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As I write this there's a strong odor of natural gas outside my house. Philadelphia Gas Works has been notified and is sending someone out.  But if you don't hear from me after this post, you will know why.

Speaking of gas...

David Anthony, Managing Partner of 21Ventures, asked Is there a future for hydrogen? in a post in OnGreen.com this week. Seems there are a lot of hurdles for hydrogen and still a l-o-n-g way to go, especially with natural gas being readily available and cheaper for many uses.  I just don't see how hydrogen competes.

Meanwhile, former Google climate and energy technology manager Jeffrey Greenblatt, now of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory imagines the low-carbon energy system of the future: Think Biomass, Not Natural Gas.

Katie Fehrenbacher sees the future of cleantech investing: Cleantech 2.0.

And former South Carolina GOP Representative Bob Inglis says it's Time to Change What We Tax. 

A new study concludes that Solar Power Growth is Up 70 percent worldwide,while Ucilia Wang of Earth2Tech lists 7 Fear Factors That Move Solar Stocks.

Car & Driver does its first drive revie of the Fisker Karma and finds the plug-in hybrid "a beautiful, luxurious machine that goes easy on the guilt."

A Harvard Study Estimates Coal Power Has $300 to $500 Billion in Hidden Costs, while Mireya Navarro of the New York Times' Green blog wonders if carbon trading alive and well? Carbon Auction Yields $16.9 Million for New York.

Dan Yurman, writing in The Energy Collective, talks about the former chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission who argues for recycling spent nuclear fuel: Spent Nuclear Fuel is Actually Full of Energy.

And, finally, The Economist wonders whether so-called "black carbon" can fight pollution and help the climate at same time? Climate Change in Black and White.
 
Have a great weekend.  Hope to see you next week.

The 7700's cost per kilowatt-hour is expected to be well within those price ranges as production and sales continue to grow.

I've lived through the best of times and the worst of times with First Solar (FSLR).

Readers of The Green Skeptic know I've been long FSLR for so long. I'm not giving up now.

The company reports 4th quarter and full-year earnings after the close of the market today.

Perhaps in anticipation, there was a run-up on the stock this morning, although not as dramatic as last week's spike.

Over the past 52 weeks, according to SmarTrend Market Surveillance, shares of First Solar have traded between a low of $98.71 and a high of $175.45. It was trading this afternoon at $164.53, 67 percent above the low.

In the last five trading sessions, the 50-day MA has climbed 0.77 percent while the 200-day MA has risen 0.28 percent, according to SmarTrend.

Consensus seems to be the company will report a 6.7 percent rise in earnings-per-share (EPS) versus the same quarter a year ago.

"Regardless of its earnings report, most investors will be looking at its outlook for the coming quarter and full-year," as 24/7WallSt.com reported this morning. "Thomson Reuters' most recent expectation calls for full-year EPS of $9.10 on revenue of $3.76 billion, substantially more than 2010 full-year expectations for EPS of $7.63 on revenue of $2.6 billion."

FSLR beat the last two quarterly estimates, but still got hammered in after hours trading and continued on a downward spiral the following day. (I'm beginning to think my buddy Howard Lindzon puts the kabosh on the stock when he mentions it -- sort of like the Cramer effect.)

Here's why I still believe in FSLR:

FSLR recently expanded its cadmium telluride supply agreement with 5NPlus to 60 percent by 2013.

They recently signed an agreement to build the largest solar plant in China.

Despite subsidy cuts in Germany and a moratorium on new plants in Italy, FSLR is expanding in the US and Canada, along with the Indian and Chinese markets. The company has recently completed a new German manufacturing facility in Frankfurt.

While FSLR slipped behind China's Suntech (STP) as the world's leading solar manufacturer in 2010, they are still the first company to ship more than a gigawatt of capacity two years in a row -- and they plan to increase global production to 2.7 GW by 2012.

First Solar is still the leader in providing the lowest-cost-per-kilowatt modules, a position they don't seem to be giving up any time soon.

Oh, and there's that little factor of oil breaching the $100/barrel mark.

Looking forward to the earnings report and call.


