Showing posts with label solar. Show all posts
Showing posts with label solar. Show all posts

Thursday, December 16, 2021

Earn Monthly Dividends By Solar Powering Schools, Businesses and Communities

Like the big oil companies we are diversified across all of the energy sectors. Here is our new favorite, shore up your retirement with this great program.

Join the Sun Exchange today and start generating and selling clean energy online through a global solar cell leasing platform. All from anywhere on the planet.

Sourcing our Solar Projects
Sun Exchange identifies schools, businesses and organisations that want to go solar. Our solar engineers work with local solar construction partners to carefully evaluate proposed solar projects and ensure they meet our core criteria:

* Economic and technical viability
* Social and environmental responsibility

Tip: Sign Up and get notified about new solar project crowd sales coming soon. 

View Upcoming Solar Projects Here

Buying Solar Cells
Once solar projects have been accepted as viable and responsible, we run a crowd sale for the solar cells that will power the project. Any individual or organisation, anywhere in the world, can sign up to be a Sun Exchange member and buy solar cells, even starting with a single solar cell.

Your solar cells will:

* Generate clean energy
* Make a positive social and environmental impact
* Earn income as you lease them to schools, businesses and other organisations
* Reduce your carbon footprint for years to come

  Tip: Buy solar cells in the local currency of the project using credit card, bank transfer, Sun Exchange  
   wallet or Bitcoin (BTC).


Installing Solar Cells
Once a solar cell crowd sale sells out (they go quickly!), installation of the solar project begins. The appointed local construction partners install your solar cells, which typically takes four to six weeks, but can be longer for larger projects.

Tip: Track the status of your solar cells through your Sun Exchange dashboard.

Effortless Solar Income
Generate and sell clean energy. Schools, businesses and organisations pay you to use the clean electricity your solar cells produce. Your lease starts when your solar cells start generating electricity.

You’ll receive your monthly solar income, net of insurance and servicing fees, into your Sun Exchange wallet in your choice of the local currency of the project or Bitcoin (BTC).

Your Sun Exchange dashboard keeps you up to date on:

* Solar project status updates
* Our solar cell earnings (BTC and ZAR)
* The clean energy your solar cells generate (kWh)
* The amount of carbon your solar cells offset (kg CO2)
* Your Sun Exchange wallet balance, payments and withdrawals

  Tip: The monthly income you accumulate in your Sun Exchange wallet can be used to buy more solar cells
   in other solar projects.

Start earning monetized sunshine and offset your carbon footprint, while powering schools, businesses and communities through Sun Exchange.








Monday, November 10, 2014

The Madness of the EU’s Energy Policy

By Marin Katusa, Chief Energy Investment Strategist

The stakes couldn’t be higher. Vladimir Putin has launched a devastating plan to turn Russia into an energy powerhouse. And Europe, dependent on Russian natural gas and oil for a third of its fuel needs, has fallen right into his hands: Putin can bend the EU to his will simply by twisting the valve shut.

Considering how precarious Europe’s economic security is, one would have thought that now would be a good time for the EU to reassess its energy policy and address the effect crippling energy costs are having on its struggling economy. But the EU is never going to agree to a rational reappraisal of its policies, because eco-loons like its new energy commissioner, Violetta Bulc, have taken over the asylum.

A practicing fire walker and a shaman, she’s the sort of airy fairy Goddard College type who only believes in the power of “positive energy.” What will guide us in this frightening new era is, according to her blog, the spirit of the White Lions:

The Legend says that White Lions are star beings, uniting star energy within earth form of Lions. The native ancestors were convinced that they are children of the Sun God, thus embodying Solar Logos and legends say that they came down to Earth to help save humanity at a time of crisis. There is no doubt that this time is right now.

With the European Commission stuffed with green anti capitalist zealots, it’s not surprising that the EU’s response to the challenges of a resurgent Russia is a complete break with reality.

The EU has come up with an aggressive climate plan—just like Obama’s. In defiance of all logic—if not Putin—it’s agreed to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 40% and make clean energy, like wind and solar, 27% of overall energy use by 2030. Instead of guaranteeing the “survival of mankind,” this would cause the extinction of Europe’s industry—unless there’s a secret plan to massively expand nuclear power.

