Trends I'm Watching

Generation Y's Favorite Green Brands

Trend: Generation Y consumers (ages 21-29) value companies with a green image.

The companies with the greenest image, according Outlaw Consulting's survey of Gen Y (ages 21-29). Are they good investments?

Link: THE GREEN ISSUE | The Outlaw.

Outlaw Consulting surveyed 100 of its most forward trendsetter panelists living in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Miami, asking them for a list of their favorite "green brands" - that is, companies they like and see as making efforts to help the environment. We also asked them what these companies were doing to be green, and why it resonates.

The sample consisted mostly of the first wave of Gen Y, ages 21-29 - and it's important to note that these are trendsetters in image categories (fashion, music, nightlife), not necessarily in issues of sustainability.

While they are motivated to help the cause and are striving to educate themselves, they are far from experts. Our aim was to discover which companies are going beyond the niche segment of hard-core Greenies to win over influential Gen Y's. The following articles explain the "whys" behind the list of companies, illuminating several tips on how to win this generation's respect by showing your green side - sometimes in surprising ways.

The Favorite 15

Whole Foods

Trader Joe's

Toyota

Honda

Google

Aveda

Zipcar

American Apparel

Ikea

7th Generation

Apple

The Body Shop

Starbucks

Netflix

Method

via GreenBiz.com

Green Building Boom

Trend: Companies that supply products for constructing buildings that conserve energy and use recycled materials are growing.

Video from CNBC: Eco-friendly construction accounts for about 10% of the builders market, with Eric Pouty, Canaccord Adams director of research and CNBC's Mark Haines

Video Link: http://www.cnbc.com/id/15840232?video=714927011

Presentations on Investing in Renewable Energy

Tom Konrad at Alternative Energy Stocks recently did two presentations about investing in renewable energy. You can download the powerpoint files at the link below.

Link: Two Recent Presentations on Investing in Renewable Energy | Alternative Energy Stocks

GE cleaner technology R&D Investment to Reach $1 Billion by Year End

Trend: Cleaner technology is gaining momentum as large companies see big opportunities in reducing pollution and improving energy efficiency.

Some excerpts from an October 23 press release by GE.

Link: GE ecomagination R&D Investment to Reach $1 Billion by Year End, Driving Expansion of Advanced Technology Pipeline : Press Releases : News : GE.

GE announced that it will invest more than $1 billion on cleaner technology research and development (R&D) for 2007, drawing closer to its pledge to invest $1.5 billion annually on ecomagination R&D by 2010. One of four GE ecomagination commitments originally made in 2005, R&D investment has reached a total of more than $2.5 billion since the program’s inception.

Today’s announcement was made by Lorraine Bolsinger while she was onsite at GE’s Global Research Center (GRC) in Niskayuna, NY to host a day-long briefing session on the innovative portfolio of ecomagination products, which are currently being developed at the facility.

Research and development funding for ecomagination is shared between GE’s four GRCs (Schenectady/Niskayuna, NY, Shanghai, Munich and Bangalore) and each of GE’s major businesses. The GRCs serve as dedicated labs for long-term R&D commitments and work to develop a broad technology portfolio to help meet a wide-range of energy and environmental challenges.

GE researchers are working on a broad array of technology initiatives that cut across GE’s business portfolio. These projects include:

• Renewable energy -- exploration of advanced concepts in wind, solar and biomass to improve the economics and availability of these clean, renewable energy sources
• Advanced gasification technologies -- for GE’s Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle (IGCC) System to increase plant efficiency, lower emissions and make these systems carbon capture ready
• Fuel efficiency -- research in composite materials, advanced aerodynamics, turbine alloys and advanced coatings and combustion systems to improve the fuel efficiency and overall performance of present and future generations of aircraft engines and electric power generation systems
• Hybrid systems -- research to support the development of the next generation hybrid locomotive
• Lighting -- several energy efficiency initiatives such as Organic Light Emitting Diodes (OLEDs) to reduce our energy consumption
• Water -- programs to provide more affordable, less energy-intensive solutions to water purification and re-use that enable an increase in the quantity and quality of clean water around the globe.

via Earth2Tech

Energy spike heating up solar shares

Trend: High oil prices are boosting the demand for solar energy — and the stocks of the industry leaders.

In an article on MarketWatch, Timothy Lutts, president of Cabot Heritage, likes the potential growth of four solar energy stocks as the price of oil increases. Excerpts below.

Link: Energy spike heating up solar shares - MarketWatch

The fact is, the solar energy that hits the earth in one minute is sufficient to supply all our energy demands for an entire year; the trick is harnessing that energy. An increasing number of public companies are doing it, however, and as the technology improves rapidly in this industry, and economies of scale kick in, the cost per watt continues to fall.

