following on from Van Eck - unerlying index from ardour

http://www.ardourglobalindexes.com/

The Ardour Global Alternative Energy Index^SM - (Ardour Familiy^SM) were designed to serve as fair, impartial and transparent measures of the performance of the Alternative Energy Industry. They embody certain characteristics that distinguish them from other indexes that attempt to cover the same industry. Key defining factors include:

• Global. The Ardour Global Index^SM (Composite) - (Ardour Composite^SM) embraces alternative energy companies from around the world and is in fact the only global alternative energy index. As a result, the index reflects the different motivations – the environment, security concerns, oil prices, regulation and taxation – that drive the industry forward in different sovereign jurisdictions. The index also embraces the differing technologies and research initiatives that are taking place around the globe.
  
  
• Inclusive. The (Ardour Composite^SM) strives to include all companies over a certain size that are principally engaged in the field of alternative energy.
  
  
• Pure Play. The (Ardour Composite^SM) includes only those companies that are principally engaged in the field of alternative energy and excludes those companies in which alternative energy is peripheral to their main business. Pure play companies result in pure performance.
  
  
• Rules Based. The (Ardour Composite^SM) depends on a clearly defined rules-based methodology, which is overseen by an impartial Index Committee. Little discretion is exercised in compiling the Indexes and a pre-defined screening protocol assures a consistent, transparent and arms-length compilation process.
  
  
• Data Rich. The (Ardour Composite^SM) is supported by extensive data, including the wide dissemination of real time prices, extensive historic data and important information about constituent stocks.

Index	Ticker
Ardour Global IndexSM (Composite) - (Ardour CompositeSM)	AGIGL
Ardour Global IndexSM (Extra Liquid) - (Ardour XLSM)	AGIXL
Ardour Global IndexSM (North America) - (Ardour NASM)	AGINA
Ardour Global IndexSM (North America Extra Liquid) - (Ardour NA/XLSM)	AGINAXL
Ardour Global IndexSM (EMEA) - (Ardour EMEASM)	AGIEM
Ardour Global IndexSM (EMEA Extra Liquid) - (Ardour EMEA/XLSM)	AGIEMXL

Ardour Global Indexes, LLC was founded in 2005 for the express purpose of developing benchmarking tools for the global alternative energy industry. It is a partnership between Ardour Capital Investments, a premier investment bank specializing in alternative energy finance, and S-Network Energy Technologies, LLC, a developer of indexes and investment products focused on both traditional and alternative energy.

Ardour Global Indexes, LLC operates as an independent and unbiased source of primary information concerning alternative energy. Its family of indexes is supervised by an independent Index Committee, which includes individuals with long-term domestic and international experience in the field of alternative energy. The indexes are calculated and maintained by Dow Jones Indexes, a business unit of Dow Jones & Company.

Ardour Global Indexes, LLC is committed to the integrity of its indexes and the data and information related to them. As a consequence, all index methodologies are transparent and rules based. Their compilation is almost entirely non-discretionary and the independent Index Committee assures arms-length impartiality.

Ardour Global Indexes, LLC has created what we believe to be the most accurate indicators of industry performance available today.

Industry Definition

The Ardour Global IndexesSM (Composite) - (Ardour CompositeSM) incorporate many fields that can impact the growth and development of the alternative energy industry. Revolutionary new technologies and evolutionary ways to improve the efficiency and usefulness of new or underutilized resources are both important in the advancement of energy technologies. These developments will impact alternative energy markets on a variety of levels, increasing the need to fully understand a multitude of market issues and fundamental technological drivers. In this way, we can track changes in both components and entire systems—leading toward a much deeper and complete evaluation of the companies involved in the market. Industry Breakdown Alternative Energy Resources. Companies whose technologies are involved with: Solar Power- including photo-voltaic (PV) and thermal BioEnergy- including power and fuel Wind Power Hydro Power, Tidal Power and Wave Power Geothermal Power Distributed Generation. Companies whose technologies produce power at or near the end user. These technologies include: Micro Turbines Diesel Engines Fuel Cells Hydrogen Generation and Storage Environmental Technologies. Companies whose technologies are involved with: Water and Wastewater Treatment Air Quality and Emission Mitigation Clean Coal Energy Efficiency. Companies whose technologies are involved with: Lighting White Tags Cogeneration Energy Recycling Advanced Metering Demand Response Enabling Technologies. Companies whose technologies are involved with: Power Electronics Advanced Battery Chemistries Flywheels Superconductors Ultracapacitors Advanced Materials

