20-20 Hind sight

Geothermal Companies Receive Cost Sharing Grants

There is no such thing as a geothermal "industry." At most, they apply for licenses and do some engineering. The machinery installed are off-the-shelf units from giants like UTX.

For obvious reasons, good geothermal sites are far from electricity consumers.

Geothermal is an intriguing concept (who doesn't like free energy?) but it will never be a mainstream business for investors to profit from. IMHO

Smart Grid: Powering Us Out of Recession

"Smart grid" is like "smart children", everyone wants it but have little idea what it means or how to get there.

The vision that the power from square miles of solar panels in the Mohave desert can be transmitted across the continent to light up New York is fraught with difficulties, if not outright impractical.

Transmission line voltage seems to be limited to 750K volts. So we are talking about a transmission system that has to handle millions of amperes, over thousands of miles.

What happens when there is cloud cover over the Mojave; for a week, say?

I don't like central power stations and coal plants. But given our present consumption levels, there is no magic fix. Conservation takes time to implement. We are looking at a social and industrial revolution on the order of 1,000 Manhattan projects, which will evolve and grow over decades.

It is sheer fantasy to think you can pick stocks now. You'd do better selling house boats in some of the low-lying island nations.

The Long Case for Recent Spin-off A.H. Belo

Now it's Aug. 14, 3 weeks after your original post. AHC lost another 10%.

The stock market is about future prospects. The kind of analysis you made, as good as it was, is looking in the rear view mirror.

With the likes of free sites like Craigslist and Monster, print newspapers have lost their traditional source of revenue -- classified ads. The Internet has totally destroyed the business model of print media. Some day, some one will come up with a way for media companies to create wealth for their owners.

In the mean time, all newspapers are dying a slow death.

Peak Oil Stocks for the Future

You can't have it both ways, Mr. Ellard.

There is a decade lag in developing new oil fields. It takes almost as long for consumption profile to change. If consumers bought only subcompact or alternative fuel vehicles, the national gasoline consumption won't appreciably decline for several years.

I do agree that petroleum prices have to high and stay high for new investments to bite. Let market forces affect both oil production and alter consumption patterns.

The estimated recoverable reserve at ANWR is put at 6 to 10 billion barrels -- roughly a cool trillion dollars. Think about NOT sending a trillion dollars to the Middle East.

C'mon, I have to believe we know how to do "low impact" drilling. Declaring ANWR out of bounds is pure NIMBY. It is ok to drill in the fertile river delta of Nigeria instead? Please explain how the Earth's environment is thus improved.

Bullish on Commodities? Consider DryShips

Please read:

Forbes.com 3/10/08
Curious George, by Nathan Vardi

"DryShips (DRYS) is a public company. But the way George Economou runs the place, you'd hardly know it. .... "

Barron's Critique of Rating Agencies Fails the Test

What exactly is the "service" the ratings agencies provide and get paid for?

We can't expect individual investors and investing institutions to crawl through several hundred pages of disclosures. The ratings agencies get paid very well for performing this task.

Just focusing on one sin, please explain how anyone can fairly rate any debt that is low or "no-doc".

Relying on historical default rate to rate debt is the last vestige of the lazy and simple minded. What happened to the classical "3-C's" of lending? If there is no documentation, "character" and "cash flow" are missing.

Tranching the bundled securities does not reduce the overall risk. Yet the ratings agencies rank the majority of the tranches investment grade.

Another layer of SOX-like rules won't even lock the barn door. I hate to admit it, we need a few dozen attorneys to skin the hide off these rating agencies. Perhaps, just perhaps, they will use *judgement* when the next hot security lands on their front doors.