Used Adult Diapers and Other Weird Sources of Fuel

You may have previously read our article about flywheel stocks, the companies that make battery-free electrical storage devices, such as Active Power Inc. (ACPW) which trades on NASDAQ. We also wrote about stocks that produce power from hot air from the ground, like Calpine Corporation (CPN). Then there is one source of green energy that I didn't include in my book, The Green Light on Green Stocks. It was the body heat used by a Swedish company to heat companies.

Now there is a new source of fuel: dirty adult diapers. Due to Japan's rapidly aging population and its limited landfill sites, the country has been inundated with piles of used dirty adult diapers. Fortunately, a company has come up with a solution. Super Faiths Inc. has created a manufacturing process that processes used adult diapers into solid fuel. This fuel is now being used in a Tokyo hospital.

So what other companies use weird fuel? One company that uses an eclectic group of sources of fuel to produce electricity is Hawaiian Electric Industries (HE), which is one of the leading utilities involved in the use of renewable energy sources for the generation of power. Hawaiian Electric uses sugarcane waste to run its generators along with municipal waste and waves from the ocean. Of course the company uses other less exotic power sources such as wind, solar, photovoltaic, geothermal, and hydroelectric. Earnings for the latest quarter ending June 30 spiked by an incredible 43% on a 7.5% rise in revenues. The stock trades at 15.5 times forward earnings and has a 4.8% yield. The company has scheduled its earnings announcement for November 7.

If you like interesting stock lists like this, check out the many free lists of stocks at WallStreetNewsNetwork.com that can be downloaded.

Disclosure: The author didn't own any of the above at the time the article was written.

By Stockerblog.com

Is Your Head in the Clouds? Are Your Stocks in the Clouds?

Have you seen more ads on TV and in print about clouds and cloud computing? Cloud computing is having your programs and data stored remotely on a server in another location, instead of on your own individual computer. As long as you have an Internet connection, you can have a cheap old computer and still take advantage of cloud computing. The servers of companies that provide this service represent the 'clouds', and those servers can be located anywhere. Yahoo (YHOO) mail, Google (GOOG) gmail, and Microsoft's (MSFT) hotmail are examples of cloud computing in a limited way. The email servers are not in your office or home as you use the Yahoo or Google or Microsoft servers. Some universities and companies are utilizing the email services of Google, which saves them money on servers and saves on staffing.

Cloud computing can reduce waste and carbon footprints along with providing significant cost savings. Companies that utilize cloud computing don't need to Costs relating to the disposal of old computers and servers is cut back significantly. Data security is the job of the cloud computing firm. Businesses can eliminate the techs that have to come out and install new software to each employees' station. Network administrators monitoring the company's servers are reduced also.

Investors like the green and financial benefits of cloud computing companies. According to WallStreetNewsNetwork.com, there are over 25 stocks in the cloud field, based oh the free Cloud Computer Stock list, which includes companies involved in server farms and outsourced storage systems.

The one of the largest corporations that falls into the cloud computer arena is Salesforce.com (CRM), which is a provider of customer-relationship management services. The company's stock symbol stands for Customer Relationship Management. Salesforce has customers of all sizes, including the Staples (SPLS), Expedia (EXPE), News Corp. (NWS-A), and SunTrust Banks (STI). Salesforce trades at 43 times forward earnings. Latest quarter revenues were up 33.8% year-over-year. However, GAAP diluted earnings per share were breakeven, and non-GAAP diluted earnings per share decreased 7% year-over-year to $0.28.

Citrix Systems, Inc. (CTXS) provides on demand applications and online services, including GoToMeeting, GoToWebinar, GoToTraining, GoToAssist, and GoToMyPC. This debt free company has a forward price to earnings ratio of 28. The latest quarterly earnings were up 55% on a revenue increase of 18%.

VMware (VMW) is another major cloud and virtualization company. Its product VMware vSphere is a cloud computing data center platform. It sports a forward price to earnings ratio of 44. The company reported that latest earnings increased an 60% in earnings on a 33% increase in revenues.

