Energy Stocks Blog

“Your Passion is Energy”

admin — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 01:36:10 +0000

Submitted by R-Squared Energy Blog Saying Goodbye Again Today is Independence Day in the U.S., but I am spending it in the Netherlands without my family. This has become an all-too-familiar situation for me. I have spent far too many birthdays, anniversaries, and holidays in remote locations away from my family. The time has come to rectify [...]

Thermodynamics Wins Again

admin — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 01:34:57 +0000

Submitted by R-Squared Energy Blog Back in 2006, the Irish company Steorn announced that they had discovered a “a technology that produces free, clean and constant energy.” A magnetism-based perpetual motion machine is what it amounted to, which would clearly violate various physical laws, such as the First and Second Law of Thermodynamics. Steorn put an [...]

If Obama Wants Green Jobs, Why is Konarka’s Solar Technology Being Commercialized in Japan??!!

admin — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 01:32:13 +0000

Submitted by EnergyTechStocks.com Imagine a world in which ordinary things that people buy every day – including clothing, household furnishings and office equipment – were coated with a super-thin film that turned everything into a mini solar power plant that could collect even the light from an overhead light bulb and convert it into usable electricity. Think [...]

Thermodynamics Wins Again

admin — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 16:19:45 +0000

What If I’m Wrong?

admin — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 03:19:49 +0000

Submitted by EnergyTechStocks.com Risk Assessments I spend a lot of time playing “What if?” We all do this. I do this when I am driving - “What if that car at the next intersection pulls out in front of me?” - when I am working - “What if that high pressure line ruptures?” - and at home [...]

Tariffs in the Climate Bill

admin — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 02:21:42 +0000

Submitted by R-Squared Energy Blog A number of people have written to ask why I haven’t commented on the climate bill. There are two reasons. First, the House and Senate versions are very different, so the final form may not resemble the version the House just passed. Second, I haven’t had the time to read through [...]

Geothermal’s Earthquake Problem

admin — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 02:21:45 +0000

Submitted by R-Squared Energy Blog In a recent post - It’s Always Something - I argued that for seemingly every renewable option, there is a trade-off. In that particular essay I was discussing a recent report that suggested that jatropha curcas - which I have written about as an intriguing option for renewable, liquid fuels - [...]

Wood Gasification Plant Opens

admin — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 02:16:54 +0000

Submitted by R-Squared Energy Blog Been really tied up, but saw this story yesterday and wanted to bring attention to it. I think it is significant, and a sign of things to come. Not much time to comment, but some excerpts from the article: Plant making gas from wood opens in Austria GUESSING, Austria (AFP) – A new [...]

Why Every Green Stock Portfolio Should Have Heat Pump Specialist WaterFurnace Int’l in It

admin — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 02:11:06 +0000

Submitted by EnergyTechStocks.com Question: Where was U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu when he recently announced that nearly $50 million of federal stimulus money will go toward advancing development of geothermal heat pumps? Answer: He was in Fort Wayne, Indiana, where one of his two stops was a tour of the manufacturing facilities of leading heat pump firm [...]

John Benemann Responds to Green Algae Strategy Review

admin — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 19:47:00 +0000

Submitted by R-Squared Energy Blog I recently published a review of Mark Edward’s book Green Algae Strategy: End Oil Imports And Engineer Sustainable Food And Fuel. Following this review, I published a response from Mark Edwards. In that response, Professor Edwards mentioned Dr. John Benemann, who was Principal Investigator and main author of the U.S. DOE [...]

U.S. Ramping Up Wind Power Programs Even As Concerns Surface About Possible Declines In U.S. Wind Strength

admin — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 02:20:39 +0000

Submitted by R-Squared Energy Blog Once again at DFW Airport, about to make my way back to Europe. So I will be offline for just a bit, but wanted to post the latest from Money Morning, which as I recently explained will be featured here whenever they have topical material to offer. As always, normal caveats [...]

ExxonMobil in the Electric Car Business?

admin — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 02:18:53 +0000

Submitted by R-Squared Energy Blog An interesting link from a reader this morning: The Maya 300: An Exxon-Assisted Electric Car If you’ve picked up a magazine in the last year, you’ve likely seen ads touting ExxonMobil’s (XOM) research into lithium-ion batteries. This week, you will get a further look into how that technology will come to the marketplace. Electrovaya on [...]

