Feed: Clean Energy Wonk - AggScore: 82.6

Tom Konrad Ph.D. California’s RETI process lends insight into the near-term prospects of Solar, Wind, Geothermal, and Biomass.   In September, California’s Renewable Energy Transmission Initiative (RETI) released their Phase 2A report, which outlined potential transmission corridors to collect renewable energy from Competitive Renewable Energy Zones (CREZ) that had been identified in previous phases.  As part [...]

Energy Self-Reliant States [pdf], a flawed study on local Renewable Energy availability from the Institute for Local Self-Reliance (ISLR) found that 18 of the 50 states could not meet their electricity needs with local renewables.   In fact, no state can meet its electricity demand through local renewables without expensive electricity storage.  On a national basis, [...]

by Tom Konrad, Ph.D. Big spending Demand-Side Management programs are not the only way to promote Energy Efficiency. The Sierra Club’s Rocky Mountain chapter has decided that one of their priorities for 2010 is promoting Energy Efficiency. Since that decision was, at least in part, due to my suggestions as part of their Energy Committee, I volunteered [...]

For non-financial readers looking to understand Internal Rate of Return (IRR), which I used as the foundation for Energy Internal Rate of Return (EIRR) in my article Managing the Peak Fossil Fuel Transition, you can find a good discussion of IRR on Wikipedia. In practical terms, IRR is nearly always calculated in a spreadsheet from a [...]

EROI and EIRR by Tom Konrad, Ph.D. Current renewable energy technologies must be adopted in conjunction with aggressive Smart Growth and Efficiency if we hope to continue our current standard of living and complex society with diminished reliance on fossil fuels. These strategies have the additional advantage that they can work without large technological breakthroughs.  Energy Return [...]

Both my Quick Clean energy Tracking Portfolio and my Ten Green Energy Picks for 2009 have shown strong out performance through Q3. For a while, I thought I was on to something with the tracking portfolio (like mutual fund managers were smart, or something), but it turned out that they just put higher risk stocks in [...]

I’ve recently said that the best way to invest in both Advanced Biofuels and Cellulosic Ethanol, and Biochar (aka terra preta) is to invest in Biomass. Here is one way to go about it: buying Forestry ETFs or Stocks.

I recommended the Algonquin Power Income Fund as a renewable energy income investment back in January, and as part of my ten clean energy picks for 2009. Since then, both the stock and the ten picks have been doing well in comparison to the market, but Algonquin has entered into a couple deals, while I look [...]

Since I’ve recently been bearish on the market, but don’t want to wait on the sidelines, and expect that many of my readers feel the same way, I just published two articles on hedging strategies. A hedging how-to, with five ways to hedge, and a simple method to fine-tune your strategy How I’ve recently adjusted my hedging [...]

John Peterson wrote a series of three articles looking at the economic problems with Plug-in-Hybrid Electric Vehicles (PHEVs) over the last month. He Debunked the economics of PHEV ownership. Pointed out that PHEVs may not help with Energy Independence and he showed that they aren’t a particularly cost effective way of reducing carbon emissions. I thought it all went [...]

A month ago, I bought Raser (RZ) in a gamble that one of thier plans to get project financing would pay off quickly. Unfortunately, the one I thought was most likely of these, an application for a DOE grant gaurantee, was rejected last week, so I sold at a slight loss. I’ll be keeping [...]

My Ten Clean Energy Picks for 2009 continue to blow the indexes away, although the ten gambles for 2009 have only kept pace. Part of the reason the gambles have not kept up is the big drop in the price of Raser Technologies (RZ). Raser has fallen so for I now think it’s a bargain, [...]

Looking for a list of Smart Grid Stocks? Try this.

I read a lot of Green Jobs reports over the last couple of months, and the research cumulated in three articles. One is for the next issue of Smart Energy Living, and will be published in the Fall ‘09 issue, but the other two are available now. In the first, I look at the differences [...]

Predicting market moves is notoriouslly difficult, but I’m feeling pretty good about my recent efforts. On October 11, 2008, I stoped being a permabear and said, “the market as a whole now seems to me to be fairly valued.” The S&P 500 closed the previous Friday just below 900; today it closed at 919.32. [...]