To access the free Excel spreadsheet database of numerous companies involved in cloud computing in some way, that can be downloaded, sorted, and updated, go to WallStreetNewsNetwork.com. You can also get info on the green aspects of cloud computing from my book The Green Light on Green Stocks: A Quick Guide to Green Investing and Making Money in Alternative Energy Stocks, in which I described cloud computing as a green industry and a way of providing money saving services to many corporations.

Disclosure: Author owns YHOO.

By Stockerblog.com

Why Clouds are Green: Cloud Computing Stocks

Cloud computing can go a long way to reducing carbon footprints and businesses are catching on. But the biggest advantage to companies is the cost savings. Corporations that utilize cloud computing don't need to periodically upgrade computers as often, and they don't need to own a lot of servers. The costs and issues relating to the disposal of old computers and servers is reduced dramatically. There is no need to deal with data security, as that is the job of the cloud computing firm. Companies don't have to have a technician to come out and install new software to each employees' station. There is also no need for lots of network administrators monitoring the company's servers.

So what is cloud computing? One way to look at it is having your programs and data stored remotely on a server far away, instead of on your own individual computer. As long as you have an Internet connection, you can have a low level computer and still take advantage of cloud computing. The clouds are simply the servers of companies that provide this service, and those servers can be located anywhere in the world. If you have Yahoo (YHOO) mail, Google (GOOG) gmail, or Microsoft's (MSFT) hotmail, then you are using cloud computing in a small way. You don't have the email servers in your office or home, you use the Yahoo or Google or Microsoft servers. Many colleges and universities are turning over their student email services to Google, which saves them money on servers and saves on staffing for support.

The blog, Software Advice, recently published an article on what they refer to a cloud apps companies. The article, Q1 2011 Cloud Apps Financial Results Roundup, lists and describes the top ten pure play cloud app companies, showing where they stand in terms of revenue, operating income, customer count, average annual subscription value, and market cap.

With both green and financial benefits to cloud companies, investors are taking a closer look. There are over 25 stocks in the cloud field, according to the Cloud Computer Stock list at WallStreetNewsNetwork.com, which includes companies involved in server farms and outsourced storage systems.

The 800 pound gorilla in the room is Salesforce.com (CRM), which is a provider of customer-relationship management services that has coined the phrase 'the end of software'. Salesforce has customers ranging from the very small to the very large, including the Corporate Express division of Staples (SPLS), Expedia (EXPE), Dow Jones Newswires subsidiary of News Corp. (NWS-A), and SunTrust Banks (STI). Salesforce trades at a very lofty 78 times forward earnings. Total first quarter revenues were $504 million, an increase of 34% year-over-year. Subscription and support revenues were $474 million, a rise of 35% on a year-over-year basis. By the way, the company's stock symbol stands for Customer Relationship Management.

VMware (VMW) is another major cloud and virtualization company. Its product VMware vSphere is a cloud computing data center platform. It sports a forward price to earnings ratio of 40. The company reported that latest earnings increased an incredible 60% in earnings on a 33% increase in revenues.

Citrix Systems, Inc. (CTXS) provides on demand applications and online services, including GoToMeeting, GoToWebinar, GoToTraining, GoToAssist, and GoToMyPC. This debt free company has a forward PE of 30. The latest quarterly earnings were up 55% on a revenue increase of 18%.

One of the companies covered by Software Advice is Concur Technologies (CNQR) provides employee spend management solutions including Concur Travel & Expense, Concur Expense, Concur Cliqbook Travel, and Concur Invoice, on-demand employee spend management solutions. The stock trades at 43 times forward earnings, and revenues for the latest quarter were up 16%.

To access a free Excel spreadsheet database of numerous companies involved in cloud computing in some way, that can be downloaded, sorted, and updated, go to wsnn.com. You can also get info on the green aspects of cloud computing from my book The Green Light on Green Stocks: A Quick Guide to Green Investing and Making Money in Alternative Energy Stocks, in which I described cloud computing as a green industry and a way of providing money saving services to many corporations.

