Wave power

Wave power This is a useful look at renewables from a Norwegian perspective. Although it seems to date back to 2006, their explanations also bring up the names of companies which don't get much coverage, and which well merit a look. Certainly some of the names are well-known, and shipping company Fred Olsen is well known. Norway has stewarded its oil resources well, and has ensured a high quality of life for future citizens. Yes, it has high taxes,but that has long been the Scandinavian model. But with a certain farsightedness which shows just how other other countries have frittered away oil bonanzas by comparison, the Norwegians decided to set a significant part of their oil revenues aside,as a hedge against the inevitable end of black gold.If any country has demonstrated that popular buzzword 'Prudence', then this one is arguably it. The Norwegians may even have a claim on having created the first national sovereign fund. Here in Ireland there are several companies which are actively testing full-size prototypes, but nome seem yet ready for an IPO. In the current climate,when IPOs are as thin on the ground as happy bankers that is hardly a surprise. But one day soon some of these technologies will come to the market for funds. When they do, The Green Capitalist will alert readers,and urge them to fill their boots.

Geothermal - An Overlooked Power Source Set to Generate Profits?

Years ago when I was house-hunting in Tuscany, an over-enthusiastic estate agent proudly showed us a pile of rubble,described as suitable for renovation (!). Apart entirely from the ruinous state of the place,which would neatly describe how our finances would've been had we bought the place, what really killed any deal that day was the smell of the place. It reeked of sulphur. Or sulphur dioxide,the rotten-eggs smell. We mentioned this to the ambitious young man. He assured us that soon we would get so used to the smell! On the way to this abandoned ruin near Lardarello we had driven up into the Alta Maremma,a place quite different from the Tuscany of Chiantishire.Snaking across the landscape were pipelines apparently clad in aluminium foil,looking as though left over from a Sci-Fi film. All these tubes led to the Lardarello Geothermal Power plant,which was the world's first,electricity having first been produced there in 1904. Used since Etruscan times for baths,nowadays power sufficient for 1 million homes is produced by injecting cold water into the hot granite below ground. (Yes, you did read that right; one million homes.)The steam produced is collected at 200 C,and used to power turbines. The 1973 Oil Shock led to some interest in this technology in the USA,which has many areas suitable for the development of geothermal power. However the return of cheap oil meant the world simply forgot about it until lately. There are lots of small cap American companies leasing increasing amounts of land with known potential in the western United States,many of which will become multi-baggers,many of which will not. But just as in the Gold Rush,when some prospectors got rich,the majority didn't,whilst the store-owners who sold shovels,pick-axes tools and supplies prospered mightily,so The Green Capitalist seeks to be the store-owner. This led me to thinking about what these companies will need to exploit this natural source of free energy,as I'd rather be the guy selling the shovels than the guy sweating in a hole. Ormat Technologies,Inc(NYSE:ORA) not only build and supply the kit geothermal developers need,having a large chunk of that market,but also operate sites themselves.The company designs, develops, owns and operates geothermal and recovered energy-based power plants around the world. Additionally, the company designs, manufactures and sells geothermal and recovered energy power units and other power-generating equipment, and provides related services. Ormat Technologies has more than four decades of experience in the development of environmentally-sound power, primarily in geothermal and recovered-energy generation. The share price is up 35% year-on-year,and even after a huge drop in January has recovered to be up 20% over the last 3 months. with pressure for clean energy sourcing being mandated by increasing numbers of US States I think this is one share I would love to stick a couple of thousand dollars in before the dollar climbs back. It also pays a dividend,though not one to get too excited about. There seems to be constant good news reported for this stock,and with California demanding that renewables must provide a hugely increased share of power utilities sell. And that will further drive the market. Do bear in mind that I am not authorised or qualified to offer advice on investing,and I assume you are adult enough to make your own mistakes and decisions.

