Is any body investing in water and wind power?
Answers
474 points
spider348 answered one year ago …
Watching wind, solar - yes. Buy everything is still effected by sinking markets and oil so waiting it out for now.
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2222 points
readytoretire answered one year ago …
Earnings in this sector is highly influenced by the price of oil. As oil goes down, the VC will not invest heavily in this sector. Obama will want to get us off of oil, so he will push for incentives that will help this sector. That said, I would hold off investing in any of these companies until the market settles down. It currently doesn't matter about the individual company, anyone can be and is being taken down.
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105 points
InvestingAnswersDotCom answered 11 months ago …
If you still picture windmills as creaky wooden towers with rusty blades spinning in the wind... it's time to think again.
Sleek and aerodynamic, modern "wind turbines" stand hundreds of feet high and can generate enough juice to power a town of 4,000 homes. In one year, a single 3-megawatt wind turbine produces as much energy as 12,000 barrels of oil -- without consuming any natural resources or emitting any pollution or greenhouse gases.
What's more, this inexhaustible domestic resource helps break our dependency on imported oil and other fuels. Unlike oil, we can't run out of wind. Plus there's no geopolitical "risk premium" we have to pay... there is no OPEC breathing down our neck... no taxes or royalties we have to pay anyone. As a bonus, wind is inflation proof -- once you build the plant, your energy cost is virtually fixed -- no surprises from volatile fuel prices.
And the environmental benefits are immense. Right now, U.S. wind turbines generate as much electricity as burning 23 million tons of coal. That's a line of 10-ton trucks 9,000 miles long. In 2007 the clean electricity generated by wind in the U.S. alone prevented the emission of 28 million tons of filthy carbon dioxide.
Congress Finally Gets Serious...
and the Money Starts Flowing
The squeaky wheel gets the grease... and the public outcry over carbon emissions and global warming has finally made lawmakers serious about finding an alternative to oil. This year's federal budget is spending a huge chunk of change for a massive push into clean, green energy. Back the right company and you have as close to a guaranteed jackpot as you'll ever find on Wall Street.
Barack Obama talked about pumping billions into green energy projects at almost every campaign rally. Now that he's going to be President, that can only help wind-power investors.
His Democratic allies on Capitol Hill recently passed a bill mandating that 15% of electricity from private utilities be generated from renewables by 2020.
The same thing is happening abroad. Governments around the world are providing subsidies, incentives and tax breaks to alternative energy. The European Union is mandating that 20% of energy come from solar, wind and other renewable sources by 2020, too.
If global energy demand triples by mid-century, as expected, it's hard to imagine that we will still be relying on coal, oil and natural gas for 85% of our energy.
The problem goes beyond shaky Middle Eastern supplies, soaring prices, filthy air and global warming. Now there's the attack factor. What's more likely to attract a terrorist bomb: a nuclear power plant or a wind farm?
How Does $40-to-$1 on Your Money Sound?
2007 was a breakthrough year for the U.S. wind industry. Our total wind-power capacity rose by +45% in a single year, accounting for 30% of all new power production.
The Department of Energy says that wind energy could well generate 20% of U.S. electricity by 2030. When you compare that to today's one half of one percent that's a 40-bagger industry-wide. Which means a few of the best and the brightest wind stocks could easily rise 100-to-1 before it's all over.
How do we plan on profiting from the unstoppable shift toward wind power? Just read on...
The Saudi Arabia of Wind
More than $50 billion was pumped into the wind industry in 2007. No other alternative energy comes close. And by the end of 2008, investment in wind-energy technology will hit $85 billion. Over the next five years, the U.S., Europe and China are expected to spend $150 billion on wind projects.
If it's true that successful investing is all about following the money, this is one race that is worth entering. It's certainly got the attention of T. Boone Pickens.
The billionaire oil man is wagering $12 billion on what will be the world's largest wind farm, spanning the Texas panhandle. He has already ordered 667 turbines from General Electric.
A lot of people have made a lot of money following Pickens' lead over the years. This is the man who turned a $2,500 grubstake into America's largest independent oil company, Mesa Petroleum. He's now the 131st-richest American and he didn't get that way by making bad bets with his money.
Why has this legendary oil wildcatter hitched his future to wind? Because he knows that the cheap and easy oil is gone for good.
Despite record prices, oil production has actually fallen over the past three years. New oil is just getting too hard to find.
That's the bad news. The good news, as Pickens points out, is that the United States is the Saudi Arabia of wind power.
The Great Plains is home to the greatest wind energy potential in the world. Pickens envisions a string of wind facilities stretching from Texas to North Dakota that would produce 20% of the nation's electricity.
You can find the rest of this story here...
http://www.streetauthority.com/p/ma/2008/windpower.asp
105 points
InvestingAnswersDotCom answered 11 months ago …
Many people consider oil to be the world's most important commodity. The fossil fuel runs our automobiles, flies our aircraft, heats our homes, and powers our cities.
Yet, there is another natural resource that is unquestionably of far greater importance -- water. After all, it's something that every one of the world's seven billion people needs every single day to survive.