In some sunny locations, the cost of solar is nearing parity with the cost of traditional fossil-fuel electricity. And it's pollution-free! 

There are over a dozen young stocks to choose from in this space, but the leaders today are First Solar (FSLR), JA Solar (JASO), SunPower (SPWR),and Yingli Green Energy (YGE).

These are growth investments of the first order. Every one of them is growing revenues at a triple-digit rate. (That's proven to be one of our most successful stock-picking criteria through the years.) Every one of them is a profitable company. And every one is being accumulated by institutional investors who want to get their foot in the door of the next big thing. 

Admittedly, these stocks are expensive when looked at from a static valuation perspective. But when you consider the growth potential, these valuations make sense.

First Solar, based in Phoenix, is the leading provider of third-generation "thin-film" solar cells, which means it's far less dependent on increasingly expensive silicon for its products. 

SunPower, based in San Jose, Calif., makes an aesthetically attractive all-black solar cell for both residential and commercial installations and is building new manufacturing plants in Malaysia to increase capacity. 

JA Solar, nominally from the Cayman Islands but actually operating in China, is a specialist. It makes solar cells, but then sells them to other manufacturers who incorporate them into finished power-generating products. 

Yingli Green Energy, also in China, is vertically integrated, and produces complete systems for home, business and industry. 

All four have strong charts today and all four are recommended for growth-oriented investors who know how to manage risk.

Thin-film photovoltaics (TFPV) market is forecast to grow rapidly

Trend: Thin-film photovoltaics (TFPV) shows potential for cost-effective solar energy.

The world thin-film photovoltaics (TFPV) market is forecast to reach $7.2 billion by 2015, compared to just over $1.0 billion today, according to a new report from NanoMarkets LC. Additional details about the report are available on the firm's website at http://www.nanomarkets.net.

Link: New NanoMarkets Report Predicts $7.2 Billion Thin-Film Photovoltaics Market by 2015

The market is being driven by the inherent advantages of TFPV including low cost, low weight, and the ability to manufacture them on flexible substrates and embed solar power capabilities into walls, roofs and even windows. Unlike more conventional PV that uses crystalline silicon, TFPV also has the ability to operate under low light conditions. The report notes that to support the growing demand for TFPV, most manufacturers are ramping up production capacity and several -- including First Solar, Fuji Electric, Nanosolar, Sanyo, Uni-Solar and G24i -- are building plants with more than 100 MW in capacity.

Some of the findings of the report include:

Because worldwide energy prices are rising fast and PV prices are falling fast, PV will carve off a big slice of the energy market and could eventually account for as much as 20 percent of the U.S. market's energy needs. 

Conventional PV is expensive to make.  By contrast TFPV can be manufactured using simple printing or other R2R machines; the value of printed TFPV is expected to reach just over $3.0 billion by 2015. Printing PV has the potential for lowering capital costs by as much as 75 percent, reducing waste and increasing throughput.

The fact that TFPV is also much lighter than conventional PV and can be more easily applied to curved and non-planar surfaces, TFPV is easier to install on roofs and walls. 

PV based on organic materials is more ecologically friendly than other PV approaches.

via Alt Energy Stocks via The Energy Blog

GE Introduces Green Credit Card

Trend: General Electric sets a standard for carbon credits in the United States.

Joel Makower describes the new General Electric Earth Rewards credit card, aimed at reducing cardholders' carbon emissions. Excerpts below.

Link: Joel Makower: Two Steps Forward: GE Earth Rewards: Credit Where (Carbon) Credit Is Due.

...Earth Rewards is GE Money's contribution to GE's overall goal of making money by helping its customers become cleaner and more efficient.

The Earth Rewards card will invest 1% of consumer purchases made with the card in carbon offset projects. (Consumers can opt to get a half-percent cash back, in which case only one-half percent of their purchases will fund offsets.) The company isn't claiming that the card will necessarily render purchases "carbon neutral," though its promotional material explains that an average consumer charging $750 per month on an Earth Rewards card -- that's $9,000 a year in purchases -- would offset all of the emissions he or she is likely to produce in a year.

The launch of the card is accompanied by the release of a standard for carbon credits in the United States. The standard, which will be used by GE's joint venture with AES Corp. to develop and sell carbon credits, aims to ensure that the offsets purchased by GE on behalf of its credit card customers "are scientifically verified and provide a positive, measurable environmental benefit," in the words of the company. AES and GE plan to generate 10 million metric tons of greenhouse gas credits annually by 2010, some of which will be purchased by GE itself on behalf of its Earth Rewards customers.

