I bought into PowerShares WilderHill Clean Energy [PBW] which is an ETF composite fund. I got in it in March. It took a big hit early in the year when the Chinese exchange SSEC tanked 50% but is moving up nicely now. I don't think it will be a barn burner but I am up about 12% in 45 days in a somewhat washie market so that is not too bad.
My Brazil fund, EWZ is doing real well. I got out of it after getting a 900% gain over 6.5 years but got back in this year after settling all my house stuff [It pretty much paid for the house, garage addition and toys]. It is very heavy in alternative energy and is growing much like it did earlier.
Hydrogen could happen, but there are big distribution problems with the stuff. Just looking at it wrong makes it explode, and I can't imagine a world where hydrogen gas was stored as ubiquistously as gasoline now is. That being said, there is some promising technolgy in storing it in a solid form, and of course, the holy grail of splitting water could possibly happen, but probably not in my lifetime.
I donno. Corn requires a net loss of energy to produce fuel. I think in the end ethanol will come from sugar, the only ethanol biological that outputs more energy than goes in to produce it. I'd bet my money on Brazil.
I donno. Corn requires a net loss of energy to produce fuel. I think in the end ethanol will come from sugar, the only ethanol biological that outputs more energy than goes in to produce it. I'd bet my money on Brazil.
Don't underestimate their stranglehold on the US government. ADM has a lot of lobby power. Patenting everything right now too. I bought in '05 at $19 a share:
I donno. Corn requires a net loss of energy to produce fuel. I think in the end ethanol will come from sugar, the only ethanol biological that outputs more energy than goes in to produce it. I'd bet my money on Brazil.
Your old friend coal (and oil sands) will likely be the source of the bulk of our portable energy in the future, as soon as the economies of scale bear down on the processing costs.
I used to work for one of their competitors, I know them very well - they certainly know how to stay politically connected and they are known for having a strategy of keeping huge cash reserves, which is what as company that sees an opportunity in a new technology is going to need. The run up in food prices is certainly helping. Nice graph. I bet you are proud of that one. I played them years ago when corn was cheap. I've never done well playing food sector stuff. Maybe it's time for a second look.
Your old friend coal (and oil sands) will likely be the source of the bulk of our portable energy in the future, as soon as the economies of scale bear down on the processing costs.
Well, being a guy that goes to work at an oil refinery every day, I can tell you the real interest is in the coal convesion stuff. Oil sands and shale would require a whole new industrial plant, while coal conversion could be readily adapted to today's existing refineries. The thing to watch for is some revolutionary extraction process from tar sands, until then they are going to have a hard time attracting capital until the point easily-tapped-from-drilling oil is gone- there is just too much risk in a temporary oil price collapse that would make a shale or sands investment worthless overnight, not to mention the huge environmental damage from ripping up the land to get this stuff instead of drilling a little hole in the ground. But the coal stuff has a few interesting things going on: 1) it produces a cleaner burning diesel fuel 2) Carbon dioxide emissions are lower. This means the government will get behind it over the other alternatives. But the big reason is that vast amounts of coal reserves are directly owned by the oil companies and they are all part of currently mined tracts that have hundreds of years of reserves. If they think they can fill their diesel tanks at the stations with the stuff, they are going to go for - just look at the Chevron/Sasol link I put up.
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