Bet on Global Markets to Surge Soon as Iran Supreme Leader is Replaced by Cleric Friendlier to West

admin — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 02:16:35 +0000

Submitted by EnergyTechStocks.com Thirty years ago I was on the streets of Tehran as a reporter for The Wall Street Journal watching college students lead a people’s revolt against the Shah of Iran’s ruthless dictatorship, only to have the freedom many of them died for immediately snatched away by the equally ruthless dictatorship of Ayatollah Khomeini. Just [...]

How Much Natural Gas to Replace Gasoline?

admin — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 20:07:28 +0000

Submitted by R-Squared Energy Blog I Took This Picture of a CNG Bus on a Recent Trip to D.C. You may have seen the news this week that a report by the Potential Gas Committee says natural gas reserves in 2008 rose to 2,074 trillion cubic feet. The New York Times and the Wall Street Journal (via [...]

How Much Natural Gas to Replace Gasoline?

admin — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 20:06:14 +0000

Oil Companies Acquire More Ethanol Plants

admin — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 20:01:40 +0000

Submitted by R-Squared Energy Blog As I noted in my essay Big Oil Buys Big Ethanol, I expected that we would see more oil companies buying up troubled ethanol assets. Per the Houston Chronicle, Sunoco has become the latest: Oil companies shop for discounted ethanol plants FULTON, N.Y. — When Sunoco closed this week on the acquisition of [...]

POET Sets the Standard

admin — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 19:13:28 +0000

Submitted by R-Squared Energy Blog In a recent post (but certainly not the first time I mentioned this), I wrote: Corn ethanol producers have to move away from fossil fuel inputs - or they need to otherwise find inputs that don’t normally track gasoline prices. This is why the sugarcane ethanol producer can compete on a level [...]

Mulva on Replacing Oil

admin — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 19:08:17 +0000

Submitted by R-Squared Energy Blog My former CEO Jim Mulva spoke today at the National Summit in Detroit, and had some newsworthy comments. Bloomberg reported on his talk: Conoco Chief Says Replacing Oil May Take a Century June 16 (Bloomberg) — ConocoPhillips, the third-largest U.S. oil company, said it may take a century for the nation to replace [...]

Response to Green Algae Strategy Review

admin — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 23:14:57 +0000

Submitted by R-Squared Energy Blog I have received a response from Mark Edwards, auther of Green Algae Strategy: End Oil Imports And Engineer Sustainable Food And Fuel. I reviewed the book here recently, and as I indicated in the conclusion of the review I would gladly post any of Mark’s comments. So, here they are in [...]

Why Investors Should Look Closer at AeroVironment, Juhl, Abengoa, Acciona, Solar Millenium, EcoSecurities, More

admin — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 18:28:27 +0000

Submitted by EnergyTechStocks.com Lost in the torrent of recent financial news were three news stories about different alternative energy subsectors that serve to point investors in potentially profitable long-term directions. Story #1 – The American Wind Energy Association reported that the U.S. market for small wind turbines grew 78% in 2008, equal to 17.3 megawatts of new [...]

Solar Stories

admin — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 02:00:02 +0000

Submitted by R-Squared Energy Blog A couple of interesting solar stories this morning, as well as a new blog covering solar power. First, the new solar-focused blog by Paul Symanski. Paul has experience in the solar industry, and many of his early entries are concerned with solar energy economics: Rate Crimes - Bringing Transparency to the [...]

It’s Always Something

admin — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 01:59:04 +0000

Submitted by R-Squared Energy Blog I spend a lot of time thinking about the trade-offs involved with different energy options. Take petroleum, for instance. It offers great convenience, and has been relatively inexpensive for decades. Cheap petroleum has enabled numerous people a level of mobility that had never before been possible. Some of the downsides, [...]

The Long Recession

admin — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 14:04:06 +0000

Submitted by R-Squared Energy Blog Sometimes people ask me what I think will happen as a result of peak oil. Well, it depends. We could see alternatives - natural gas, ethanol, GTL, CTL, etc. - fill the gap of falling oil supplies for a while. It just depends on how quickly production falls. But if the [...]

Time to Switch to Natural Gas?

admin — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 14:00:41 +0000

Submitted by R-Squared Energy Blog A couple of articles, both at Seeking Alpha, got me to thinking about whether it might be time to trade in my Petrobras (PBR) stock for something in the natural gas sector. From the first of the two articles: Natural Gas Should Get a Boost from China’s New Demand China has been developing [...]

How to Calculate Ethanol’s Value

admin — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 02:19:35 +0000

Submitted by R-Squared Energy Blog There was a comment following the previous post that claimed that ethanol producers are making money - minus subsidies - at $1.75 a gallon. I attempted to set the record straight in the comments, but I thought this was probably worth a post. The way the blender’s credit works is that gasoline [...]