Disclosure: Author owns YHOO.

By Stockerblog.com

The Green Stock Rapper

Who is that guy?

The Most Unusual Source of Energy to Heat Buildings: Body Heat

Here is one source of green energy that I didn't include in my book, The Green Light on Green Stocks: A Quick Guide to Green Investing and Making Money in Alternative Energy Stocks. I covered everything from wind to solar to cogeneration to flywheels to cloud computing, but I didn't include body heat.

A real estate company in Stockholm, Sweden called Jernhusen, has put the heat from human bodies to good use, using it to heat a building. All the hundreds of thousands of daily passengers that go through Stockholm Central Station generate a huge amount of body heat. That heat is captured, used to heat water which is transported to another building in order to warm the secondary building. An energy savings of about 25% is claimed.

Although there is no way to invest in body heat energy yet, there are still plenty of other environmentally conscious energy producing companies. You can find free lists of green energy companies, such as ethanol stocks, cloud computing stocks, and water purification stocks, at WallStreetNewsNetwork.com. The lists can be downloaded, sorted, and updated.

By Stockerblog.com

Green Stocks for Earth Day Tomorrow

It was twenty years ago, on April 22, 1970, when U.S. Senator Gaylord Nelson founded Earth Day, for environmental awareness and appreciation of the Earth. Earth Day, which is celebrated in over 175 countries every year, has inspired many countries to become environmentally conscious and to develop and produce alternative sources of energy, other than the polluting oil and coal fuels.

Many of the alternative energy stocks have suffered in price during the last year, primarily due to reduced subsidies, higher costs, and increased competition. However, this may have created a buying opportunity, especially for investors who are look for green stocks for the long term.

There are numerous solar energy stocks to pick from, but very few large solar companies. The one with the greatest market cap and considered a leader in its field is First Solar (FSLR), which differentiates itself from other solar companies in that it is the major producer of cadmium telluride solar panels, as opposed to the more common silicon panels. The company, which is the largest manufacturer of thin-film cells in the world, has a market capitalization of $11.4 billion.

Quarter: First Solar will announce its latest quarter earnings on April 28. However, for the previous quarter, the fourth-quarter profit was up 6.7%, amounting to $7.53 per share, as revenue grew 47.9%. The company holds a substantial $784 million of cash and $176 million of debt.

Stock: It has drop 4.1% in the past year, grossly underperforming the S&P 500 which was up over 43%. It trades at a forward price-to-projected-earnings ratio of 18.2, a price-to-sales ratio of 5.5 and a very favorable price-earnings-growth ratio of 0.89.

Consensus: Of the analysts covering the stock, 21, or 47%, advise purchasing its shares with either a Strong Buy or a Buy recommendations, 17 recommend holding the shares, and six give it a Sell or Underperform rating. The analysts' mean price target for the stock is 135.86.

Some of the top windmill companies are based in Europe, and unfortunately are available for trading on the Pink Sheets. However, American Superconductor Corporation (AMSC), a $1.35 billion market cap company, markets electrical systems used in wind turbines, electronic power products that regulate wind farm voltage, proprietary wind energy system designs to wind farm manufacturers, and consulting services to the wind farm industry. The company just received another follow-on order for 30 sets of wind turbine power electronic components from the world’s largest shipbuilder, Hyundai Heavy Industries Co., Ltd.

Quarter: Record revenues were reported for the latest quarter ending December 31, jumping 95.1%. The company also reported $0.11 per diluted share for the quarter, versus a loss for the same quarter last year.

Stock: The stock has been on a tear this year, rising 42.8%, slightly outperforming the S&P 500. It carries a 25.7 forward PE ratio and a PEG ratio which unfortunately is a bit on the high side at 2.22.

Consensus: Deutche Bank recently upgraded the stock to a Buy, believing that the shares could double. In the last year, the stock has received Buy upgrades from Jefferies, Needham, Kaufman Bros., and Piper Jaffray.

