Feed: EE/RE Investing - AggScore: 88.3

Bill Konrad 1930-2011

---

May father died on December 7th, and I just published his obituary on Forbes: http://onforb.es/BillKonrad. As a life-long investor and IT CEO, I think it would have pleased him to have it published there. Interviewing his friends and family in the process of writing it was a great help in coming to terms with losing [...]

Wood gas conversion of pickups

---

Biofuels Digest brings us the story of Wayne Keith and his wood-syngas conversion for pickups (I get the feeling he uses mostly pickups because you can use the truck bed as you “gas tank.” I think this option has a lot going for it. The biggest barrier to cellulosic biofuels in my mind is the [...]

Mathemagic

---

I just found out my college Probability and Statistics professor was on the Colbert Report last year. Apparently he’s the only mathematician to ever have been on the show. Watch the video below for a sample Art Benjamin’s unique mathemagic (and Colbert’s four-standard-deviation humor)… and don’t worry, there won’t be a pop quiz after the [...]

The One Alternative Energy Sure Thing?

---

It looks like Tom Gardiner at Motley Fool is pushing one of my current favorite stocks, Ameresco (AMRC). The Stock Gumshoe deciphered the clues here, giving my Forbes blog about Ameresco a link. A appreciate the Gumshoe for his dry sense of humor and ability to deflate the hype newsletter promoters are always trying to [...]

Small is Beautiful

---

My recent Forbes article Cheap Photovoltaics Are Eating Solar Thermal’s Lunch about how the rapidly falling price for photvoltaic (PV) modules is undermining the case for concentrated Solar Thermal Power (CSP) is just one instance in a larger trend: In the modern energy economy, modular technologies advance more rapidly than large scale technologies because it [...]

Map of Hybrid/Electric vehicle sales across the US

---

NPR is doing a series looking at automakers’ push to meet the new CAFE standards. Included is this map of hybrid/electric vehicle sales across the US by market: http://api.tiles.mapbox.com/v2/npr.basemap-world,npr.hybrid-sales/mm/zoompan,tooltips,legend,share.html#4/36.65000000000001/-96.96999999999997 I thought it would be interesting to compare it to gasoline prices across the US. Here’s one from Gasbuddy. I’m having trouble getting the frames to [...]

Risk Aversion and Pricing Climate Risk

---

I felt the “Editor’s Corner” article in the most recent Financial Analysts Journal (Sept/Oct 2011) “Pricing Climate Change Risk Appropriately” does an excellent job explaining why the possibility of extreme climate scenarios justifies a considerably higher price for carbon than would be warranted under the most likely or average scenario: Humans are risk averse. Equities… [...]

Fuel Efficiency in the US

---

A nice graphic comparing various passenger cars and alternative fuels. Two quibbles: - I don’t think the NASA crawler (used to transport the Space Shuttle) qualifies as a passenger car. - Why not include natural gas vehicles?

Fossil Debt

---

An off-hand comment by Marc Gunther in an article on Solyndra about the started an email chain between the two of us on green jobs. We agree that most of the debate is silly, but I see some interesting economics underlying green jobs. I explore those ideas in this article: The Microeconomics of Green Jobs. [...]

Chaos Theory, Financial Markets, and Global Weirding

---

In my bio, I usually state My study of chaos theory led to my conviction that knowing the limits of our ability to predict is much more important than the predictions themselves, a lesson I apply to both climate science and the financial markets. Despite having written about financial markets and clean energy stocks regularly [...]

A Flaw in Most Well-to-Wheel Studies of EVs and PHEVs

---

A post on 2GreenEnergy inspired me to talk about a flaw in Well to Wheel studies of vehicles that has been bothering me at a low level for years. Such studies attempt to quantify the emissions of vehicles based on the entire life-cycle of the fuel they use. For plug-in vehicles, this requires understanding the [...]

Predicting the Electric Vehicle Adoption Curve

---

Guest post by By Craig Shields, Editor, 2GreenEnergy.com As I told the audience in my recent presentation at the Electric Vehicle Summit, I actually see this subject as one of very few bright spots happening in the world today. In particular, it appears that the divorce between Big Auto and Big Oil will be a [...]

Savoring the Irony

---

I recently bought an e-Bike (Currie Technologies iZIP Hybrid Via Mezza), mainly for trips to the grocery store. There are some serious hills between me and the grocery store, and I’m not up to tackling them with a full load of groceries. It may be a cheatercycle, but especially on hot days like today, it’s [...]

Poster Boy For Unintended Consequences: Rewarding Green with Air Miles

---

Tyler Hamilton writes about the use of Air Miles to encourage green behavior in Canada. Although the AirMiles.ca website has a section where the miles can be redeemed for eco-friendly products, most people use Air Miles for free plane trips. Does that strike anyone else as odd? To me, it sounds like saying “If you [...]

The Rebounding Rebound Effect & How to Dodge Jevons’ Paradox

---

There’s a new paper from the Victoria Transportation Policy Institute looking into the price elasticity of both miles driven and fuel use. The author, Todd Litman, has done an in-depth literature survey which will be of interest to readers who liked my recent look into Jevons’ Paradox. Jevons’ Paradox, also known as the rebound effect, [...]