another renweable energy fund

Global Alternative Energy ETF from Van Eck Global

GEX seeks to replicate as closely as possible, before fees and expenses, the performance of the Ardour Global Index^SM (Extra Liquid), AGIXL. GEX provides targeted exposure to companies worldwide that are engaged in the alternative energy industry and trades with the same ease and liquidity of a common stock.

As of March 30, 2007	% of net assets
Vestas Wind Systems A/S ecVWS	10.97%
Gamesa Corporacion Tecnologica S.A. eDGAM	7.98%
Renewable Energy Corp. ASA eoREC	6.84%
Q-Cells AG eiQCE	5.73%
SolarWorld AG eiSWV	5.33%
Verbund AG ejVER	5.21%
Kurita Water Industries Ltd. jT6370	4.82%
International Rectifier Corp. IRF	4.61%
Suntech Power Holdings Co. Ltd. ADS STP	4.32%
Itron Inc. ITRI	3.61%
Energy Conversion Devices Inc. ENER	3.28%
Cree Inc. CREE	2.98%
Conergy AG eiCGY	2.85%
SunPower Corp. Cl A SPWR	2.62%
First Solar Inc. FSLR	2.61%
Headwaters Inc. HW	2.45%
AVX Corp. AVX	2.25%
Chloride Group PLC lLCHLD	2.19%
Evergreen Solar Inc. ESLR	2.00%
Kemet Corp. KEM	1.97%
Pacific Ethanol Inc. PEIX	1.95%
Aventine Renewable Energy Holdings Inc. AVR	1.91%
Ormat Technologies Inc. ORA	1.90%
Evergreen Energy Inc. EEE	1.69%
Power-One Inc. PWER	1.56%
FuelCell Energy Inc. FCEL	1.53%
VeraSun Energy Corp. VSE	1.46%
Medis Technologies Ltd. MDTL	1.40%
Trina Solar Ltd. ADS TSL	1.12%
Solarfun Power Holdings Co. Ltd. ADS SOLF	0.90%

NEX

New Energy Index

WilderHill New Energy Global Innovation Index (NEX)

New Energy Finance is delighted to have joined forced with US-based clean energy index provider, WilderHill, to publish the WilderHill New Energy Global Innovation Index: the first generally available quoted index of global clean energy companies. The calculation agent is the American Stock Exchange, and you can check its value on Reuters, Bloomberg, Yahoo etc.

The NEX was launched in January 2006, under the ticker symbol NEX, and is calculated by the American Stock Exchange. At its launch it has 86 constituents with an aggregate market capitalisation of USD 270bn.

http://www.newenergyfinance.com/NEF/HTML/Index.html

Constituent List here

Carbon Trust

Carbon Trust gets a fair amount of press in the UK- two commercial arms
http://www.carbontrust.co.uk/commercial

Carbon Trust Enterprises
business development

Venture Capital
Funding

Also look to have an interesting incubator program http://www.carbontrust.co.uk/technology/incubator/defaul.htm

Green Century Funds

Specialist green focused mutual funds:

http://www.greencentury.com/about/


but not all that green... see holdings

offer two funds:
Balanced Funds
http://www.greencentury.com/funds/balanced.aspx

Top 10 holdings:
SLM Corp - MTNA (4.00%, 7/25/14) 3.90%
Dean Foods Co. (8.150%, 8/1/07) 2.46%
Johnson & Johnson 2.46%
Emerson Electric Company 2.36%
Cisco Systems 2.32%
Hewlett-Packard Co. 2.18%
Sealed Air Corp. 2.10%
AT&T Corp. (7.300%, 11/15/11) 2.06%
International Business Machines Corp. 2.03%
JP Morgan Chase & Co 2.00%

