I have been feeling guilty about not posting in a while but I have been traveling and just came upon something worthy and a terminal that is convenient at the same time. Warren Buffett of Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE:BRK.A) has made big news recently having purchasing an Israeli metal working company named Iscar, his first outside the United States. My day has been spent with Jonathan Medved of Israel Seed Capital, that most notably just sold Shopping.com (another Israeli Company) to eBay, Inc. (NASDAQ:EBAY)...so what now?
It turns out that a company called GNRY Green Energy has started generating substantial amounts of power utilizing steam generators for industrial use primarily associated with food processing plants. GNRY has taken equipment readily available in the United States and waste product from trees in Israel, and instead of disposing of them in landfills is using them as fuel. By utilizing existing technology, looking backwards -- wood is an ancient fuel -- and extending its usefulness in a way not previously used in these types of factories, they are moving forward by salvaging waste to reduce energy consumption at the plants and conserve precious land.
In the United States, Waste Management Inc, (NYSE:WMI) has teamed up with the Environmental Protection Agency on alternate sources of power with benefits to the environment using available, but not greatly commercialized technologies...until now. They have been utilizing methane gas from landfills. The following is an excerpt from the EPA website:
"WMI has been working independently and through partnerships to develop LFGE power production facilities. WMI operates more than 30 landfill gas powered electric generating plants throughout the United States, several of which have been in operation since the mid-1980s. These plants employ reciprocating engines and combustion turbines that use landfill gas as the primary fuel source. In 1986, WMI formed Bio-Energy Partners whose plants produced nearly 1.2 billion kWh of energy in 2000 using landfill gas."
While WMI has been using this technology for some time on a limited basis, the potential is much greater. They now operate 300 landfill sites nationally and could expand this program significantly. While GNRY and WMI should both be encouraged to expand their programs, and no doubt they will given the economic benefits, there are differences.
WMI is not reducing the amount of material in the landfills, but their source of energy should remain constant. GNRY is reducing landfill material but can they be certain that their source of available raw material will remain constant? Ideally, waste material that is not fit for recycling should be developed as a source of clean burning fuel. That would be great.
As an architects and planners we are focused on "green" buildings and have been for many years. We are not unique; most designers and clients are focusing more and more on sustainability in design. As an investor, I am very interested in energy companies and related technology development. While the Internet is all the rage and MySpace (acquired this year by Newscorp), Google (NASDAQ:GOOG) and eBay are getting tremendous attention, I believe that sustainable sources of ecological friendly energy remain a more important topic for investors and the population as a whole.
Disclosure: I hold shares of Berkshire Hathaway and do not own any of the other stocks mentioned in the article. This article was written last week but I was not able to finalize it until now. Mr. Shraga, my source for the information about GNRY is a college classmate.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
10-20-2006 @ 2:11PM
buy alternative energy said...
Russian oligarchs start investing in high-tech industries for their own entertainment
Front page / Russia / Economics
13.04.2006 Source:
Pages: 12
Russian oligarchs have begun to explore a new sphere of investments – the sphere of high-tech or foreign manufacturing. Russian oligarch Vladimir Potanin on April 11 acquired a 35 percent share of a U.S. high-tech development firm via his corporate empire. And while it is far too soon to determine whether the purchase marks the start of a trend, the potential implications for Russian investment abroad are massive.
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Russian metals giant Norilsk Nickel and its parent company Interros spent $241 million April 11 to secure a 35 percent share of U.S. fuel-cell developer Plug Power. The venture by Vladimir Potanin, the power behind the both Norilsk Nickel and Interros, into fuel cells marks the first real investment by any Russian oligarch into any foreign sector not mirroring the oligarch's operations in the former Soviet Union.
Throughout the 1990s, the oligarchs stole assiduously from the Russian state, manipulating domestic politics and wringing every drop of cash from whatever assets they controlled. In the aftermath of the 1998 ruble collapse, the slow realization dawned that such a strategy constituted a sort of starvation diet, prompting the oligarchs to manage their assets differently.
Thus, the oligarchs began reinvesting in their own operations and tinkering with the Duma and regional governments with an eye toward something beyond rape-and-run profitability. By 2003, the mindset had changed again, with most oligarchs ending (or at least severely muting at the federal level) whatever political ambitions they once had.
This hardly means the Russian oligarchs have become model corporate citizens, simply that their financial outlooks have greatly evolved. But while several have expanded their operations, sometimes even abroad, until now none of them really ventured beyond their core competencies.
Thus, even though Vagit Alekperov's oil firm LUKoil has aggressively purchased overseas assets, including U.S. refiner and retailer Getty Petroleum, Alekperov ultimately is still an oilman. Similarly, while Oleg Deripaska's aluminum giant Rusal has swept up electricity generators, his purchases have not had the ultimate goal of penetrating a new sector, but rather of ensuring Deripaska's smelters have adequate and reliable power supplies. Only Roman Abramovich has ventured significantly beyond his core operations, but his purchase of soccer teams and race tracks in Europe are more the actions of a magnate-turned-playboy leaving the Russian game altogether than of a man bent on breaking new corporate ground.