According to GE:

If 100,000 cardholders spend $750 per month, the annual offsets retired would total approximately one million metric tons, equivalent to removing more than 175,000 cars from American roads for one year. If those 100,000 cardholders receive their statements electronically, they could save more than 50,000 pounds of paper, sparing 600 trees and more than 500,000 gallons of wastewater associated with paper production collectively.

Plug-in Hybrids Hold Great Promise, Study Finds

Trend: Plug-in hybrid vehicles (PHEVs) can reduce air polluction and reduce energy costs for transportation.

GreenBiz News describes a report that suggests that plug-in hybrid vehicles (PHEVs) may be a path to energy independence, especially if battery technology can be improved. Excerpts below.

Link: GreenBiz News | Plug-in Hybrids Hold Great Environmental Promise, Study Finds

A comprehensive report released yesterday by the Electric Power Research Institute and the Natural Resources Defense Council finds that widespread use of plug-in hybrid electric vehicles in the United States could reduce greenhouse gas emissions and improve air quality.

The research looks at how popular adoption of plug-in hybrids (PHEVs), both by individuals and as part of large fleets, would affect the environment between 2010 and 2050.

The most striking findings of the report include the estimated 450 million metric tons of GHG emissions removed from the air by 2050; if 60 percent of the population drove PHEVs in 2050, they would only be using 7 to 8 percent of the country's electrical supply; and a potential for reducing daily oil consumption by 3 to 4 million barrels.

Based on an average electricity cost of 8.5 cents per kilowatt-hour, a plug-in hybrid (PHEV) can be fueled for the equivalent of 75 cents per gallon of gasoline, at a time when gas costs about $3 per gallon at the pump.

The groups said their analysis is the first one that combines detailed models of the U.S. electric system and transportation sector with sophisticated atmospheric air quality models, and which accounts for the future evolution of both sectors in terms of technological advances and the growth of electricity load and capacity.

Plug-in hybrids function in essentially the same manner as the gas-electric hybrids on the roads already today; but instead of using the gasoline to charge the electrical battery as the car drives, PHEVs plug into the electrical grid to recharge a high-capacity battery. The high cost of manufacturing these batteries continues to be the main obstacle to widespread PHEV use.

These vehicles also offer the opportunity to power the nation's vehicles by emission-free, renewable energy, if PHEVs are able to charge at solar-powered homes or charging stations. Taking advantage of a cleaner electrical grid will allow PHEVs to emit far fewer GHGs than conventional or current hybrid vehicles, and can help reduce U.S. dependence on imported oil.

Six market waves

Trends: Alternative energy, Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehicles, clean water, biotech, 'Chindia' middle class, and jetliners could be fertile ground for investing in the near future.

Tobin Smith describes six major waves that ChangeWave Investing has identified for investers looking for market gains. Excerpts below.

Link: Tobin Smith Journal

1. Alternative energy wave

2. Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehicles wave

3. Clean water wave

4. Biotech wave

5. 'Chindia' middle class wave

6. Jetliner wave

These markets don't come all the time. It's certainly here for the next two to three years, but beyond that I couldn't tell you.

We are guided by our ChangeWave Alliance research as we continue to expand our horizons -- meaning we're on the lookout for the niche companies and sectors in which we can double our money every two to three years.

I've got to be a stock market cheerleader because you're going to hear all sorts of bad news this summer about subprime loans. You know we're going to get a pullback, but it's that pullback that gives you the next great buying opportunity.

The way you make market-doubling and market-tripling returns every year is to be ahead of the crowd.  You've got to be in the right places at the right time at the right price.

Smart Metering: Investing in Energy Efficiency

Trend: Providing detailed information to electricity consumers (smart metering) increases awareness and decreases consumption.

Tom Konrad at Alternative Energy Stocks reports that smart metering is essential for reducing our carbon footprint by providing real time feedback on our electricity use. Excerpts below.

Link: Smart Metering: A Smart Investment in Energy Efficiency | Alternative Energy Stocks.

Smart metering is one of the biggest win-wins available when it comes to reducing our carbon footprint by providing real time feedback on our electricity use. It allows us to see how we are wasting electricity and choose to take action. When Woodstock Hydo's customers were given this information (without any other encouragement to save electricity), their average usage fell by 15%.

In addition, Woodstock Hydro discovered that participants complained much less frequently than other customers. By giving people real time information about their electricity usage it empowers them to make their own decisions, and the better information they have (if accompanied by the  tools to manage the new information), the better decisions they will make. 

Xcel Energy (NYSE: XEL) is just completing a year long trial of time-of day pricing, and the preliminary results indicate that when customers have the controls necessary to program or cut their usage of high consumption appliances such as air conditioners, either ahead of time or remotely, their usage decreases most.

Investment Opportunities

... the strong economic case for smart meters means that smart meters could easily be one of the first energy efficiency measures rolled out by many utilities.