Time for the AC/DC House

Every tool or gadget I acquire these days seems to come with another transformer.I suspect I won't be alone in being unable to say how many of the machines I possess are plugged in and consuming power even when the device is absent and the transformers still carry on eating power. From where I sit I can count 30 occupied sockets,and I'm sure many should have been unplugged months ago. So why not deal with this demand by running a parallel DC supply into homes and business consumers? If Utilities were to put an a smart transformer at the point of supply,there are many start ups aching to supply the kit. This measure alone would save on the energy wasted when we convert AC in to DC using all those transformers. Now, let's go one step further.and put solar PV panels on your roof. One of the biggest costs of photovoltaics is for the inverter used to turn the electricity generated by the roof from DC into AC. So what if we took a feed from the roof-generated supply to feed our devices? We would save the energy used converting the energy from DC to AC before turning it back into DC and this can eat up to 40% of the energy. The renewable locally-generated power will be used most efficiently this way, and the balance can be sold on. Perhaps the next generation of homes will have dual DC and AC circuits with smart tech organising power supply according to needs? Just an idea.

Personal Transport and Possible Pneumatic Profits.

Transport accounts for much more energy use than than all the power we consume in our homes. Many miserable commuters spend more and more of their time alone in their cars,commuting from homes bought further and from jobs, homes bought in a desperate attempt to get a claw hold on the very bottom rung on the housing ladder, crawling along on severely congested roads. And now with petrol,oil, gas and electricity bills all rising, their misery is increasing. All Greens denounce all these single occupant cars, and more should be done for car pooling and public transport. This is all well and good, but offers little hope for the depressed commuter. During our fat years billions were spent on our road network, and not nearly enough on public transport. And we managed to demonstrate another proof of the theory that roads soon fill with traffic. But let's face some reality here: we won't get commuters out of their cars until we offer a decent and comfortable alternative.Certainly, many would prefer to have an extra hour in bed and be able to catch a fast,comfortable and guaranteed train, on which they can doze, work,or whatever they wish, in a comfortable seat.With one carriage for anyone wanting to use their mobile phones. Building new railways takes an absurd amount of time in this country, but if we can put a motorway through Tara then we can build railways anywhere we want too,or so I would imagine.And the Rail Procurement Agency must by now have built up a level of expertise,and this would help a lot in contract negotiations. And even if we manage to get our public transport infrastructure to line up with where we live, and build fast links to where we work we will only have solved part of the problem. The sense of private personal space we get from our car-ownership,too, is an important issue, and not one that I can do justice to here.However all transport policies seem to forget about country people,who rely on their cars,and who feel unfairly hit by policies designed to encourage/punish urban motorists out of cars. The cost of transport is considerably more than the cost of the electricity we use in this country. And with oil prices rising for the the foreseeable future we need a solution. A solution offering all that the car offers, but at a lower cost. What have we got? We have hybrids and electric vehicles emerging and I will write about them again. We have battery companies getting huge backing to develop better batteries. But their is one technology which seems to have been overlooked. Air power. Or being more accurate, compressed air piston engines. And like buses, at least two engines have been developed to a stage where the private small investor might get a look-in at an IPO. There's a bunch of video of these these two companies showing off real working vehicles on YouTube . Since these vehicles can fill up anywhere there is a compressor refuelling will not be a problem. And they certainly qualify as low emission vehicles,as they only emit air. Even allowing for the fuel used by the compressor.

I understand that Motor Development International (MDI) the Company behind the Air Car has done deals with a number of major firms such as Tata, the Indian family-controlled conglomerate also in the news because of having bought Jaguar and Land Rover. Two British icons being bought by a company from a country which used be a British colony seems a delicious irony. I apologise to any readers still with me down here for the length of this post. Fear not,there's more to come. But in the next post. I also think the Australian air-powered engine is a beautiful piece of sculpture worthy of a place in any gallery.

Oil Tar Sands: A Dead Financial Duck?

