CNG: Clean, but it leaves your water dirty

Is natural gas really clean?

Fascinating piece on new and mounting research demonstrating that the most common way form natural gas drilling and exploration, hydraulic fracturing, is leading to contaminated drinking water, despite EPA beliefs.

SCIAM reports, "Over the last few years, however, a series of contamination incidents have raised questions about that EPA study and ignited a debate over whether the chemicals used in hydraulic fracturing may threaten the nation’s increasingly precious drinking water supply."

Cap and trade the only way to fix US energy policy?

Have to manage CO2 to change US energy policy?

Google’s Eric Schmidt, Nissan-Renault’s Carlos Ghosn, Duke Energy’s Jim Rogers, and Intel’s Paul Otellini, and a number of other top CEO's, met at the WSJ CEO Council meeting in Washington regarding how President-Elect Barack Obama should frame his new energy policy.

According to the WSJ, they concluded "The federal government has to put a pricetag on emissions of greenhouse gases one way or the other in order to make the transition to a clean-energy economy work."

Infrastructure - Cramer's green picks today

Broken stock, but not a broken company

Quanta Services is a company with great fundamentals, but it's a broken stock thanks to hedge fund redemption. Nonetheless, it's a great wind power play, especially with Obama in the White House.

Still, don't rush into this stock, Cramer warns. Hedge funds need to first work through their redemptions. Thus, this is a stock to watch, as it has great potential, but wait until the selling ends.

Shaw Group (SGR) is another Cramer fave - if you consider nuclear green. Still, this play will depend on action outside of the US with Obama in the White House, and Shaw has a lot of projects in China. Likewise, its non-nuclear business is also doing well. Since Shaw's stock price is so low, according to Cramer, it seems a great buy.

Gridpoint lands another smart grid deal

Will manage wind power battery storage

According to GreenTech Media GridPoint will use it's smart grid technology to help a Minnesota wind farm manage it's power storage. Gridpoint "will control the flow of power between an 11-megawatt wind farm in Luverne, Minn. and NGK Insulators' 1-megawatt, sodium-sulfur battery that is capable of holding 7.2 megawatt-hours of energy, the companies announced. The battery storage project is expected to be complete in January 2009."

The alternative energy future, including the electrification of the automobile, is very dependent upon a new smart electrical grid, and GridPoint appears to look more and more like a major player in that new smart grid.

Q Microbe drawing cellulosic ethanol investment

Qteros' microbial hopes

Qteros picked up $25 million Series B funding today, reports CNET, led by investors like BP and George Soros.

The Q Microbe is a naturally occurring micro-organism that, according to Qteros, can efficiently turn cellulosic materials into ethanol - eliminating the need for enzymes which account for 30 percent of production costs.

Now, that's a green investment, literally.

Trash trucks: The economics of Natural Gas

A natural gas trash truck in Los Angeles

Within two years, Los Angeles might convert their entire fleet of trash trucks into natural gas vehicles. Already, LA's Bureau of Sanitation is using 300 such trucks.

These trucks, built by Peterbilt with Cummins Engines, reduce CO2 emissions by 90 percent, but they cost $50,000 more per truck. Natural gas is also cheaper than diesel fuel, but it could take as long as 10 years to recover costs.

Still, isn't that investment worth less global warming emissions and less foreign oil dependency? Check out MSNBC for a video.

Latest from Hybridcarblog.com

Bailout talk continues to heat up on Hybridcarblog. Click on one of the links below for more information and issues relating to hybrid cars.

