Leave it to the government. It’s proposing a “tax and cap” regime for energy producers which will require fossil-fuel generating plants to pay extra.  The idea is to encourage clean fuels and discourage dirty ones. That’s fine in theory. But instead of helping our future energy situation, it’s going to make it a lot worse.The price of oil has already doubled in the past six months to over $60 per barrel. But it’s just the beginning of oil’s next gigantic price surge. If you thought that oil was ridiculously expensive last summer, you haven’t seen anything yet.

It doesn’t matter whether you believe in “Peak Oil” because this isn’t about Peak Oil coming to fruition. Peak Oil believes that oil discoveries have peaked leading to oil production’s inevitable decline.

This crisis will be strictly man-made. Governments and oil companies have already planted the seeds of the next great energy crisis. And there’s

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December 15, 2008 ndash; We recently had the opportunity to ask Darryl Nakamoto, CFO of Hoku Scientific some questions about what he is seeing in the solar sector: Aspire: What surprised you about the solar markets in 2008? Were there any significant developments (political, technological, consumer-driven and/or industry-driven) that occurred which you werenrsquo;t anticipating? Nakamoto: We were pleasantly surprised by the extension of the Federal Renewable Energy ITC. We did not foresee its inclusion in the legislation aimed at stabilizing the credit markets. In our local market, we were also very pleased by the progress represented by the Hawaii Clean Energy Initiative, which lays out a specific plan of action for the broad and rapid deployment of renewable technology throughout the state.nbsp; Aspire: Solar/PV energy costs between 21 and 38 cents per kWh to produce. We are still a ways off from reaching grid parity. When do you think that happens? And ...

Selling accelerated into renewable and clean tech stocks this week indiscriminately, exposing what appears to be a no-tolerance attitude for risk, regardless of how much risk has been priced into these stocks to date. Granted, there are companies in every sector which are more exposed to others to the tightening credit and financial markets, and the global recessionary environment will undoubtedly have a negative impact on plans for projects and expansions, but even companies reporting solid results and affirming relative strength on their balance sheets were sold off. Here is an example of headlines that we saw which reflect the fear and loathing in the markets: ldquo;ReneSola Reveals Solar Rotrdquo; (Motley Fool ndash; referring to customers reneging on purchase contracts) ldquo;First Solarrsquo;s Star Dimmer Than Everrdquo; (The Street.com ndash; referring to slower year-over-year growth of ldquo;only 67.5%rdquo;, the implications of the dollarrsquo;s rally against the euro on its balance sheet, and ...

October 24, 2008 – The markets are clearly in a panic today and will inevitably flush more equity out of the system. We can only hope that this is ‘capitulation’, but don’t presume to be able to predict how stocks will trade in the near-term. Here is what we can say with a certain level of confidence: an increasing number of stocks are getting OVERSOLD. Take a look at the solar sector. Here is a list of stocks with yesterday’s closing prices (inevitably they will be lower today) and some corresponding fundamentals to consider which make us think that they are tremendously oversold: ·         Canadian Solar (Nasdaq:CSIQ) closed at $9.15 yesterday with a market cap of $301 million. The company is expected to post revenues of more than $900 million this year, and about $1.7 billion next year. Its 2007 to 2008 revenue growth is 213% and its 2008 to ...