The leading geothermal company is Ormat Technologies Inc. (ORA). In addition to generating electricity from their own geothermal wells, they also make and market equipment for geothermal and recovered energy-based electricity generation. Ormat ios currently subject to a class action lawsuit relating to the reporting of earnings.

Quarter: The company will announce its first quarter 2010 earnings on Wednesday, May 5, 2010. Previous quarter's earnings were a 168% increase on a slight drop in revenues.

Stock: The stock was down about 2% for the last twelve months. It sports a forward PE of 21.9, and a PEG ratio of 2.27.

Consensus: Ormat was just upgraded by Avondale from Market Perform to Market Outperform. Five out of 16 analysts believe that it is a Buy or a Strong Buy, ten think it is a Hold, and one ranks it an Underperform.

If you like green stocks, you can find several free downloadable Excel databases of various green stocks at WallStreetNewsNetwork.com.

Author does not own any of the above.

By Stockerblog.com

Hotel Guests Provide Their Own Electricity

The Crowne Plaza Copenhagen Towers in Copenhagen, Denmark, is giving free meals to its guests who are willing to pedal on two exercise bicycles hooked up to generators. The generators along with solar panels provide electricity for the hotel. The meal they receive is valued at about $44.

So this green project generates free electricity for the hotel, good exercise for its guests, and an overall reduction of carbon footprint.

Crowne Plaza is part of InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG), which trades on the New York Stock Exchange.

Solar Energy Stocks: Will They Get Hot Again?

Solar energy is basically energy from the sun. It is probably one of the oldest forms of energy utilized by civilization, as the Greeks and Chinese arranged their buildings toward the south to provide light and heat. Greenhouses are a great example, converting solar light to heat, which allows production of certain plants and crops all year long. They were first used during the days of the Romans.

Solar energy is the generation of energy from the sun, usually utilizing heat engines or photovoltaics. The generation of electricity using solar energy is referred to as solar power. Solar power plants can be either concentrating solar thermal plants or huge megawatt photovoltaic plants. Current uses of photovoltaics are numerous and include all kinds of products such as battery chargers, solar powered parking meters, emergency telephones, traffic signs, and even solar panels embedded on road surfaces.

The following is a list of the pure plays and semi-pure plays in the solar energy business. Companies which have a very small portion of their business in solar were excluded (e.g. GE, PG&E). Many of these companies are very low cap and should therefore be considered very speculative.

Akeena Solar, Inc. (AKNS) is a designer, installer, marketer, and seller of solar power systems for residential and small commercial customers. This Los Gatos, California based company, which was founded in 2001, utilizes grid-tied solar power systems, which are connected to the utility grid so that excess energy produced during low usage periods flows backwards through the utility's electric meter.

Canadian Solar (CSIQ) is involved in the design, development, manufacture, and sale of solar module products, serving the residential, commercial, and industrial markets. This Ontario, Canada based company distributes its products internationally including the People's Republic of China. It also produces specialty solar products such as solar-powered bus stop lighting and solar-powered car battery chargers.

China Sunergy (CSUN), based in Nanjing, China, is a designer, maker, and seller of silicon wafer solar cells.

DayStar Technologies (DSTI) is a developer, manufacturer, and marketer of Photovoltaic Foil products that convert sunlight directly into electricity. It produces thin-film copper indium gallium selenide solar products for centralized utility markets tied to the grid. This is an extremely low cap stock.

Energy Conversion Devices (ENER) is a designer, developer, and seller of materials, products, and production processes for the alternative energy generation, energy storage, and information technology markets. It hs two divisions: United Solar Ovonic and Ovonic Materials. United Solar Ovonics produces PV laminates that generate converts sunlight into electricity thereby generating renewable. Ovonic Materials designs, and produces materials and products based on the company’s materials science technology and battery technology. This Rochester Hills, Michigan company was founded in 1960.