However, while integrated oil giants like Exxon Mobil (NYSE: XOM) have market capitalizations measured in the hundreds of billions, water-related companies generally don't even register on investors' radar screens. Quite probably, you haven't ever given much thought to water as an investment possibility.
If that's the case, then this answer just might give you a few good reasons to change your mind -- because these overlooked stocks could soon flood their shareholders with a deluge of profits.
Every day, millions of Americans turn on the water faucet to make a pitcher of iced tea, or brush their teeth, or wash their clothes, or hose down the lawn. It doesn't take a calculator to know that all of that usage adds up to billions upon billions of gallons each year.
But did you know that these residential needs represent just 10% of all water consumption? Actually, twice as much goes towards industrial applications, and a whopping 70% is needed for agricultural uses -- it takes hundreds of gallons to grow a single pound of corn or wheat.
And with roughly 98% of the world's water supply too salty to drink (and most of the rest locked up in frozen polar icecaps) this most precious of natural resources is growing increasingly scarce. Still, it's all too easy to take water for granted -- until crops begin wilting and lakes start drying up.
That's precisely what has been happening in the Southwestern U.S., where the Colorado River Basin is now in the 9th year of an unrelenting drought. Typically, over 13 million acre-feet of water thunders down the mighty Colorado in a given year. (One acre-foot is equivalent to 325,000 gallons, enough for a family of four for one year).
However, the amount of water flowing downstream has been cut in half in recent years, dropping below five million acre-feet -- below that of the 1930s dust bowl era. Couple that with a severe lack of snowfall in the Sierra Nevada Mountains, and it's easy to see why Governor Schwarzenegger has declared a state of emergency and referred to the situation as "the most significant water crisis in the state's history."
In nearby Las Vegas, the dwindling supplies couldn't have come at a worse time, as an influx of new residents has created a heavy burden on Lake Mead. Created in 1936, the massive reservoir is capable of holding 26 million acre-feet of water. But today, there are just 11.9 million remaining, making it a little less than half full (46% of capacity).
Before this drought started, Lake Mead was practically overflowing its banks. But now it has dropped more than 100 feet below its peak, and the Scripps Institution of Oceanography has projected a 50/50 chance of it completely drying up in the next fifteen years.
Of course, this isn't the only region of the country suffering from critical shortages. For example, Florida's Lake Okeechobee became so dry that 12,000 acres of former lakebed caught fire last year. Further north, drought-stricken portions of the Carolinas have been subject to mandatory water restrictions amid sunny skies and searing heat.
Overall, the U.S. Drought Monitor estimates that as much as 40% of the United States is being plagued by abnormally dry conditions
An International Problem...
Like the U.S., many foreign countries are also experiencing pronounced changes in climatology, just as major urban population centers are outgrowing existing resources.
Over the past century, the world's population has quadrupled and its water consumption has exploded by +700% -- but there isn't one drop more now than there was back in 1900. The Earth Policy Institute, which has researched this trend extensively, has compiled some alarming facts.
In Africa, for example, lack of rainfall and heavy irrigation have caused Lake Chad to lose 96% of its water volume. Likewise, Russia's Aral Sea (once one of the planet's largest bodies of fresh water) has shrunk to a puddle. The current shoreline is over 150 miles away from old port cities and fishing vessels have been left to rust in the sand.
Elsewhere, aquifer levels in China's Hebei region near Beijing are dropping 10 feet per year, and 969 of the region's 1,052 lakes have completely vanished. And in the arid Middle East, Saudi Arabian farmers have to dig wells over 4,000 feet deep just to strike water.
And this water deficit is going to get worse, not better. Around the world, farmers have dug millions of irrigation wells and are depleting groundwater aquifers at an alarming rate. Within the next 15 years, roughly two-thirds of the world's population will live in countries where water tables are dropping and supplies are considered scarce.
No Watered-Down Profits...
There is a lot of work to be done if the world's growing population is to have adequate water.
Even in the 21st century, UNICEF reports that a staggering 1.1 billion in emerging markets still lack access to safe drinking water. And here in the U.S., the Environmental Protection Agency has said we need to spend $275 billion to replace aging facilities -- including 800,000 miles of leaky, corroded pipeline that haven't been upgraded since the 1800's in some places.
On the bright side, this situation will present incredible opportunities for the companies trying to combat the problem, particularly those involved with water distribution pipes, treatment facilities, purification technologies and other critical infrastructure.
With all this in mind, investors interested in this industry might want to start with the stocks shown below:
Veolia Env. (NYSE: VE)
Nalco (NYSE: NLC)
Ameron (NYSE: AMN)
Mueller Water (NYSE: MWA)
Northwest Pipe (Nasdaq: NWPX)
Layne Christensen (Nasdaq: LAYN)
Lindsay Corp (NYSE: LNN)
Tetra Tech (Nasdaq: TTEK)
102 points
excopper answered 11 months ago …
take a look at spwra or pwnd (both on the Nasdaq) as exchange traded funds in the US. Lots of hype now with Obama's agenda to get the US self sufficient. These two have been gathering pretty nicely and an ETF may be the way to spread the risk. I'm watching and there's probably no rush in establishing a position. Good Luck!
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