3SOF

Now that my undiciplined trading has resulted in my broker-expenses exceeding my small gains, I have made the following decision:
I'll throw the (remaining) bulk of my investment-money into PBW.

It contains all the Alternative Energy stock I have on my watch/wish-list, and can be traded like any other stock.
I do believe in alternative energy - and I also believe in "Peak Oil".

After the election, with OPEC having made their decision to cut back on production, new war   maybe looming (more oil to be "liberated"?), and all the other reasons...I do not ess any way around AE.  

It contains the following:

As of 10/24/2006
Fund Holdings are subject to change
         % of Fund
Consumer Discretionary
4.31%       
BLDP    Ballard Power Systems Inc.     3.39%
QTWW    Quantum Fuel Systems Technologies Worldwide Inc.     0.48%
FSYS    Fuel Systems Solutions Inc.     0.45%
Consumer Staples
4.01%       
ANDE    Andersons Inc.     2.11%
MGPI    MGP Ingredients Inc.     1.90%
Energy
4.35%       
PEIX    Pacific Ethanol Inc.     2.30%
VSE    VeraSun Energy Corp.     2.05%
Health Care
1.72%       
DVSA    Diversa Corp.     1.72%
Industrials
28.28%       
ENER    Energy Conversion Devices Inc.     3.70%
MDTL    Medis Technologies Ltd.     3.53%
STP    Suntech Power Holdings Co. Ltd.     3.29%
PLUG    Plug Power Inc.     3.18%
ESLR    Evergreen Solar Inc.     3.08%
APCC    American Power Conversion Corp.     2.92%
AMSC    American Superconductor Corp.     2.76%
FCEL    FuelCell Energy Inc.     2.52%
ULBI    Ultralife Batteries Inc.     0.71%
CPST    Capstone Turbine Corp.     0.57%
UQM    UQM Technologies Inc.     0.52%
DESC    Distributed Energy Systems Corp.     0.52%
ACPW    Active Power Inc.     0.49%
HYGS    Hydrogenics Corp.     0.49%
Information Technology
35.88%       
SPWR    SunPower Corp. (Cl A)     3.54%
MXWL    Maxwell Technologies Inc.     3.28%
KYO    Kyocera Corp.     3.20%
CLRK    Color Kinetics Inc.     3.07%
CREE    Cree Inc.     3.00%
AMAT    Applied Materials Inc.     2.95%
EMKR    EMCORE Corp.     2.92%
CY    Cypress Semiconductor Corp.     2.90%
WFR    MEMC Electronic Materials Inc.     2.88%
ELON    Echelon Corp.     2.85%
IRF    International Rectifier Corp.     2.66%
ITRI    Itron Inc.     2.62%
Materials
11.95%       
OMG    OM Group Inc.     4.80%
ZOLT    Zoltek Cos.     3.39%
APD    Air Products & Chemicals Inc.     1.89%
PX    Praxair Inc.     1.86%
N.A.
0.11%       
Cash    Money Markets     0.11%
Utilities
9.38%       
ORA    Ormat Technologies Inc.     3.55%
PSD    Puget Energy Inc.     1.98%
IDA    IDACORP Inc.     1.93%
SPI    ScottishPower PLC     1.92%

That looks a bit messy, but you can look for yourselves here: http://www.powershares.com/holdings.aspx?ticker=PBW

I'd love to have your comments.

I'm in with you cumulina. I'm kinda new at Elliott Wave theory but PBW looks like it is at the bottom of a Wave 3 to me. If so it should setup to retest the highs of the 2nd quarter soon.

Perhaps someone familiar with EW could verify or nulify my evaluation.

good pick cumulina

So...I'm back with a much needed update on PBW.

Not that I have very much (if anything) to say about PBW that I didn't say in my first post, but with the latest development and awareness over global warming, this investment might be interesting again.

There is also the rising oil prices, the miserable war in the Middle East, and of course Peak Oil - all of these ingredients should make PBW an interesting investment.

If you are interested, you can download the climate-report (Pdf-file, 21 pages) but i warn you: it's scary stuff!

http://www.ipcc.ch/SPM2feb07.pdf

It's not just another "tree-hugger" site, this is serious stuff.
Don't be put off by all the depressing numbers...just scurry on down to the ugly pictures beginning on page 15...