• Silverado - Another $40,000 GM hybrid
• Pickens: Support the Camry natural gas hybrid
• The bailout, electrification and gas prices
• Auto suppliers ALSO need a bailout
• Bailout automakers to save the Chevy Volt? No.
• Bailout v. bankruptcy: Which influences consumers...
• Prius markups? Yeah right. It's incentive time
• Poll - Most Americans support an automaker bailout...
• Re: Why Americans hate Detroit
• Getting auto buyers into the "smart garage"

Cramer blue on green investing

Don't expect a lot of green from your green investments

It's green week on NBC, parent of the CNBC show Mad Money. The last couple of years, Mad Money host Jim Cramer, has created a green portfolio which he covered yesterday. Essentially, green investments have gotten hammered in the last few months, and Cramer doesn't see any green at the end of the alternative technology tunnel any time soon.

While many have hoped that President-elect Obama is the answer to green technology troubles, Cramer appeared far less hopeful. In fact, he claimed that President Jimmy Carter had more ambitious green plans than Obama. In the end, however, the cheap cost of oil made Carter's investments largely worthless.

Cramer seemed to imply that Obama might be willing to spend $150 billion on alternative energy, but if investors aren't willing to match that investment, Obama is just wasting money. And cheap oil, Cramer believes, will keep most investors out of green investments.

Also, Cramer seems to believe that Obama's disinterest in natural gas is a mistake. If, however, Obama would embrace natural gas, then Cramer thinks natural gas players, such as Anadarko Petroleum could be huge winners.

Is carbon capture a green technology?

Or just a front for big oil and coal?

The other day I read an interesting article about a new program that is developing in Europe. Coal-powered utilities, under the plan, would capture their CO2 emissions and pump them deep under ground - virtually eliminating all CO2 emissions.

Some, however, wonder if that carbon will stay underground.

One potential fix is storing that carbon in peridotite, one of the main rocks in the upper mantle of the Earth's crust. Still, even under perfect conditions, peridotite couldn't eat all of the world's CO2 emissions.

Is carbon capture a legitimate, green idea that should be explored, or is it just an excuse to prevent real change for as long as possible.

Solyndra signs new $320 million dollar deal

It's all in the tubes

Solyndra has signed a contract worth up to $320 million with Carlisle Energy Services to supply 100 megawatts worth of panels over a 5-year period.

Solyndra produces tubular copper-indium-gallium-diselenide (CIGS) thin film that is rolled into tubes - 40 tubes per panel. Thanks to the curvature of the tubes, the panels are able to absorb more indirect light, converting 12 to 14 percent of that sunlight into electricity.

Coupled with Carlisle's white thermoplastic polyolefin roofing membrane, output could be increased by 20 percent.

It's tubular, dude!

Recession hurting cellulosic ethanol

Ethanol's promise fading?

"Because of the upheaval in the capital markets," CNET is reporting that "Mascoma cannot go public to raise additional funds, and institutional investors are being more cautious now. So the company is positioning itself to hold on to cash as long as possible."

Thus, the company is laying off employees.

Unfortunately, Mascoma is one of the few well-funded cellulosic ethanol companies out there, and if cellulose is the future of biofuels, the future of biofuels isn't looking too promising.

Solar factories in a box. Is it sustainable?

Will turnkey solar fabrication survive

Just finished reading about how Oerlikon Solar raised its Amorph High Performance line's capacity by 50 percent using zinc oxide. According to GreentechMedia that means "along with an improvement in the speed of production, should bring the cost of making solar panels on this fabrication system from about $1.50 per watt to about $1.20 per watt for customers, he said. The company's goal is to get to the magic $1 per watt or less figure in "the next couple of years."

Like Applied Materials, Oerlikon is a turnkey provider of a solar factory in a box, where customers buy everything to produce their own solar cells. Both are a competitor with thin-film leader, First Solar. Yet, First Solar isn't as reliant on others to produce its technology.

While I don't have any answers, the viability of turnkey solar factories is a very interesting phenomenon. Will it be the dominant model in the future?

Regardless, amongst these three players, isn't consolidation inevitable?

Is wave power too green for investing?

An Ocean Power Technologies PowerBuoy

I read a number of stories today about a Navy contract that Ocean Power Technologies received for its PowerBuoy that caused me some pause. At one time it seemed that wave power had a bright future. Lately, however, it seems the only investor is the military, which really isn't interested in mass energy production.

