Green Renewable and Alternative Energy Sources

IMHO that is questionable. If you want to do it for altruistic reasons, saving the earth and so forth, then by all means go for it. But if you want to actually make money in the market, as most of us do, I definitely don’t think this is the way to go right now. Most of the companies in this industry are NOT profitable and are not likely to ever become profitable until and unless there is a great deal of additional government support provided. The fact is most of these new technologies simply cannot survive economically without a tremendous amount of artificial government support. Who the heck wants to pay three times as much for ‘green’ (or renewable) electricity when they can’t even afford the mostly fossil fueled electricity we have now? Unfortunately, government (like many individuals I know) is largely broke nowadays, and there is gridlock in congress that will continue to work strongly against any of these new federal ‘green’ energy initiatives.

That being said, many U.S. companies, including some of the electric utilities I own, already are investing in renewable energy projects (esp. wind power) and getting quite a bit of political mileage from doing this. In effect, electric utilities are being forced to become gradually involved in green energy in order to gain public favor with the utility rate commissioners in the various states who control the electric utility rates these companies charge their customers, and hence my stock dividends as well! So, to that extent, I AM committed to investing in green energy!

But overall, I’d have to say this green energy thing is mostly smoke and mirrors, ‘all hat and no cattle’ as they say in Texas. And speaking of which, I’m doing pretty well investing in traditional energy resources (especially natural gas companies), many of which are based in Texas and the gulf coast.

Good luck in your investing whatever you decide to do!

The more big, wealthy gas and oil companies make their services a nuisance with disruptions and price hikes the more the world will turn to alternative supplies of clean, abundant, renewable energy. They are bringing about their own demise with their retarded thinking. Good! Keep it up you shits!

There is no evil per se in the energy business. The problem is, profit and loss alone drives things the way they are, and the environmental costs are, at present. external to the energy companies’ balance sheets, so they have an economic incentive to damage the environment, which historically they have done. Anything that is free gets overused by profit-motivated enterprises, including any environmental resource (air, dump sites, extraction sites, etc.) Utility companies are highly regulated at the State level, and the regulatory bodies are often elected, so the power of the ballot box can be used to get them in line. "Energy companies" (oil, coal, and gas producers) respond primarily to market conditions (collectively, all of us who buy energy) and to regulation (which they fight in the political arena because compliance costs money.)

Energy law must be national or international to be effective, and we, humanity, have barely gotten to the State and Province level for putting these externalities back on the company balance sheets. Furthermore, regulations must be administered by civil servants, so all that elected officials need to do to protect the status quo is to fund too few and appoint managers who are pro-industry.

Green energy will be embraced by the private sector when there is a competitive amount of money to be made in it. In the meantime, individuals can promote legislation that makes the externalities internal, so that green is more profitable, and can take advantage of existing rules that allow homeowners to generate their own power and requires utility companies to buy it.

Demonizing the opposition does not facilitate a solution. In the end, it is what is done, not what is intended, that matters.