Fortunately for Europe, its leaders haven’t yet lost all their marbles.

These climate goals are just a bargaining chip in the runup to next year’s UN climate summit in Paris. They’re not legally binding. Unless the whole world commits to an equally radical policy of deindustrialization—which seems rather unlikely to say the least—the EU will “review” its climate targets.

This is just as well. In trying to meet the so-called 20:20 target—a 20% reduction in emissions by 2020—Germany and the UK have already discovered that renewable energy is too costly to maintain a competitive industry. As electricity prices skyrocket, Germany’s industrial giants are either having their power costs subsidized or are relocating to the US.

Both countries are struggling with the inability of wind and solar energy to provide reliable baseload power, which is threatening to cause blackouts.

The UK is putting its faith in fracking—and has managed to head off any EU legislation to ban shale-gas. But Germany and its fellow travelers, who have no qualms about reverting to coal, are simply overriding the EU Commission and its zero emissions utopia.

Knowing that EU climate policy would destroy international competitiveness and crush their economies, Poland, which depends on coal for 90% of its energy needs, and other low-income countries have taken a different approach. They've forced the Commission to give them special exemptions from any emissions reduction plan.

Unlike in the U.S.—where Obama is taking executive action to wipe out the coal industry—lignite, or brown coal, is set to become an increasingly important part of Europe’s energy supply, as it is in much of the rest of the world. There are 19 new lignite power stations in various stages of approval and construction in Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Greece, Germany, Poland, Romania, and Slovenia. When completed, these will emit nearly as much CO2 as the UK.

Which is ironic. The UK is the only member of the EU to have been insane enough to impose a legally binding carbon dioxide reduction target intended to take it to 80 percent of 1990 levels by 2050. It’s also the only modern industrial nation where there’s serious talk of World War II style energy rationing.

As you’ll discover in my new book, The Colder War, Europe and America need to wake up. They’ve never been so economically vulnerable. The time for indulging environmental fantasies and putting one’s faith in White Lions is over—unless, that is, you want to see Putin controlling the world.

Click here to get your copy of my new book. Inside, you’ll discover exactly how Putin is orchestrating a takeover of the global energy trade, what it means for the future of America, and how it will directly affect you and your personal savings.

The article The Madness of the EU’s Energy Policy was originally published at casey research


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Sunday, June 29, 2014

Thomas Edison’s Dream Smashed

By Adam J. Crawford, Analyst

The incandescent light bulb was invented in the very early 1800s, but at that time was a device too crude and impractical for mass adoption. Over the next 80 years, at least 20 inventors contributed to its improvement, until, in 1880, Thomas Edison developed and patented a bulb that would last a miraculous 1,200 hours. Edison’s product was the first to offer the levels of functionality, durability, and affordability necessary for widespread commercial appeal. That’s why he gets credit for inventing the light bulb, even though he was decades late to the party.


Some 130 years after Edison’s patent was approved, the incandescent light bulb has basically the same features… a filament inside a glass bulb with a screw base. And for all those years, it’s been doing yeoman-like work providing clean, quality lighting (compared to the candles and oil lanterns of the 19th century), in millions of homes and offices. Today, however, the incandescent light bulb is on its way out… and a multibillion-dollar industry will be forever changed.

Done In by Inefficiency

The incandescent bulb, though very effective, is notoriously inefficient. To understand why, one need only understand how it produces light. The filament (or wire) inside a bulb is heated by an electric current until it becomes so hot it glows.

The problem: only about 10% of the energy used by an incandescent bulb is converted into light; the rest is dissipated as usually unwanted heat.

This is a problem, not just for the homes and businesses using these bulbs, but also upstream at the power plants that produce the required energy. In an era when producers are wondering how they’re going to keep up with the surging demand amidst rising fuel costs and concern about the environmental impact of energy production is running high, such inefficiencies are frowned on.