Also:  http://www.ipcc.ch/index.html

Below i show the weekly chart for PBW.

Also a comparison between a few of the alternative energy stock that I try to keep track of.

I have been thinking about starting a thread specifically dedicated to Alternative Energy, but as this one is already running I might as well continue here.

PBW is today trading between 18.08 - 18.25 so far.

I try to keep an eye on different sites with news of a/e and one of them is SeekingAlpha.

http://energy.seekingalpha.com/article/25898

I'm right now plowing trough the report they link to... 120 pages of PDF!

http://www.smithbarney.com/pdf/climate2007.pdf

Investing In Climate Change: Three Key Opportunities

Posted on Feb 2nd, 2007

Charles Morand (AltEnergyStocks) submits: Allow me to introduce this post by saying that I wholeheartedly welcome the firming of a new trend in North America: namely viewing climate change as a value creation, rather than as a value destruction, proposition.

For the better part of the past decade, the climate change debate has been dominated by the the views of a small-yet-powerful collection of business actors with a lot to loose from seeing governments regulate greenhouse gases [GHG]. This group, with its tremendous political influence, did everything that it could to stymie meaningful debate on the climate question, tirelessly arguing that moving to limit GHG emissions would equate to nothing short of economic suicide.

Fortunately, this era is coming to an end, and an increasing number of investors are now seeing climate change as a way to cash in on some new business opportunities being created across a number of sectors. Naysayers, I have this to say to you: fixing the climate is not about reducing the size of the pie, it's about altering its composition.

Now, with this in mind, let's move on to the meat of this piece: a new report by Citi entitled Climatic Consequences: Investment Implications of a Changing Climate (PDF document). I read this report last week and would definitely recommend it to folks who are having a hard time seeing where upside can arise from efforts to tackle GHG.

The report identifies 3 broad sets of "implications" related to climate change that can create business opportunities for certain companies:

Physical Implications: Select US natural gas exploration and production companies, farm equipment suppliers, agricultural biotechnology companies, and select US property insurers.

Regulatory Implications: Select electric utilities, engineering and construction firms, capital goods companies, natural gas suppliers, select automobile companies, food processors, fertilizer suppliers, wind and solar power companies, and companies focused on building energy efficiency.

Behavioral Implications: "Climate consultants" offering services that promote efficient energy usage, and companies that facilitate carbon trading.

The report lists 74 stocks, and briefly explains why each company is well-positioned to benefit from climate change.

This is a very instructive piece if you have limited knowledge of certain key clean tech areas such as clean coal, solar and wind, ethanol, etc., but especially of how these areas could see growing upside from efforts to combat climate change. The report does a good job of providing very useful information in an easy to understand, no non-sense format.

Citi does, however, warn of a few caveats:

    The key risk to our climatic consequences theme is that governments, regulatory organizations, and/or corporations no longer feel compelled to take near-term steps to respond to the perceived threat of global climate change.

    In addition, part of our analysis is based on the assumption that restrictions on the emissions of various greenhouse gases will be tightened within a number of countries in future years, which may not happen for a variety of reasons, including political and economic considerations at a national and local level.

    We further note that our analysis does not consider stock-specific metrics such as valuation, EPS, and P/E ratios, or balance sheets, market capitalization, and liquidity. Accordingly, when making decisions, investors should view thematic analysis as only one input. Further, since this analysis employs a longer-term methodology, the conclusions of a fundamental analysis may be different.

Have a good read!!

Applaud Cumulina, good thread you got going here.

I'm with you on this one, I entered yesterday at 18.10

Hi Cumulina,

Will have to check into PBW a little more, interesting idea.  Quite a list of companies, recognize most of them however I noticed that Vestas wind turbines out of Denmark was missing.  Probably because they trade only on the OTC pink sheets here in NA, but they are the leader and  biggest turbine manufacturer in the world.  I don't own them either because of that pink sheet thing, but just pulled up the chart and see they are up 50% in the last three months !!

Yes I agree Alternative Energy is going to get more and more attention.  I came across an AE board over on SI a few weeks ago and have been checking in there every week or so just to see whats up.

http://www.siliconinvestor.com/subject.aspx?subjectid=50902

Another great site with lots of info is the US Gov Energy Information Administration, huge site I get lost and have to bookmark interesting sections, otherwise you may never find them again.

http://www.eia.doe.gov/


And yes I also believe in global warming and our current emissions problems.  AE will help but the problem at the present time is cost effectiveness.  People will do it, if the gov pays for it (in the end that's us), but the best way to get it going is if its just plain cheaper, then people will pay to get on the bandwagon.