Oil Tar Sands have many enemies already because of the high amount of energy and water used in their extraction. But if opponents of wind turbines can cite bird kills as a justification for the refusal of planning applications for wind farms, what will this story about the killing of at least 500 migrating ducks by the toxic effluent contained in the tailings lagoons do for investor and public sentiment? I wouldn't expect anyone reading this to have invested in stocks associated with this technology although many of them have done well in the market. I would be willing to bet that these dead ducks will hit a nerve in a public unmoved or unaware of any environmental costs. It will also enrage hunters, who prefer their ducks to be killed by themselves, and who are often wrongly thought to be anti-environment. This isn't true of all hunters though. I lived in Tuscany for some years, and legal hunting opening sounds like an outbreak of war.The best laugh I have had lately was reading where a group opposing wind power projects planned for southern Italy, claiming that the proposed turbines would kill migrating birds. Why was I laughing? Because southern Italian hunters and poachers are notorious for welcoming incoming migrating birds with raised barrels and trapping nets, that's why. AFP: Toxic ponds kill ducks in Canada

Environmental Capital - WSJ.com : Biofuels Backlash: Asian Palm-Oil Producers Shut Plants

The rush to biofuels has suffered badly from a justified bad press, as some of the processes actually damage the environment. Biofuel producers in Europe have been undermined by US subsidies. This is an interesting article from a source I have perhaps always assumed to be less dispassionate,perhaps unfairly. Environmental Capital - WSJ.com : Biofuels Backlash: Asian Palm-Oil Producers Shut Plants

How the Media Abandoned the Environment | EcoTech Daily

This raises many interesting points which should concern all parents. And anyone else with any concept of the role of a free press in a democracy How the Media Abandoned the Environment | EcoTech Daily

Wii shall overcome.

First, allow me to thank those of you who emailed in response to publication of this blog. And so I'll see about putting in a comments section. However, I worry about seeing abusive posts from the types who seem to take science as a personal affront; you may already have seen their output elsewhere.Since these people are often impervious to rational argument,reason and normal discourse,it is pointless arguing with them. A wise man once advised me thus: "Never argue with idiots. First they drag you down to their level. Then they beat you due to their experience" I will always be willing to engage with anyone who wishes to have serious discussion, but pointless shouting matches won't be entertained. Why Wii in a Green Blog? Well,this is about making money and there's no doubt that Nintendo is good at that. Latest figures show the motion-sensing handset game platform is selling 90 units a minute. This beats X-Box and SP3 hollow. Partly because Nintendo took the brave decision to marry motion sensor technology with cheap off-the shelf commodity components they got a ferocious slagging from hard-core gaming reviewers and other media besotted with bigger,louder,faster and ever-increasingly dear shoot-em-ups. Thing is that as Microsoft and Sony squared up to each other,seeking to top each other, the delivery of the promise became more and more expensive. Parents and gamers out there may think X-Box or PS3 as expensive, yet the manufacturers actually subsidise their consoles. No, it isn't an outbreak of corporate generosity; they intend to screw their profit out of their customer on the games.Both companies have thrown shed-loads of shareholders money concentrating on a wrong model, both seeking to dominate the market. The existing market. As was. The big breakthrough for Nintendo was when some genius there decided to focus on growing the market for gaming. Reinventing gaming, their revolutionary concept was make games for people who don't play games, people like me, who suspect that teenage boys are going blind in their bedrooms in an entirely different way than ones in my day when we used quill and ink. To record our experiences I hasten to add. In a diary or whatever. Though the geeks may have sneered, when Nintendo launched the Wii, and let's face it, it is a silly name, I saw a game that allow my nephews to play computer games with my mother,a device offering easily understood games such as tennis without some monster trying to kill her! I knew they were onto a winner. I even wanted one! I started saving towards buying shares in Nintendo, hoping to buy before the analysts noticed. I also spent an awful lot of hours late last year looking to buy a couple as Christmas presents. (Relations should ignore last sentence) And as Nintendo actually make a nice big fat profit on every console sold and the DS is zipping along nicely, too. For the investor this stock has held its price pretty well through the current mess, Have a look at NTDOY Now gentle and patient reader you may be still wondering why I consider a piece of electronic kit green.Briefly, it reuses old technology, it gets gamers moving and has caught on with seniors, allowing them play and interact with others such as their grandkids rather than to feel frozen out.Which a has a benefit to us all. My take on tech is do more with less. More nest time

