.
"The personal computer ... went to individuals first before it went to corporations. The conversion goes to individuals," Grove said. "Electric cars ... the corporations are sitting, wishing this whole friggin' thing to go away. Which is exactly what the computer companies' attitude was to personal computers."
Grove has battled Parkinson's disease and devoted millions of dollars and work to support research into the disorder. He has taken to alternative energy issues with a similar intensity, tapping into a network of plug-in enthusiasts and experts. Grove says he even bought a textbook on electric and hybrid vehicles written by a University of Akron professor.
"They are all enthusiastically tutoring me," he said.
Grove co-teaches a Stanford University business school seminar and will devote the class next fall to examining ways of making the electric car possible.
He acknowledges that the shift to electric transportation will be a daunting challenge, but he notes that President Franklin Roosevelt worked with Detroit's automakers during World War II to quickly retool their plants to supply the war effort. At a time of gas prices that exceed $4 a gallon and with the dangers of oil politics, those lessons shouldn't be lost, he said.
"I think technologically it's doable. I think the logic is pretty compelling," Grove said. "Somebody better drive it and play Roosevelt." |
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