I've always found in business that people will do whatever is the easiest / cheapest thing and that will become the default.  Now if you want a different more complicated more expensive outcome you've got a problem until you can some how make it become the default easiest / cheapest thing to do.  We've got a ways to go with AE but with Peak Oil coming we may be getting closer.

With respect to "Peak Oil" there's lots of controversy, all depends on how you define it.  Yes there will be oil around for another 1000 years or more.  But how long will cheap oil be around for, I think we passed the "Peak on Cheap $30 Oil" a couple of years ago.  And I think we passed the "Peak on Cheap $40 Oil" just recently.  Basically there is still lots of oil, its just at the bottom of the ocean, under the arctic, or in Siberia, or on the moon,  ie very expensive to get out and to market. 

All the big oil fields next to the pipelines and next to the major populations were discovered 40-50 years ago and for the last 20 years we just been doing very low risk development drilling, ie sticking more straws into the same pool.  Very little exploration drilling has been done recently, just too expensive and risky, easier and cheaper to just put a few more tankers on the ocean and import it.  However in the last couple of years the strategic risk to offshore imports has become apparent and people are starting to really think about the risks to this long term policy.

The biggest short squeeze I see coming is in domestic Nat gas, again we've just been sticking more straws in the same pools for years, and all the cheap stuff next to the pipeline was discovered years ago, nothing new and cheap and close.  And we don't have the option here of just adding a few more tankers to import more, no its gotta be domestic connected to the pipeline.  Now I know there are several projects for LNG tankers and terminals for offshore imports.  But even if all the current and proposed projects were online today they would amount to about 5% of the current demand.

So what is the demand for Nat gas doing in NA ??  Well from my viewpoint it has been the fuel of choice for the last 20 years, for homes, businesses, factories, new power plants, chemical and plastic industries, etc etc, demand is outstripping supply.  And reserves in the ground are depleting, basically we are using more than we are finding each year, Bad Situation !! and only gonna get worse.

Very interesting subject with lots to talk about, but gotta go right now and get the kids finished with homework and off to bed, will try and write more on my thoughts on AE later, if I get time.

Happy trading / investing
Quasi

Hi all

More pressure coming on the Peak oil theory, just reading a release on the Cantarell oil field in Mexico which is in greater decline than thought.  This field is  about the 3rd largest in the world.

We already know that the largest field "Ghawar" in Saudia Arabia is deteriorating and the second largest field "Burgan" in Kuwait was declared to be in decline back in 2005.

So more pressures on alternate energy sources going into the future.  Lets keep looking for profitable prospects.

Quasi


http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-pemex8feb08,1,3031907.story?coll=la-headlines-business&ctrack=1&cset=true

"....MEXICO CITY — Production at Mexico's largest oil field is slipping faster than projected and officials see few options for quickly replacing the main source of the nation's oil riches.

The struggles of the world's No. 5 oil producer have implications for an already tight global petroleum market and for the United States, the chief buyer of Mexico's heavy crude. It's also a threat to Mexico's social stability.

Production at Cantarell, the world's second-largest oil complex, which provides about 60% of Mexico's crude, averaged 1.78 million barrels a day in 2006. That's a 13% drop from 2005, said Jesus Reyes Heroles, director of Petroleos Mexicanos, or Pemex, in a news conference Wednesday.

The decline was more than twice as great as the company's published predictions, and the slide will almost surely continue in 2007. Reyes said he expected average daily production at Cantarell to fall to 1.5 million barrels a day this year, a 15% decline. He estimated that within five years the aging field would pump about 700,000 barrels daily, less than half of December's production of 1.439 million barrels a day......"

Another article from oildrum site on the same subject.
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/2226

EOM

I cannot find that this company is in the mkts as yet, but may not be long into the future. At any case it is a tremendous read for clean energy:

An Eden Prairie, MN company says it has successfully tested its Seadog
system, which uses the ocean's swell and waves to pump seawater to
shore to turn hydroelectric generators or for desalination.