(Disclosure: I hold a long position in FSLR. This post is for informational purposes only and is neither intended to be investment advice nor an offer, or the solicitation of any offer, to buy or sell any securities.)

More Canadians than Americans believe climate change is real, according to two surveys of public opinion on climate change commissioned by the Public Policy Forum and Sustainable Prosperity.

Their findings indicate that belief in climate change among Canadians outpaces that among residents of the United States.

In Canada, 80 per cent believe in the science behind climate change, according to the survey results, compared with 58 per cent in the United States.

Taking it a step further, 65 percent of Canadians believe the government has a role to play in addressing climate change; whereas only 43 per cent of Americans feel that way.

The poll also shows 73 percent of Canadians surveyed are willing to pay to address climate change. Canadians demonstrate a higher degree of support for both cap and trade policies and carbon taxes than the American public. Only 55 percent of Americans in the survey support such measures.

In fact, a majority of Canadians respondents are willing to pay up to $50 a month in extra energy costs to address the issue.

The United States survey was conducted by the Muhlenberg College Institute of Public Opinion in Allentown, Pennsylvania and funded by both Muhlenberg College and the Center for Local, State, and Urban Policy at the Gerald Ford School of Public Policy at the University of Michigan.

The Canadian survey was conducted by Leger Marketing in Montréal Québec and was funded by the Public Policy Forum and Sustainable Prosperity, with additional financial support from Internat Energy Solutions Canada.

For more on the survey: Sustainable Prosperity

Recycled - 25
Garbage - 3
Hazardous Waste - 73 (batteries)
Donated - 50
Giveaway - 1
Sell - 202
Return - 8
Compost - 0
? - 69
Total number of items - 431

Most interesting item  - A diaper cake that I got at a baby shower and I didn't use the diapers (newborn) because we were cloth diapering back then. I plan to donate the diapers to a local women's shelter.

Most thought provoking item from an environmental perspective - The 63 batteries that I have been waiting to get rid of for the past 3 years. I have a battery charger I just need to buy more batteries that can be recharged for the items we use the most.

Best green story - I sorted through 167 pieces of B's clothing. 90% of them were hand me downs, gifts or items we purchased at the consignment store. I plan on selling and donating these items.

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My pal Andy Swan is brilliant when it comes to making things simple.

Just look at his bio on AndySwan.com:  "I've started and sold two companies. I have investments in some others. I love helping passionate people create wealth."

You'll recall Andy was the mastermind behind the Six Slide Challenge to entrepreneurs last summer. And the Elite Eight for Entrepreneurship.

His latest, posted yesterday, is a Venn diagram for Finding Your Niche.  Love it.

It may not be easy to be green, but one city in America, will get a leg-up if selected as the winner of the Paint Your City Green campaign contest. It’s an $85,000 GIVEAWAY underway and your city could be the one chosen! Deadline Fast Approaching to Enter to Paint Your City Green! Sherri May [...]

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A plethora of solutions are being laid before you. From Costner's machine to oil-eating microbes and now MIT has added another solution called Seaswarm.

What About us? What About EVERYTHING! Can WE Save the EARTH?

Fishing Lower Talarik Creek, Alaska

Today, I am giving over my entire Friday LinkFest post to an important issue that I was reminded of this week: protecting Alaska's Bristol Bay. 

I want to thank my StockTwits pal Brian Shannon (@alphatrends) for bringing back to my attention this ongoing  threat to one of the world's greatest resources up in my old home of Alaska.

Back in the 90s, I worked with The Nature Conservancy on a deal to protect a significant stretch of one of the greatest fly-fishing streams in the world, Lower Talarik Creek, in the Bristol Bay area in Alaska's southwest.  

Bristol Bay is America’s richest salmon fishery and the heart of a $2.2 billion regional fishing industry. Amazing indigenous rainbow trout grow to significant size in Lake Iliamna, which is fed by the 55-square mile watershed of LTC and other streams in this 1.1 million acre fish and wildlife habitat, and then follow the salmon into the waters during spawning season. 

A proposed a large-scale, open-pit, copper-gold-molybdenum mining operation threatens the watershed of the most productive salmon rivers in the world.

