The Renewable Energy Transition

Understanding and Profiting From the Shift Toward Renewables

This historic day seems like the perfect time to take a step back and look at the broad energy picture.

In this time of prolonged economic uncertainty and stock volatility, it’s easy to get caught up in the day-to-day while losing sight of the real challenges and opportunities ahead.

Despite slight oil demand reduction spurred by recession, that fact remains that oil supply cannot continue to quench our thirst for the long-term.

Projected demand in the next thirty years rises to 117 million barrels per day in some cases. This past summer, prices soared as we could barely meet current demand of about 86 million barrels per day.

Surely the financial slowdown is only temporary relief from high fossil fuel prices.

Rising electricity demand will also prove difficult to satiate. In the Energy Information Administration’s most recent Annual Energy Outlook, our appetite for electricity will grow 29% by 2030, from 3,659 billion kilowatt-hours today to over 4,700 billion kilowatt-hours.

Dwindling reserves of energy dense coal, an uncertain nuclear future, few remaining viable sites for hydro, and increasing concern and regulation for carbon emission mean that renewables are the only certain path forward on the supply side.

On the demand side, efficiency is going to have to go a long way. We need to trim our use at the personal and building levels and make sure we’re producing power more efficiency at the utility level while monitoring it more closely across the entire value chain.

Making matters worse, this recession has slowed much-needed investment in the energy sector. Millions that were needed to keep existing wells and rigs up and running simply weren’t available. That puts downward pressure on supply in the here-and-now.

And all those future oil supply scenarios that are reliant upon copious amounts of oil to flow from deep offshore and from the tar/oil sands? All those forecasts are based on certain investment milestones being reached.

In the current business climate, you can bet no money is flowing to those types of projects. So supply once thought to come online in, say, 2012, is now being delayed because of funding problems here in the real world.

So now more than ever, the founding ideas of Clean Energy Sector apply. Here are the beliefs of the site:

• That the peak of oil production is imminent,
• That major oil exporters and oil companies have been manipulating their reserve numbers for years,
• That the government has been complacent in the underreporting of reserve numbers and has underachieved in preparing the country for a real energy crisis,
• That a strong mix of renewable energy resources is the only way to overcome our coming energy woes, and
• That the coming shift in investment – away from fossil fuels and toward renewables – will be the largest transfer of wealth the world has ever seen, and the biggest investment opportunity in this century

The counteractive measures to energy events that have already been set in motion are going to make smart investors very wealthy. And that’s that final pillar of the Clean Energy Sector foundation: helping everyday investors make money in the new energy market.

The Bush Fade and The Obama Shuffle

As Bush’s oil loving administration comes to an end, a renewed focus is being placed on renewable energy. Obama even mentioned it in his inaugural address.

Granted, we’ll still need oil for years to come. But it’s a dying industry, not a fledgling one. The fuel of dinosaurs in now the industry of dinosaurs.

And Obama knows it. His team of energy and climate experts are going to put an end to oil’s free ride. They’re going to close tax loopholes and ensure oil companies drill on existing leases before new land is freed up.

But more importantly, they’ll direct increased funding to the research and development of clean energy technologies and to the expansion of the grid to support them.

It’ll be a monumental transition of energy and wealth. And, because of the long-term nature of the projects, it is going to last a long time.

Not only will the energy we use be different. But the companies producing it and managing it will be different as well.

The companies controlling energy won’t be closed societies, formed and run by the elite for decades.

Instead, they are new companies, start-ups, and partnerships popping up across the globe to meet new energy challenges.

And you have access to them all. This is a democratic energy revolution.

All you need is the right information.

That’s the goal of Clean Energy Sector.

So far, we’ve been providing free commentary to help navigate today’s cleantech market.

Soon, we’ll be offering a nominally-priced advisory service that will issue stock recommendations along with more in-depth advise. Keep an eye out for it.

To green energy and green profits,

Chris
Clean Energy Sector