After five years of design and tinkering, an Eden Prairie company says
it is successfully testing a pollution-free, wave-powered pumping
system off Freeport, Texas, that can push huge amounts of seawater on
shore for use at hydroelectric or desalination plants.

http://www.startribune.com/535/story/1008034.html

http://www.inri.us/

Hi, Quasi.

Sorry it took so long.

About oil and nat.gas i think ou are very right:

"Basically there is still lots of oil, its just at the bottom of the ocean, under the arctic, or in Siberia, or on the moon,  ie very expensive to get out and to market."

And let's not forget politics... Also...I'd hate to have to work in Nigeria...

I'm afraid that the avalanche towards alt.energy will not come about before it is really needed = when these kinds of energy are cheaper than oil/gas.

It is interesting that you mention Vestas.  I live in Denmark, and for a while I drove by their factory every day. Impressive to watch the shipments leave the factory.
The installation of new windmills here has somewhat stagnated during the last 3 years, unfortunately. However, the total amount of windpower generated in DK still amounts to about 20% of total use. Not too shabby.

On solar power we have about the lowest installed W. pr. person in the EU. Emberrassing! (sp?)

I didn't know that Vestas was traded on the pinks...what would be the risk of buying them? Liquidity? I know that Novazymes is on the the pinks, they are also danish, making enzymes for the Bio-ethanol industry.

Glad to see your posts, keep them coming.

Hi, Tirebldr.

I don't know much about wave and tidal energy, except that it is being tested in several places here in Europe. Google it, and several companies will pop up.
The ocean has tremendous forces (I'v sailed in it, and it convinced me  ) but is also a destructive force. Not only its power, but also the salinity is hard on any material and mechanics.

Good luck with your investigations on the subject, and it would be great to hear if you found out some more.

Hi Cumulina / Tirebldr

Yes Cumulina I mentioned Vestas as I thought you were from Denmark.  I'm in Canada and there are a few wind farms here also and a few more on the books.  However some resistance to the view and the noise, you know the standard NIMBY (not in my backyard) or BANANA (build absolutely nothing anywhere near anything).  I'm also a sailor so I too am a little concerned about a proposed wind farm on an offshore island which I think will affect our racing programs here in the freshwater sailing capital of the world.  Could affect how many international regattas we can attract in the future if our sailing area will be in the disturbed air lee of a wind farm.

My other problem with wind is that the energy density is fairly low, where as water has a much higher energy density.  Like Tirebldr posted on wave action pumps, although not sure about the idea of pumping salt water up into reservoirs on shore for hydro-electric power generation.  This just sounds like there could be too many problems with ground contamination and or fresh water contamination.

I have been reading about many of these wave and tidal systems for a few years, most seem to put the turbine generator on site and just bring in the power by submarine cables.  Great ideas and considerable mechanical energy out there but as you said Cumulina, it is a hostile environment, corrosion and storms.  Any movement in the anchoring systems and all you cables or pipes etc are destroyed.  Look at what happened in the Gulf of Mexico after hurricane Katrina.

I also agree that it will be some time before alternate energy really takes off, it's gonna take some real shortages for extended periods of time before people really take the situation seriously.  I'm overweight in North America natural gas, as I see that as first real potential for shortages and a short squeeze in the next few years.  I would not be surprised to see Nat Gas brownouts across NA in the future and that would really attract some attention.

In the short term I think we will see more coal generation (hopefully clean coal tech) and medium term more nuclear.  China is going big on nuclear right now.

But I also see we have two or three separate issues with our global energy needs in the future; (not in order).

1 Environmental, emissions need to be reduced, this will come at a price so its not easy.  Local short haul and mass transit can use electric or nat gas or hydrogen etc.  This will reduce the concentrations of pollution in our major cities.  Any new coal plants will have to have scrubbers etc.

2 Fixed power for homes and businesses, this can come from almost any source and fed into the grid for distribution.  We can then smooth out the peaks by shuffling power to where it is needed.  Within this group we can have lots of distributed generation, wind, solar, water, tidal etc etc. and they can be fairly low density sources that just feed in small amounts continuously.  Every little bit helps.

3 Mobile power, now this is where we really have a problem because we need high density energy.  This is the long haul stuff, ships, planes, trucks etc.   We are never going to run a plane or a ship on solar or electric batteries, nothing yet matches the energy density of gasoline and diesel etc for these kinds of applications.  So in my opinion we need to start saving these high density liquid energy sources for what they are best for and not continue burning them to feed the local electric grid.