"The people of Alaska came close to blocking the project themselves in a 2008 referendum," according to a New York Times editorial this past Monday. "Three former governors, including two Republicans, and Senator Ted Stevens spoke out against the mine. Industry, however, spent $12 million on advertising about the mine’s economic benefits; that, plus a last-minute pro-mining push by Gov. Sarah Palin and her administration, turned the tide in industry’s favor."

The EPA has announced it will make an assessment of the risks to the bay from mining and other commercial projects.

Here's a link to a National Geographic story on Bristol Bay, to an appeal by the outfitters Orvis, which was a contributor to the Lower Talarik Creek project, and Trout Unlimited's Save Bristol Bay site.

The Nature Conservancy also has some great resources on the importance of Bristol Bay, including a great selection of Salmon Ecosystems and Mining research and a story about the fight from 2009.

Environmental Leader reported last week that Zale Corporation, along with 54 other jewelry companies, with a combined $5.75 billion in annual sales, have pledged not to use gold from the mine.

"Gold will not be the mine's major product," according to the project's backers reported in EL. "The mine will offer 80.6 billion lbs of copper, 5.6 billion lbs of molybdenum, 107.4 million ounces of gold and commercially significant amounts of silver, rhenium and palladium."

The Pebble Partnership was set up by Anglo American PLC and Northern Dynasty Minerals Ltd, to promote the benefits of the project, including the potential for jobs and production of precious metals to meet global demand.

While I recognize the need for precious metals -- copper is of particular importance to the green technologies we feature here on The Green Skeptic -- it is unclear whether a project of this size can be developed in a way that will ensure the long-term natural, economic, human, ecological and traditional values of this area.

Image via WikipediaA new bi-partisan survey released yesterday claims Americans trust the EPA not Congress to protect them from pollution.

The survey was released just one day before the US House of Representatives votes on a bill that would curtail the EPA's ability to protect public health from air pollution.

The American Lung Association (ALA) commissioned the survey, conducted jointly by the polling firms Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research (Democrat) and Ayres, McHenry & Associates (Republican).

What they found was that three out of four American voters support the EPA setting tougher standards on specific air pollutants, including mercury, smog and carbon dioxide, as well as setting higher fuel efficiency standards for heavy duty trucks.

Perhaps most relevant to the current debate in Congress, according to the ALA, is that "68 percent of voters oppose Congressional action that impedes the EPA from updating clean air standards generally and 64 percent oppose Congressional efforts to stop the EPA from updating standards on carbon dioxide."

"Voters clearly recognize and respect the role of the EPA in protecting their families from breathing toxic air," said Paul Billings, vice president for national policy and advocacy at the American Lung Association. "They don’t want Congress to interfere with the EPA's authority to take action when lives are clearly at stake."

The House has proposed cutting the EPA’s budget by one third.

"The survey clearly indicates that voters strongly trust the EPA to deal with clean air standards more than Congress," reads a memo from the two pollsters to the ALA. "A bipartisan 69 percent majority believes that EPA scientists, rather than Congress, should set pollution standards. This is despite opposing language arguing that our elected representatives in Congress would do a better job than 'unelected bureaucrats at the EPA.'"

The full survey, along with slides and a memo from Greenberg Quinlan Rosner and Ayres, McHenry and Associates, can be found here.

There is something so relaxing about the piano, coupled with beautiful outdoor scenes, that melt your cares away. Relax, take a deep breath, and unwind!

With several homes already completed and occupied, Green Acres is setting the standard for home building in the 21st Century.

What if more we spent more energy on building the economic arguments for a reasonable, more inclusive approach to energy development? 

What if we focused on the economic arguments for a competitive economic future?

What if we focused on the positive benefits to health care costs of doing something about pollution? 

What if we focused on the positive benefits of the next energy transition -- to society, the economy, and people everywhere?

What if we stopped debating climate change and started to do something?

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Rain Gardens Offer a Green Solution! Across North America, many regions and municipalities, are looking for a  a solution to storm water run-off.  Why? Because, the centuries-old approach, of piping water off the land, as fast as possible, and dumping it into waterways, is failing quickly.  In fact, our entire infrastructure, nationwide, is in desperate [...]

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