Equity Fund
http://www.greencentury.com/funds/equity.aspx

attempts to match Domini 400 Social Index

Top 10 holdings
AT&T Inc. 3.86%
Microsoft Corp. 3.78%
Procter & Gamble Co. 3.15%
Johnson & Johnson 2.74%
JP Morgan Chase & Co. 2.63%
Cisco Systems Inc. 2.43%
Wells Fargo & Co. 1.82%
Verizon Communications Inc. 1.74%
Intel Corp. 1.73%
Hewlett-Packard Co. 1.70%

Jupiter

Jupiter has an SRI team - http://www.jupiteronline.co.uk/PI/OurProducts/SRIGreen/SRI_Team/Biogs.htm

and three separate funds:

"At Jupiter, we offer investors two unit trust funds and an investment trust fund that operate on the principles of Socially Responsible Investments:

Jupiter Ecology Fund
The Jupiter Ecology Fund is a globally diversified fund that seeks to achieve long-term capital appreciation.

Jupiter Environmental Income Fund
The Jupiter Environmental Income Fund is a UK based fund looking to provide income.

Jupiter Green Investment Trust
The Jupiter Green Investment Trust invests in companies that are focused on environmental solutions in key areas such as clean energy, water management, transport, waste management, sustainable living and environmental services.

Top 10 holdings in the Green Ivestment Trust as follows: some clean energy companies including Gamesa and Nordex (wind turbines) and Novera

RPS

RPS is a multi-disciplinary consultancy providing advice to the public and private sector on the actual or likely implications of past, present and future actions on the natural and built environments. With the increasing level of environmental legislation and regulation and a heightened awareness of the importance of environmental best practice, demand for the company’s services should increase.

Cranswick

Cranswick is a producer of “high-welfare” pork products including free range and organic sausages and other meat products for supermarkets and premium brands such as Duchy Originals. It should continue to benefit from the increased consumer demand for organic foods and concerns over animal welfare.

Atkins

Atkins works with public and private sector clients in a range of markets, including rail, water, power, health and education, to provide professional, technically biased consultancy and support services. The environmental services division offers environmental assessments, environmental management training, climate change consultancy and contaminated land remediation.

Gamesa

Spanish based Gamesa is one of the top 5 manufacturers of wind turbine generators with an interest in the development of wind parks across Europe. The company stands to benefit from the growing demand in renewable energy sources across the world in response to energy security concerns and attempts to reduce industrial carbon emissions.

Nordex

The Nordex Group is a leading global supplier of wind turbines. Nordex produces large commercially manufactured wind turbines in the 1.5-2 MW range that are suitable for use on shore, off shore, in permafrost and desert. The company is well positioned to take advantage of government policies aiming to increase the proportion of electricity generated from renewable sources.

Novera Energy

Novera Energy is an established UK focused renewable energy company, with a portfolio of three businesses in wind, waste and water and landfill gas. As a long term owner and operator of renewable generation, Novera is involved in wind farms from early development through the operating life and de-commissioning. The company also holds the UK licence for Enerkem gasification technology which has the potential to make a significant contribution to UK Waste disposal.

Keller

Keller is a leading ground engineering specialist. It solves ground engineering problems such as development on contaminated land, the renovation and construction of waste water treatment plants, construction of new sewage outfalls and control of landfill leachates and ground water. The company has a well-established health and safety programme and is rolling out its environmental management system across all group operations.

FirstGroup

FirstGroup is a leading operator of public transport services, including buses and trains throughout the UK, and school buses and municipal transit services in the USA. By providing public transport it plays an important role in encouraging people away from cars and onto the public transport network. FirstGroup is currently taking part in an EU-funded trial of fuel cell buses.

National Express serves more than 1 billion passengers a year worldwide on its bus, train, tram and express coach operations. The company’s services provide an alternative transport mode to cars, and the company should benefit from regulation and policies which aim to tackle pollution from transport and high levels of congestion in towns and cities.