The Dollar and the Euro

Wise Green Capitalists with €s to invest should consider the current weakness of the almighty Dollar as an opportunity to take advantage,and get their hands on stocks quoted in $$. The dollar will not just keep declining,and has been firming up a bit lately,and if you fancied putting some cash in a $ share,well,right now $2000 costs a whole lot fewer Euros than a few months back. I am a small investor and $2000 is real money to me. Just saving that amount to put into my own future is not without pain. First to go were the dancing girls... Getting the money together was always going to be too tough for an impulsive and disorganised creature like me.(Mind you, I preferred to think of it as being "Creative", rather than more time in the pub) The Irish Government had a brilliant idea some years ago at a time when it was worried about the economy overheating. It wanted to encourage a saving habit. Special Saving Investor Accounts allowed the public the public sign up to a 5 year saving schemes,in which the Government would top up by 25% the money you paid in. After 5 years Equities beat all "safer" investments. This scheme was inspired, because who could resist free money from the State? It is something which is rare. And the conditions and entry level allowed people on welfare find a safe haven for small savings and a decent return. At first there was real pain in saving as SSIAs were Direct Debits,but it didn't take long to adjust. It is so much easier when the money is taken away before you have the chance to spend it and soon it was just another monthly outgoing. The Celtic Tiger raised the Minimum Wage from about €5.65 in 2001 to €8.65,and the low paid were mostly taken out of the tax net. So saving became painless, and when the 5 years were up about 20-25% of the population collected lump sums of €16-23000. And financial houses and banks etcetera all fell over themselves to snare that painless saving habit. Wow. That is a long digression! What I hope to explain is how important it is to save, and then invest in something that pays a better return. Why am I talking about this? Because if you are like me and you are a virgin investor you make your choice of stock,call a broker and buy. I was,perhaps, lucky in my choice. I had done my research and watched this firm before buying the shares for a while as they kept going up. I may have been lucky but my choice was influenced by the use of common sense; I could see more and more iPods around and I keep adding to Apple shares when I can. So if you want to invest for more than 5 years in American shares do it now.You will be able to buy more shares for the same amount of Euros, and the dollar will recover.

Wind Generates Investment and Profit.

I have written about NTR before. Last year NTR sold off their Airtricity subsidiary in two tranches. Having got a huge chunk of cash many investors hoped or even expected that they could look forward to receiving fat dividends. It looked a bit like the company was abandoning wind power. And now comes the good news: they are back in the game. Before I paste the link I should declare again I own shares in this company,but I don't think my miniscule holding will change anything the company should choose to do,no matter how I bitch. And they keep their cards very close to their chest. Now comes the news they are back in the back in in the wind business with this $150M investment. 150 Turbines and 200MW of wind power apparently contracted for. Now that's serious money. And I weome them back because it will allow them to develop more sites http://www.rte.ie/business/2008/0424/ntr.html Anyone reading can make their own minds up,but I think this company has much to offer. With oil hitting record prices,we need to recover as much energy as we can from from stuff we normally chuck out. Hippie fantasies are beginning to come true,especially the ones which involve recycling goods,and making appliances more energy efficient,so as to reduce personal wastage. It does seem sensible and profitable to get as much energy and so on, as possible from waste. http://www.rte.ie/business/2008/0424/ntr.html http://www.ntr.ie/default.asp