A number of other wave power projects around the country and world have had their strings pulled over costs.

Obviously, it seems to early to call winners in wave power, but the real question is, will there ever be a winner?

SolFocus efficiency on the rise

25 percent efficiency

California startup SolFocus has achieved new efficiencies with their concentrated solar systems. By redesigning many optical components, the new SolFocus system improved its efficiency from 18 percent to 25 percent.

According to GreenTechMedia, "A SolFocus system is composed of a giant panel mounted on a tracker that tilts the panel to follow the sun's movement. On the panel are rows of curved mirrors that can concentrate 500 times the sunlight onto optical rods, which then lead the light into solar cells made with germanium substrate and gallium-arsenide and other compounds in the same class of semiconductors."

Is SolFocus, worth a green investment? SolFocus is picking up contracts. However, the company uses expensive Gallium-arsenide cells. Additionally, tracking systems, some solar experts believe, are a dying solar technology, as new cell technologies make tracking systems irrelevant. Removing tracking systems would make solar power cheaper.

Recycling isn't necessarily cost-effective

Nor is it always environmentally-friendly

Popular Mechanics has been publishing a few interesting pieces on recycling and whether recycling is environmentally-friendly and cost-effective. When done intelligently, PM finds that recycling is both cost-effective and environmentally friendly. However, setting up smart recycling programs isn't always easy, nor cheap. Yet, as commitments are made to recycling, new techniques and technologies advance that make recycling even more cost-effective and environmentally friendly.

Archer Daniels a good green investment?

If you consider ethanol green?

Jim Cramer picked Archer Daniels Midland as a green investment that will do well under an Obama White House. Like Cramer, however, I'm not sure how green of an investment is ethanol. Still, if you are seeking a biofuel investment, then Cramer says ADM is a huge buy. Because it is large and worldwide, ADM is less affected by volatile corn prices. And, it's bioplastics business has huge potential.

Latest hybrid news from Hybridcarblog.com

A lot of automaker bailout talk filling up Hybridcarblog.com these days. I have to admit, I started out as a bailout hater, then I wanted a bailout with strings. Now, as a CNBC junkie all I can say is give 'em the money. I'm so tired of Wall Street calling for bankruptcy. THEY are the problem, in my opinion. Anyway, here's the last 10 posts.

• Human prosperity requires an "energy revolution"
• Nissan's future: Self-charging EVs
• Vue 2 mode hybrid launch date scrubbed?
• Global warming goes away if Big 3 go under?
• F Wall Street - Give GM the money
• Sketches of new Lexus and 2011 Camry hybrids?
• Mercedes S400 hybrid built specifically for PR
• Gas prices - Why strings MUST be attached to any b...
• Chevy Volt v. Better Place - Which is a niche?
• Bailout BS: Fixing the US auto sector in 3 easy st...

IEA - "Energy Revolution" desperately needed

World's energy paradigm "unsustainable"

"It is not an exaggeration to claim that the future of human prosperity depends on how successfully we tackle the two central energy challenges facing us today: securing the supply of reliable and affordable energy; and effecting a rapid transformation to a low-carbon, efficient, and environmentally benign system of energy supply. What is needed is nothing short of an energy revolution."

Source: IEA

Bloo! It's 3-D solar cells

Can tiny, efficient 3-D solar cells scare solar opponents?

Tiny nano-scale bristles could be the key to efficient, cost-effective solar power, according to Bloo Solar, because these bristles enable better light absorption.

GreenTech reports, "The 3-D nature of the bristles also means that it can harvest light during the early and late hours of the day, something planar solar cells can struggle with. Bloo in some ways is combining a number of trends into a single product: the popularity of cad tel, reducing the cost of thin-film solar cells, using 3D structures to extend the active time of solar cells like Solyndra and better light trapping."