Shanks

Shanks is one of Europe’s largest independent waste management companies providing collection and management services for municipal, commercial and industrial wastes, including recovery and recycling services and also chemical services specialising in the treatment of hazardous waste. The company is well-positioned to benefit from increased legislation regarding waste disposal and also the current drive to develop cost-effective technologies that can recover energy from waste.

BBC article on microgeneration

Interesting article from the BBC last year-
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/4785488.stm

talks about one supplier for turbines but still expensive (2k GBP plus installation) - http://www.eclectic-energy.co.uk/

and also a blogger with installed solar panels - http://community.livejournal.com/green_power_gen/

CIGS

Miasole investment - Oct 2006 - http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9584_22-6130312.html

CIGS less efficient than Silicon based cells, but much cheaper to manufacture- can be sprayed on rather than manufactured like silicon chips. Difficulty in manufacturing on large scale.


Also DayStar Technologies,
NanoSolar
HelioVolt

International Solar Electric Technology - r&d and product development - patented technique for fabrication

Stirling Engine - how it works

It really is very elegant and apparently very efficient

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stirling_engine

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Beta_Stirling.gif

Southern California Edison announced in August 2005 a plan to produce 500 MW from Solar powered Stirling Engines (purchased from Stirling Energy Systems) - press release

nice summary of solar in the UK

http://www.envocare.co.uk/solar_energy.htm

talks about the need for storage to deal with the variability in supply (seasons, throughout the day etc.)
mentions IEE Review, 'Let the Sun Shine In', February 2006 for recent developments
also mentions Stirling Engines:

the Stirling Engine operates with two (or more) cylinders with pistons connected to a crankshaft. One of the cylinders is heated on the outside and the other cooled. The volumes within the cylinders are interconnected and it is a sealed system; the working gas is made to move backwards and forwards between the hot and cold sections. The clever mechanism of the Stirling cycle produces rotary motion and at the same time moves heat from one location to another. The original device was invented in the early 19th century as a safe alternative to steam engines (which apparently were liable to explode) and since (like steam engines) the heat is applied externally it is often referred to as an external combustion engine. Modern versions are more complex and advanced than the simple example described here.

a few notes on solar prices

A residential solar energy system typically costs about $8-10 per Watt. Where government incentive programs exist, together with lower prices secured through volume purchases, installed costs as low as $3-4 watt - or some 10-12 cents per kilowatt hour can be achieved. Without incentive programs, solar energy costs (in an average sunny climate) range between 22-40 cents/kWh for very large PV systems.

from
http://www.solarbuzz.com/FastFactsIndustry.htm

Flisom - CIGS

www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml?xml=/money/2007/02/19/ccview19.xml

Anil Sethi (Flison CEO) reckons his CIGS (CuInGaSe2) based solar panels will get to 80c a watt in 5 years- commercially available late 2009

white paper on solar and wave power in the US

http://ocsenergy.anl.gov/documents/docs/OCS_EIS_WhitePaper_Solar.pdf

Focused on the relevance for off-shore, but still has quite nice simple summary of different solar methods available. Thermal (Trough, Power Tower and Dish/Engine) vs PV
Hadn't really thought about the thermal side- quite elegant and relatively simple. Not clear from the paper which is more efficient


http://ocsenergy.anl.gov/documents/docs/OCS_EIS_WhitePaper_Wave.pdf

Khosla Investments

Khosla is certainly putting his money where his mouth is- list of current investments in clean energy (from http://vcratings.thedealblogs.com/2007/03/vinod_khoslas_complete_portfol.php)

1) Cellulosic - Mascoma, Celunol, Range Fuels, 1 stealth startup

2) Future Fuels - LS9, Gevo, Amyris Biotechnologies, Coskata Energy

3) Efficiency - Transonic Combustion, GroupIV Semiconductor, 1 stealth startup

4) Homes - Living Homes, Global Homes

5) Natural Gas - Great Point Energy

6) Solar - Stion, Ausra

7) Tools - Nanostellar, Codon Devices, Praj

8) Water - 2 stealth startup

9) Plastic - Segetis, 1 stealth startup

10) Corn/Sugar Fuels - Altra, Cilion, Hawaii Bio

BioFuels - another economist article

since I was just reading this, another interesting economist article- this time about biofuels
www.economist.com/printedition/displaystory.cfm?story_id=E1_RSGGDGT

seems like a fair amount of controversy around the energy balance- some even doubt it corn based ethanol is net positive. Seems clear that sugar cane (Brazil) is good (IEA puts its energy balance at 8.3).

