Douglas Hvistendahl

3 Stocks that Will Ride the Wind Energy Boom

<i>Are the companies you mentioned public as I cannot find them on Bloomberg.</i>

The Accoya companies are not public. I suggest a search on the name. They sell in railroad car (or semi) size lots at present.

There is a new windmill variation that reduces the amount of material used in the blades for a given amount of wind capture by using multiple blade sets along a shaft. Look at www.selsam.com/. At present, it is only available in small sizes, but it should be scalable. The basic thing is that if you just increase blade sizes, volume goes up as a high power of size. By arranging multiple sets per shaft, you divide by the number of sets.

Here in North Dakota, the situation for wind is IMBY. Ranchers and farmers like having an extra income stream. The amount of actual space used is small, even including access roads, since the towers need to be a large distance from each other to prevent cutting off of the wind. The problem here is transmission capacity. There has been development in the hills west of us, since there is a high power transmission line from Garrison past Aberdeen, and wind quality is level 5. I'd like to see towers on my own quarter, but it is in a low area (one of the few areas in ND that is only level 3), so is unlikely to be wanted soon.