Entech Solar, Inc. (ENSL.OB) makes and markets solar energy systems that provide both electricity and thermal energy through the use of its proprietary photovoltaic technologies, their SolarVolt and ThermaVolt systems. This Fort Worth, Texas based company was founded in 1984. It has an extremely low market cap.

Evergreen Solar (ESLR), which trades on the NASDAQ, is a developer, manufacturer, and marketer of solar power products in Germany and the United States. It produces proprietary "String Ribbon" solar cells.

First Solar (FSLR), which trades on the NASDAQ, designs and manufactures solar modules through its proprietary thin film semiconductor technology. It manufactures photovoltaic solar modules using a thin film semiconductor process based on cadmium telluride, which is cheaper than silicon, to produce photovoltaic modules, and is the largest manufacturer of thin-film cells in the world. As of the end of 2008, First Solar had a backlog of long-term contracts totaling approximately $6.3 billion in sales. They plan to be competitive on an unsubsidized basis with retail electricity by 2010. Their cost per watt is 98 cents versus crystalline-silicon photo-voltaics, which averages $2.90 per watt.

Hoku Scientific, Inc. (HOKU) develops polysilicon-based photovoltaic modules for solar power systems. Also develops other clean energy technologies.

JA Solar (JASO), a Shanghai, China based company, which designs, manufactures, and sells monocrystalline and multicrystalline solar cells.

Kyocera (KYO) is a Kyoto, Japan based company that produces residential and industrial solar power generating systems, solar cells, and solar modules, along with many ceramic products.

MEMC Electronic Materials Inc. (WFR) produces wafers for the semiconductor and solar industries.

Solarfun Power Holdings Co. Ltd. (SOLF), based in Qidong, China, makes and markets photovoltaic cells and photovoltaic modules.

Spire (SPIR) is a developer, manufacturer, and marketer of solar equipment, solar systems, biomedical products, and optoelectronics.

SunPower Corporation (SPWR) is a developer, manufacturer, and marketer of solar electric power products.

Suntech Power Holdings Co. Ltd. (STP) designs, develops, manufactures, and markets photovoltaic cells and modules.

Trina Solar Ltd. (TSL), based in Changzhou, China, makes and markets monocrystalline photovoltaic solar modules

XSunX (XSNX) is a developer of the commercialization and licensing of processes for the manufacture of semitransparent photovoltaic technologies.

Yingli Green Energy Holding Co. Ltd. (YGE), based in Baoding, China, makes, markets, and installs multicrystalline polysilicon ingots and wafers, photovoltaic cells, PV modules, and integrated PV systems.

To see free sortable and downloadable lists of various green stocks, go to WallStreetNewsNetwork.com.

Author does not own any of the above.

By Stockerblog.com

What Utility Generates Electricity from Wind, Solar, Geothermal & Waves (6% yield)

If you are looking for a green utility, you need look no further than Hawaiian Electric Industries Inc. (HE), which gets its electricity from a wide range of green and environmentally conscious sources, including wind, solar, photovoltaic, geothermal, wave, hydroelectric, municipal waste, and other biofuels. They even use sugarcane waste as a source of fuel. If automobiles can be run on chocolate, then electrical generators can certainly be run on sugarcane.

Hawaian Electric pays a strong 6% yield, paying about $115 million in dividends, which are well covered by the operating cash flow of $284 million. The company carries a forward price to earnings ratio of 11.7. Last month, the Hawaii Public Utilities Commission approved the cost recovery of the company’s new biodiesel-fuel generating plant at Campbell Industrial Park, which should increase utility revenues by 1%.

For investors who like green companies, it might be worth taking a closer look at Hawaiian Electric. If you like stocks with high yields, you should check out the free list of high yielding utilities at WallStreetNewsNetwork.com, that can be downloaded, changed, and sorted.

Speaking of green companies, I will be speaking at the Las Vegas Money Show in May, giving a presentation on green stocks. You can register free online. Hope to see you there.

Author does not own the above stock.

By Stockerblog.com