Will the Real Clean Technologies Please Stand Up?
by Nick Hodge
Cleantech names have been running across the board from fuel cells, hydrogen, solar, batteries, and certainly electric vehicles.
Even entrenched names like Ford and GM doing well.
And so are new names like energy storage companies that are coming to trade via SPAC, electric vehicle component companies that are coming to trade via SPAC, all doing quite well.
I'm seeing a lot of what I saw some 13, 14 years ago in the market when cleantech stocks were running then... when names like JA Solar and Yingli and First Solar and SunPower were the most highly traded stocks on the exchange every day and getting their names printed on the back of the Wall Street Journal.
And we also saw big promises 13 and 14 years ago. I remember reading things like, "Oh, we'll be completely decarbonized by 2025 or 2030," or, "We're going to have zero emissions by this year," or big promises from other technologies.
Solar roads and solar windows are always ones that come to mind. I remember always hearing, "Oh, we're going to have solar roads," they were saying 10 or 15 years ago. “And we're going to have wave energy, we're going to harness the energy from the waves and that's going to provide plenty of electricity.”
And what they've learned is that these projects aren't feasible in many respects. It takes great amounts of capital and incentives, and sometimes they're just not feasible because of things in nature, like salt in the water that rusts and degrades components.
So just be careful what you're buying when it comes to the cleantech space.
I've seen this before. If you didn't know some of my background, I've written a couple books about energy investing. I co-wrote Investing in Renewable Energy: Making Money on Green Chip Stocks and I also authored Energy Investing for Dummies, and those were seven to 10 years ago.
What I'm seeing now and what I was saying even then is that it's not a one shot solution.
It's not just solar or just wind or just natural gas or just nuclear. It's going to be an all of the above approach.
And that's what you saw in Texas last week as all of the above failed. Natural gas plants failed. Pipelines failed. Wind turbines failed. And so you're going to see investment across the board.
There's going to be lots of opportunity there, especially in grid management stuff, virtual power plants, energy storage, batteries, and things of that nature.
I look forward to getting into some of those stocks with you in the coming months, both in my premium letters and here at Daily Profit Cycle as well.
Call it like you see it,
Nick Hodge
Editor, Daily Profit Cycle
Nick Hodge is the co-owner and publisher of Daily Profit Cycle and Resource Stock Digest. He's also the founder of Hodge Family Office, the umbrella organization for his three premium services: Hodge Family Office, Family Office Advantage, and Foundational Profits. He specializes in private placements and speculations in early stage ventures, and has raised tens of millions of dollars of investment capital for resource, energy, cannabis, and medical technology companies. Co-author of two best-selling investment books, including Energy Investing for Dummies, his insights have been shared on news programs and in magazines and newspapers around the world.
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