Earth Day 2008

Earth Day 2008

The Green Capitalist notes that the hoo-ha for Earth Day seems to caused very little media coverage over here; perhaps the media feel they did the right thing last month covering the turn your lights off for an hour event,after or with short notice. Nonetheless anything done to raise awareness of Green issues is to the advantage of the Green Capitalist,who will be able to fund a comfortable and sustainable retirement. And since the climate change deniers have had their lines delivered to them,pretty much. It is a campaign which originated with a certain Frank Luntz. We know who this guy is,as he has run focus groups for RTÉ,prior to our elections last year,and these were shown on television. And I doubt many people in this country have realised just what this man has been responsible for. If,in times to come we have Global Warming Courts,like we have War Crimes Courts at present, then this man will have,like Eichman, have a lot to answer for. Read Luntz Memo here. It is always useful to have an insight into opposition thinking and strategy. But I remain puzzled by the stance conservatives have taken on environmental issues. Traditional and original conservative loved the land,and being rich, took a dim view of industrialists despoiling the land. I believe that the political landscape will change over time as more and more conservatives who have retained the ability to think realise how they have been both manipulated and conned. And when they wake up to this,there will be hell to pay What I really don't understand is how these people, the spin-meisters and their employers, can be so blind. Don't they have grandchildren? On a more cheerful note,there is increasing activity in the Green and Clean Tech areas,and with oil at $117 today, there will be more money coming our way. Now the thing is that simple fact is that higher prices for oil means that more and more technologies will become economically viable. Some will fail commercially,but those of us who invest early in carefully selected and rigorously researched firms will multiply their investment many times over. And no words of mine should be taken as investment advice; I'm not qualified to tell you what to do with your money. An Irish firm has just invested $63M in thermal solar technology in the US. NTR or National Tool Roads. You can read the story here and rwst assured that this company not only has a good record but has been enormously profitable foe shareholders who got in early when it launched Airtricity,their wind subsidiary recently sold at enormous profit. NTR invest €63M ($100M) in Solar Thermal. The future is either Green and growing,or Brown and dying.

Darwen drives for growth.

It has been a long time since I did my duty by my blog. So I apologise to my reader. Sorry, Mammy. Since my last posting a lot, has happened in the markets,and most of it has been bad. But for those involved in investing in Green ventures it has not been bad. In fact,it has been pretty good. Solar PV has romped ahead, huge amounts of money have been poured into Alternative Energy start-ups and into existing companies. I wrote about Tanfield before,and I hold a small amount of shares in the company. Some would have taken profit when it hit the heights,but I didn't, as I prefer to buy and hold. So now I have come across another venture run by the entrepreneur who built up Tanfield. The new company is Darwen,and it makes buses and coaches. It also has Roy Stanley as owner of half the shares. He's the man credited with building the success story of Tanfield,the zero-emissions vehicles builder which has achieved such success already. Tanfield have developed vans and light trucks running on electricity and which are ideally suited for City deliveries. These vehicles have a decent range,with 200km between charges,and 80 kmh top speed. Now this man has bought an ailing bus and coach-builder which has a long history and culture. East Lancashire Coachbuilders was also going bust. He has added other elements to the business ,including LPD. See for yourself at http://www.darwengroup.com/products.html The Green Capitalist wasn't able to buy these shares when I first came across them last week, when they were around 38p. They have jumped to 48p in the last few days on the back of announcing a new £5m 38 bus order. What is a bus-builder doing in this blog? Well,it is simple really. The more people can be encouraged to use public transport the better. And the British Government is investing in public transport which is good for Darwen. Not only this:as concern about climate change grows,so will demand for buses. Add to this the commitment to develop hybrid buses together with the experience of electric vehicle drive-trains brought from Tanfield. Now, many companies are looking a hybrid solution,but few have the resources to put the entire package together. So I reckon these are worth watching. I'm not qualified to give financial advice but if I could risk €1000 or so, I'd certainly buy Darwen.

Why I've been failing to update and apology.

First we have innate laziness. Also lack of discipline,as my father would have called it. To go slightly off-topic for a moment, my late father was a veterinary surgeon in the Ireland of the 50s, through good times and bad. He also had a sharp and dry wit. Once,as I was trying to demolish a wall on a hot day,he came to inspect progress. I made the mistake of mentioning the fact that I was sweating profusely. To which came the response: 'A pint of your sweat would cure all known diseases!'. This amused everybody around for a while. And though it looks cruel,it isn't.(At the time,people like me got shuffled into University, because someone knows someone,and we were the right sort of people,just) My father was a man of wit and wisdom.