Pages: 12 Russian oligarchs start investing in high-tech industries for their own entertainment
Front page / Russia / Economics
13.04.2006 Source:
Pages: 12
Norilsk Nickel's purchase of Plug Power is a different breed altogether. Plug Power is among a handful of firms on the leading edge of fuel cell development. In theory at least, fuel cells could potentially revolutionize the global energy industry by providing virtually pollution-free electricity for everything from water heaters to vehicles to streetlights to ships. It truly is a technology that potentially could launch the human race beyond the petroleum age.
Bags of dollars
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With the Plug Power acquisition, Norilsk Nickel - and Potanin, the oligarch behind it - is moving into something fundamentally new for Russian firms: high-tech semispeculative ventures in foreign countries that by their very natures are extremely long-term, but that nevertheless mesh with the existing strengths of the oligarch's empire. Just last year, Norilsk Nickel launched a $120 million, three-year, media-savvy program in league with the Russian Academy of Sciences called New Energy Projects to help with the research and development of fuel cells in Russia.
However technological revolution won’t happen soon. Fuel cells generate electricity by combining stored hydrogen with atmospheric oxygen, a process that creates water plus a good amount of energy. One of the chief problems of fuel cells is getting hydrogen to power them. The easiest way to harvest hydrogen is simply to strip it off of methane (natural gas) molecules. That, however, means fuel cells remain linked to fossil fuels, meaning carbon emissions have merely moved from one point in the energy cycle to another.
An alterative method is to strip hydrogen off of water. But that method yields no net energy back -- remember that the reaction in a fuel cell combines hydrogen gas with atmospheric oxygen to make water vapor; simply reversing the reaction does not generate any fresh power. Building fuel cells using hydrogen produced in this manner by definition uses as much energy as it creates.
That leaves the only non-carbon-intensive process now in existence: splitting water molecules with nuclear-generated electricity. But until nuclear power becomes more socially acceptable, fuel cells are unlikely to prove very popular outside of locations such as Iceland or New Zealand, where geothermal power is abundant.
In the meantime, experimental work continues. Fuel cell technologies require expensive platinum-group metals, specifically palladium, to function as a catalyst for the necessary reactions within the fuel cell. In the case of Plug Power, palladium accounts for one-quarter of their production costs. And Norilsk Nickel's facility in North Central Siberia, which sports 1.3-mile deep tunnel complexes, make it one of the world's top nickel, copper and platinum producers - and the No. 1 palladium supplier.
It is impossible to say how successful Potanin's fuel cell ventures will prove, much less whether Russia 's other billionaires will follow his strategy of expanding the scope of his foreign investments. But the possibilities are enormous.
Source: Stratfor.org
http://english.pravda.ru/russia/economics/79153-1/
10-22-2006 @ 3:29PM
BUY ALTERNATIVE ENERGY said...
NEVER LOOK BACK:
Fuel Cell > FCX > Hydrogen Station
In addition to a solar cell-powered hydrogen refueling station, Honda is operating an experimental Home Energy Station that generates hydrogen from natural gas for use in fuel cell vehicles while supplying electricity and hot water to the home as part of its ongoing research into development of hydrogen production and supply systems for a hydrogen-based society of the future.
Honda has long been conducting research into hydrogen production and supply systems for a hydrogen-based society of the future. At the solar-powered water electrolyzing hydrogen station that has been operating on an experimental basis since 2001 at Honda R&D Americas in Torrance, California, employment of Honda’s water electrolyzing module, which boasts world-leading efficiency, as well as next-generation solar cell panels made by Honda Engineering, has further improved hydrogen production efficiency and greatly reduced CO2 emissions during system manufacturing. In 2003 Honda established an experimental Home Energy Station that generates hydrogen from natural gas for use in fuel cell vehicles, while supplying electricity and hot water to the home through fuel cell cogeneration functions. In November 2004, in collaboration with Plug Power Inc. of the US, Honda began operating a second-generation Home Energy Station, which unifies natural gas reformer and pressurizing units into one compact component to reduce the overall volume by approximately 50%. Honda is continuing its efforts to develop systems required for a hydrogen-based society of the future through experiments with various hydrogen production and usage systems.
Schematic of a solar-powered water electrolyzing hydrogen station
Outline of a solar-powered water electrolyzing hydrogen station
Location:
Honda R&D Americas research facility in Los Angeles
System configuration:
Solar battery, electric converter, electrolyzing system, compressor, pressurized hydrogen tank
Hydrogen production capacity:
In conjunction with commercial electric power: Max. 2Nm3/h*; Solar power only: Max. 1.2Nm3/h*
Hydrogen storage capacity:
400L (350 atm)
Schematic of Home Energy Station
Outline of Home Energy Station
Location:
Plug Power Inc. headquarters (New York)
System configuration:
Reformer, refiner, fuel cells, compressor, high-pressure storage tank
Hydrogen production capacity:
Maximum 2Nm3/h*
Hydrogen storage capacity:
132L
Power generation capacity:
Over 4kW
* N = standard conditions at 0ºC, 1 atm
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