Solix out to prove algae-biofuels work

Biocrude the new oil?

Solix Biofuels has raised $15.5 billion according to the New York Times to prove that a 5 acre algae farm can produce biocrude that can be refined into gasoline at a far cheaper rate than any other biofuel.

Fast regeneration and CO2 consuming qualities make a algae a very compelling prospect for biofuel production, however, "creating the right conditions for algae to serve as a biofuel feed stock at commercial scale remains an expensive proposition".

Solix hopes that its photo-bioreactor can change these cost dynamics, and prove that algae is the next big thing in green investing.

America's corn economy unsustainable

America's fast food culture also driven by corn

Go to any one of America's fast food restaurants and your burger or chicken sandwich almost certainly comes from an animal that was predominantly corn fed.

"The trend over the past few decades has been to push for cheap animal protein," says Vicki Hird of environmental campaign group Friends of the Earth. She notes that government subsidies that favour corn have encouraged pesticide- and fertiliser-intensive monoculture farming in the US. "We are using corn in ways that are completely unsustainable," says Hird in the New Scientist.

Yet, as ethanol has grown, there has been a push for soy based feed for animals. Unfortunately, this soy is coming from Brazil, and it comes at the expense of the deforestation of rain forests that constitute one of the world's last clean air recyclers.

Will America ever stop being so corny?

Now is NOT the time to give up on the hydrogen economy

The key to the hydrogen economy?

This morning GreenCarCongress reports, "A review of the materials, architectures, performance, and energy efficiencies of emerging microbial electrolysis cell systems (MECs) finds that MECs can efficiently convert a wide range of organic matter into hydrogen and are therefore a promising technology for renewable and sustainable hydrogen gas production from organic feedstocks."

While this research in no way demonstrates the viability of the hydrogen economy, it does demonstrate how science might just turn the impossible into the possible.

Many in the US are ready to dismiss the hydrogen economy altogether, yet is not such denial nothing less than the refutation of science?

PPG Industries Inc. as a green investment

Although not a pure play

PPG Industries, according to Jim Cramer via Mad Money, is a stock worth investigating. For green investors, PPG Industries is growing its business in solar and wind power. For instance, its fiber glass business is doing really well thanks to large wind turbines, an area of huge upside potential, and Cramer thinks an Obama Presidency will be good for PPG.

Additionally, PPG is a great way to play China. Cramer also notes that PPG is a broken stock, but not a broken company, with a great dividend.

On a side note, during the Lightning Round, Cramer advised against FirstSolar and solar power in general until oil prices start going up.

Looking for green investment ideas?

Looking for green in green?

With the financial crisis in full swing, many have decided that the viability of mutual funds and 401k's might not be as solid as sold for generations. Thus, some investors are avoiding mutual funds and becoming stock pickers, which is no easy task.

However, if it's something you are contemplating, and you want to focus on green investments, then you might want to check the portfolios of Quercus Trust or Khosla Ventures to generate ideas.

Today, Greentech Media has a very interesting article on Quercus Trust, and it's definitely worth a read, especially if you've been bitten by the green investment bug.

Latest posts from Hybridcarblog.com

Can Dean Kamen reinvent the US auto industry?

Be sure to check out our post on Dean Kamen's Stirling hybrid vehicle. More important, read Kamen's comments about US automakers and evolution.

For this story and the last ten Hybridcarblog.com stories, click any of the links below.

• Dean Kamen shows off Stirling hybrid
• Smaller Prius Coupe closer to reality
• Fisker Karma shifts towards reality
• Vue plug-in hybrid to be delayed?
• LeBeau - Automakers open to fuel efficiency string...
• Trinity claims automakers conspiring against plug-...
• Without gov. money, GM bankrupt in less than 4 mos...
• UK Study - Current grid can handle plug-ins and re...
• Chevy Volt untouchable (updated)
• Democrats ready to play hardball with Detroit?