While watching CNBC over the summer, one would have certainly seen commercials about T. Boone Pickens’ energy plan. The oil magnate made his fortune in the 1980s in various takeover and buyout operations and is currently advocating the use of domestic and alternative energy. Pickens is pushing the use of wind farms for electricity generation and natural gas for use as a transportation fuel.

The plan calls for two big changes in domestic energy production. The first is eliminating natural gas as an electricity generation fuel and using it for transportation. Natural gas is highly available domestically and could be widely used for transportation. The second change is the use of wind power for electricity generation. Pickens looks to build wind farms in rural areas throughout the United States, which would free up natural gas supplies for use as a transportation fuel. Although natural gas is fairly cheap and abundant, it is much more valuable if used as a transportation fuel.

Pickens Plan is fairly simple in context, but the implementation will take a great deal of time and effort. Pickens has already invested $2 billion in wind turbines for delivery in 2010, but the project has been temporarily halted due to the decrease in oil prices the past few months. A hurdle to the initiative is inadequate electric grid infrastructure for the widely dispersed wind facilities. Further, natural gas turbines play an important role in managing short term demand variation on the power grid in a way wind, nuclear and coal power cannot.

http://greeninc.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/11/12/pickens-delays-his-plan/

If you are looking to support the Pickens Plan, you can join his New Energy Army below. He is currently looking for 2 million supporters by inauguration day with a goal of having a new energy plan within 100 days of the new president taking office.

http://www.pickensplan.com/act/

(image from pickensplan.com)

Vestas Wind Energy

Vestas Wind Systems A/S is not a household name in the United States, but the Denmark based company claims to be the largest modern energy producer in the world, with a market share of 23 percent. Vestas refers to wind energy as “modern energy” because it is clean, predictable, and renewable. Vestas, by far the largest alternative energy company in the world, makes up almost 20% of the Ardour Global Index, with First Solar being next comprising around 10% of the index. Vestas has installed over 35,000 turbines in 63 different countries and installs a new unit every four hours on average. .

Vestas manufactures various wind turbine models; the main components are made in Denmark. The largest turbine the company makes is the 3 Mw V90. It’s advanced materials and design makes it lightweight and more efficient than previous models. Vestas units have been hooked up for grid compatibility as well as used for offshore and rural applications. On the website, one can see the breakdown of where Vestas units have be installed throughout the world. So far, there are 9,641 Vestas turbines in the United States today creating over 5000 Mw of power.

Currently, Vestas Wind Systems A/S trades on the stock market in Copenhagen under the symbol VWS. There are two ADRs where one can purchase Vestas stock domestically under the symbol VWDRY and VWSYF, but only around 500 million shares are outstanding with an average daily volume of a little over 100,000 shares. VWDRY is one third of a share of VWS so its quote is one third the price. Many individuals may not recognize Vestas domestically, but the company is leading the pack in the alterative energy market. The ADRs have faired much better than other alternative energy stocks over the past few months and will continue to do well in the future.

Sales are strong, the company is expanding, and products are on backorder. However, Vestas stock has dropped nearly 70% over recent months, along with many other additional alternative energy companies. The company's stock may be a bargain at this time because of the quality of product and future growth opportunities.

Ardour Global Alternative Energy Index

Ardour Global Indexes, LLC runs numerous stock indexes, which model various groups of alternative energy companies. The five different indexes divide alternative energy companies into different global regions, as well as one index that models solar energy companies. The Ardour Global Composite Index is the largest, composed of 125 different companies. The rest of the indexes are broken down in to smaller regional sectors. The balancing of the index is based on the market size of the company. Some big names in the index include Vestas Wind Systems, First Solar, and SunPower.

The composite index is composed of companies in the following industries with a few examples given in each:

-Alternative Energy
Solar, wind, biofuel
-Distributed Generation
Fuel cells, diesel engines
-Environmental Technology
Clean coal, water treatment
-Energy Efficiency
Lighting, Energy recycling
-Enabled Technologies
Advanced materials, superconductors

The gamut of industries in the index is general indicator for the alternative energy industry as a whole. This is one of the few, if not the only index specifically tailored to model the growth of alternative energy. The composite index includes all companies dealing in the previously mentioned categories that have a large enough market capitalization. The sub-indices go through rebalancing where companies are added and removed to ensure accuracy. Ardour claims an unbiased approach and maintains independence when analyzing companies. The index will be an interesting tool to track the growth of alternative energy over the next few years. One can also invest in the index as a whole under the symbol GEX, which is an Exchange Traded Fund (ETF) run by VanEck.

More information on the Ardour indexes can be found at:

http://ardour.snetglobalindexes.com/

What the election means for alternative energy

With Barack Obama as the President elect for the United States, the coming years will bring many changes to this country (as we so often heard in the past few months). Either candidate would have hand their hands full come inauguration. The economy is in a slump due to the falling stock market and credit crunch and home prices and consumer confidence continue to fall, but what lies ahead for alternative energy? Both candidates favored the use of alternative energy as a way to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels, so the alternative energy sector would have performed well in the future regardless of what happened on Election Day. In reality, the sector will win out one way or another over time.

Change (it will be hard to use that word in the future without sounding partisan) in energy technology will start to become more and more visible throughout the United States in the coming years. Subsidies for alternative energy projects will increase making more opportunities for solar, wind, and biofuel firms to take on projects. Natural gas will become more widespread as a transportation fuel and dirty coal and dangerous nuclear power plants may become less dominate in electricity generation.

Some alternative energy technologies are approaching the cost effectiveness of traditional fuels such as oil and coal. Although natural gas is used in a similar manner as petroleum fuels, it is highly available domestically and is clean burning. Subsidies for alternative energy will probably become easier for startup companies to obtain. Increased research and design will give more advancement opportunities in various alternative energy technologies.

According to Obama’s energy plan, the administration plans on creating 5 million “green collar” jobs and investing $150 billion in the next 10 years. This injection of capital will help build a future of continued alternative energy use. The energy plan also includes cutting greenhouse gases, putting more plug-in hybrids on the road, and having 10 percent of the nation’s energy come from alternative sources by 2012.

Regardless of the candidate elected, green energy will be big business in the years to come. The industry itself is very diversified and the opportunity for job growth will be high. Hopefully the increase in alternative energy will stimulate the economy and bring more jobs across the nation.

Solyndra: The cylindrical solar system

Solyndra is a private company based in Fremont, California with a unique solar panel design utilizing flat roof spaces. The cylindrical shaped panels resemble fluorescent light bulbs and can be mounted flat on unsloped rooftops. Traditional solar panels must be angled towards direct sunlight to operate efficiently. Solyndra panels (or tubes) lie flat and can collect sunlight from multiple directions. The spaces typically existing between angled panels are eliminated with the Solyndra flat mounting panels. Solyndra panels use a thin film photovoltaic material, wrapping a full 360 degrees around the solar cylinder. This allows sunlight to be collected from both direct rays and rays reflected from the roof underneath the panel, improving collection efficiency. The roof is often painted white to maximize sunlight collection.

The company is young and only has a few installed systems, but the company claims there is enough rooftop space in the United States to supply 150 gigawatts of power using their round solar panels. Since the system lies flat, it is fairly simple to install and doesn’t require much modification to the existing structure. Many businesses may be attracted to the flat panel design because it won’t affect buildings aesthetically. The systems are often unseen from the street level because of the low profile design. This is one of the most unique solar companies around today; more can be read about Solyndra at:

www.solyndra.com

(image from http://solyndra.com/Products/More-Electricity)