From Renewable Energy Access:

By a vote of 15-5, the U.S. Senate Finance Committee approved an updated package of energy tax incentives yesterday, which contains a five- year extension of the tax credit for the production of electricity from wind, geothermal, biomass and other renewable energy resources.

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As a project developer, this would be welcome news indeed if it becomes law. Today at REFF, US Secretary of Energy Sam Bodman, repeatedly stated “Government needs to support private industry in renewables with a stable and secure policy” which included predictable production tax credits.

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Today we’re attending the Renewable Energy Financing Forum sponsored by ACORE in NY. Thus far, there have been two very interesting sessions on Biomass/biofuels and Solar (PV). The panels have been informative, a mix of executives from established companies in the segments and investors (mostly public market.)

In his opening remarks this morning, Michael Eckhart, the President of ACORE, walked through the various renewable resources and he singled out geothermal as being the ONLY renewable capable of displacing coal baseload generation. Curiously, there is not a geothermal session in this conference and we here from the Geothermal Energy Association, Geothermal Resources Council, or even a single geothermal industry attendee from the Geothermal Financing Workshops over the past year. This is a missed opportunity.

A few key points from this morning’s session were:

• 10% of venture capital investments in 2006 were in renewable energy
• 1.6B people do not have access to electricity (perhaps we ought to solve the power divide too…)
• 20% of US corn output is used to make ethanol, that is predicted to rise to 30% by 2010
• 2/3 of the cost of ethanol in the US is due to fuel stock (corn) prices
• Aggregate market capitalization for US solar companies has increased from $1B in 2004 to $67.3B now
• It takes between 2-4 years of electricity production of a solar cell to offset it’s electrical and environmental impact of manufacture
• Refined silicon costs on the spot market have increased from $50/kg two years ago to over $250/kg now. Long term contracts can be had for $70/kg. The cost of Si is forecast to decrease to $40/kg over the next 2 years.

Those are facts we found interesting, we’ll share more on the afternoon’s sessions in future entries.

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The Renewable Energy Finance Forum is running in New York this week. We will be attending and will post some blog entries from the conference. A glance at the agenda shows a regular financing forum, but with some heavy hitters doing the talking. Notable for its absence is geothermal…stay tuned, we’ll keep you up to date on interesting bits from the conference.

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The renewable energy segment is hot, in fact, many parallels are being drawn between the current hype of renewable energy and the Internet bubble of that popped in 2000.

Wilder Hill Clean Energy Index Performance over the last 6 months (ECO)

For investors who want to get in on the action but don’t have the confidence to pick individual issues, funds like the Wilder Hill Clean Energy Index (ECO) provide an interesting way to participate. While there is alot of hype and no doubt there are valuation to value mismatches, this remains a good segment to invest in. We would caution you to use the same approach and research when entering a renewable energy investment as any other.

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Kenneth Watkins, an electrical engineer from Orlando, Florida, decided he’d like to make an all electric vehicle for his commute. So he bought a truck, ripped out the combustion engine and associated bits, installed an electric motor, controller, and battery bank, and voila, he had a great all electric truck.

 

Here are the specs on the vehicle:

• Motor: Advanced DC FB1-4001A Series Wound DC
• Drivetrain: 5 speed manual transmission
• Controller: Curtis 1231C-8601 (95-144Vdc) 500 Amp
• Batteries: 24 Trojan T 105, 6.00 Volt, Lead-Acid, Flooded
• System Voltage: 144 Volts
• Charger: Zivan NG-3
• DC/DC: Converter Power-One
• Instrumentation: 60-160 V Voltmater, 0-400 Ammeter, Tachometer, Controller Temperature gauge, Acc. Voltmeter
• Top Speed: 70 MPH (112 KPH)
• Range: 50 Miles (80 Kilometers)
• Conversion Time: 3 months
• Conversion Cost: $15,000

If you’d like to do a conversion, contact Ken at (407) 805-0766 or through his MySpace page.

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