Now some will say that we can always just make liquid fuels for these applications, like producing ethanol, or coal to liquid technology, or get hydrogen from seawater and liquefy it.  Well yes these are all possible but we have to look at the energy production ratios, ie energy in to produce energy out.   In the old days of the big oil fields the ratio used to be something like one barrel of oil energy to get something like 40-50 barrels out for production.  That ratio nowadays is probably more like 1 to 10 on average, still pretty good but declining. 

Now if we look at ethanol, its very controversial but the ratio is somewhere between slightly negative to slightly positive, (1 to 0.8, or  1 to 1.3),  so doesn't make much sense to use oil energy to power this production. 

Same thing with hydrogen and fuel cells etc, what many analysts and publications promote as the free energy source of the future.  Well right now most of the hydrogen production is from breaking it out of Nat gas, the cheapest way to get it right now.  But if you're just going to use it to power a generator you would be farther ahead to use the Nat gas directly. 

As far as getting hydrogen out of seawater, same scenario, energy in is greater than energy out.  The only way it makes sense is if you have a continuous source of energy that isn't needed all the time, say tidal or wave.  Then during the times when there is no demand, rather than shut them down,  you make hydrogen which can be stored and used later when there is peak demand. 

Any way better cut this off here, lots more to talk about but gotta go pick up my daughter, sorry for all the ramblings.

Also Cumulina  I know this is the PBW stock board so maybe we should start a general  Energy / Alternate Energy discussion board under "stock market talking" or where ever it would be appropriate.

happy trading / investing
Quasi

Hi all

Just spent the last hour snooping around a new site I just found.  Canadian gov site on alternate energy sources, I particularly liked the section on Earth Energy systems for heating and cooling, an area I have been interested in for some time.  Although were I live my yard isn't big enough for the ground loop system and about 4 feet down we hit limestone, so drilling vertical wells gets expensive.  Wish I lived on the shore of a lake for the heat source.

Tons of info here, just follow thru the links and it keeps getting bigger and bigger, will have to spend much more time exploring later.

http://www.canren.gc.ca/prod_serv/index.asp?CaId=98&PgId=564

check it out and let me know what you think

Quasi

Quote from: Quasi on February 18, 2007, 03:21:53 PM
Hi Cumulina / Tirebldr

Yes Cumulina I mentioned Vestas as I thought you were from Denmark.  I'm in Canada and there are a few wind farms here also and a few more on the books.  However some resistance to the view and the noise, you know the standard NIMBY (not in my backyard) or BANANA (build absolutely nothing anywhere near anything).  I'm also a sailor so I too am a little concerned about a proposed wind farm on an offshore island which I think will affect our racing programs here in the freshwater sailing capital of the world.  Could affect how many international regattas we can attract in the future if our sailing area will be in the disturbed air lee of a wind farm.

I really don't understand the problem some people have with seeing windmills onshore or offshore?
They are a lot prettier to look at than an oil/gas-rig!
When placed offshore, there is no problem with noise and moving shadows bothering people.
Nobody is complaning about ships or sailboats disrupting the view on the water - on the contrary.
But white, elegant windmills majestically turning in the wind, producing clean energy - 
On-shore I'd much prefer to have windmills "in my backyard" than any other kind of energy-producing powerplant. (Except solar-cells  ) Gas, coal, nuclear 

About sailing...sure, anything will disrupt the wind, but this is of very little concern when we're talking windmills. Trees are much more disruptive, as are buildings.

Quote from: cumulina on February 19, 2007, 09:46:28 AM
I really don't understand the problem some people have with seeing windmills onshore or offshore?
They are a lot prettier to look at than an oil/gas-rig!

Hi Cumulina,

Sorry, I guess I should have phrased my comments a little differently.  I am not in the camp that is opposing this windfarm, I support it.  I was just stating that there are always some people that will oppose anything new.

As far as disturbing the wind for sailing, if it even does slightly, it will just be a little more advantage for the guys with local knowledge, (thats me).

Been doing some more reading on that site I posted, specifically on the earth energy systems for heating and cooling.  I heat with Nat Gas, currently costs about $1500 per year and will only keep going up.

Quiet day, US closed, Canadian open but still not much activity.

Quasi

anyone following?