On the positive side, it would be pretty simple to implement on a pretty wide scale, in terms of powering vehicles- can basically use the same infrastructure and the same engines. Popularity in Brazil is case in point.

Issue is competition for land- no point in destroying rain forest to make fuel for cars. Also competition for raw materials- for corn/maize based fuels, could drive up the price of foodstuffs.

Future appears to be in 'Cellulosic Ethanol' (much investment and chat from Vinod Khosla)- trees, grasses and other biomass. Very high energy balance but harder to breakdown. Development work on enzymes to break down raw stuffs more efficiently and in special new types of produce grown specifically for the purpose (fast growing, high yield, easy to break down)

Solar - economist technology quarterly

Thought this was quite useful- www.economist.com/printedition/displaystory.cfm?story_id=E1_RSGGDQV

"At present, solar power is at least two to three times as expensive as the typical electricity generated in America for retail customers."

but

"Decades of research have improved the efficiency of silicon-based solar cells from 6% to an average of 15% today, whereas improvements in manufacturing have reduced the price of modules from about $200 per watt in the 1950s to $2.70 in 2004"

"Cleantech Venture Network, an umbrella organisation based in Ann Arbor, Michigan, says VCs invested $2.9 billion in North American clean-technology start-ups in 2006"

Nice simple summary of the basics:

"The photoelectric effect was not discovered until 1839, when Alexandre Becquerel, a French physicist, observed that light could generate an electric current between two metal electrodes immersed in a conductive liquid. About 40 years later Charles Fritts, an American inventor, built the first solar cell. Made with selenium and a thin layer of gold, the device was less than 1% efficient. At the birthplace of the transistor, the now legendary Bell Laboratories, a team of scientists invented the first practical solar cell in 1954. The core of the invention was a semiconductor device"

"It is composed of two layers of semiconductor material, typically silicon, that are sandwiched together between metal contacts. One layer, of n-type material, contains lots of negatively charged free electrons; the other, of p-type material, contains an abundance of positively charged “holes”, which are spaces that can accept electrons. At the junction where the two layers meet, electrons pair up with holes, establishing an electric field that prevents electrons from moving from the n-type material to the p-type. When light of an appropriate wavelength strikes the solar cell, the individual packets of energy, called photons, knock some paired-up electrons free from their holes. The electric field then coaxes these free electrons and holes to move in opposite directions. The result is a build-up of free electrons in the n-type material, and a build-up of holes (that is, a shortage of electrons) in the p-type material. An external circuit provides a path for the electrons to return to the p-type material, producing an electric current along the way that continues as long as light strikes the solar cell."


annual reduction in manufacturing costs of about 5%; average crystalline silicon cell 13% efficient approx $3 per watt

silicon based solar cells still 90% of market - leading to silicon shortage and increase raw materials costs

"thin film" solar cells use little or no silicon (1% of 'regular cell') - high volume production difficult
e.g Amorphous Silicon cells (easier to produce) - example United Solar Ovonic
e.g. cadmium-telluride (less efficient - 9% - but cheaper to produce) example First Solar: $1.40 per watt; but additional space needed because less efficient
e.g. CIGS (copper indium gallium diselenide) very efficient (19.5%) but hard to produce
example - Nanosolar "nanoparticle ink"; Miasole- flexible encapsulants

Another alternative- lens/mirrors to focus sunlight onto cells (quoted efficiencies of 40%)- SolFocus

What's this all about

Ok-
So I want to learn more about renewable energy sources- what's the theory, how that translates into reality - and I wanted a place to save my notes and links to articles. So here it is.
No idea the best way of organizing at the moment- I guess I'll figure that out as it happens...