Governments, of course, have the ability to put muscle behind their frowns… and they’re doing just that. In 2013, it became illegal in the United States to manufacture or import 75 and 100 watt incandescent bulbs. 40 and 60 watt bulbs were added to the ban in January of this year. The U.S. isn’t the only government actively limiting the use of incandescent bulbs. The European Union, Canada, Brazil, Australia, and even China are among many that have phase out programs aimed at forcing users to convert to an alternative technology.

For household applications, that primarily means a switch to those twisty shaped compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs), or the newest competition in town, light emitting diodes (LEDs).

A CFL’s spiral tube contains argon and mercury vapors, and they are far more efficient than the old Edison bulb. When an electrical current is passed through the vapors, invisible ultraviolet light is produced. The ultraviolet light is transformed into visible light when it strikes a fluorescent coating on the inside of the tube.. all at about one fourth the electrical cost for an equivalent amount of light from an incandescent lamp.

LEDs, in contrast, don’t use commonplace materials. Rather, they’re made from somewhat exotic semiconductor materials, like indium and gallium nitride. When an electrical current is passed through these semiconductors, energy is released in the form of particles called photons—the most basic units of light in physics, i.e., light’s equivalent of individual electrons. In the process, little is lost to heat and the materials take minimal wear, making for another very efficient light source, and one that lasts far longer than its competitors.

Comparing the Alternatives

Right now, LED bulbs are relatively expensive to produce. That’s because a bulb is not just a bulb when it comes to LEDs—it can’t be made brighter by just putting in a thicker filament or tube. Instead, each bulb is a complex web of up to dozens of small diodes, each roughly the size of a pinhead, wired together and to a ballast that regulates the electricity flowing through them.

When compared head to head with incandescent and CFL light bulbs, LEDs come out the clear winner in operating costs. But even with millions of these bulbs now shipping to Home Depot, they still fall down on initial cost:

60-WATT
Equivalent
Incandescent
CFL
LED
Lumen 880 800 800
Life (hours) 1,000 8,000 25,000
Initial cost $1.19 $5.00 $9.98
Yearly operating cost $7.23 $1.81 $1.45


However, when you add up those advantages over that 25,000 hour lifetime, then the advantages start to become clear:


60-WATT
Equivalent
Incandescent
CFL
LED
Yearly
operating cost
$7.23 $1.81 $1.45
Years 23 23 23
23-year
operating cost
$166.29 $41.63 $33.35
Initial cost $1.19 $5.00 $10.00
Replacement
cost
$28.56 $10.00 $0.00
Total cost $196.04 $56.63 $43.35

As you can see, to produce roughly the same lumens (a measure of the amount of visible light emitted by a source), both CFLs and LEDs are hands-down more economical than incandescent bulbs.

Of course, in a residential scenario where a bulb is run for maybe three hours a day, it would take about 23 years to realize that big a savings. But put them in place in a commercial or industrial setting like the hundreds of lights running 24 hours a day in the local Walmart, and the savings add up quickly.

Still, why are we so bullish on the prospects for LEDs if they barely edge out their CFL competitors over tens of thousands of hours?

The first difference is environmental. CFLs have the inherent disadvantage of containing mercury, a toxic metal that poses health and environmental risks. Break one of these bulbs and you have a biohazard on your hands. There’s a real cost to recycling these bulbs and containing the mess from those that are just tossed in the trash heap. It’s a cost that will certainly be shifted back to consumers of the bulbs if environmental legislation continues on its same path.

Further still, over its life, an LED bulb is already 25% more economical than a CFL. When compared to an incandescent bulb, either is a huge cost winner. But when it comes down to dollars and cents, the LED wins today. The only reason not go that route is the big upfront cost difference, which when buying tens of thousands of bulbs at a time (as many commercial companies do) can be a hard pill to swallow.

However, the cost of LEDs has been falling fast in recent years and will continue to do so. In 2011, a 60 watt equivalent LED bulb retailed for about $40. In 2012, the price fell below $20. Today, it’s less than $10.

As volumes increase and competition among manufacturers and retailers intensifies, prices will continue to fall. Some industry analysts see a $5 LED on the near horizon. We wouldn’t bet against it.

The price could go even lower if manufacturers can successfully implement a cost-reduction break through. Specifically, LED devices are built on expensive aluminum oxide substrates. But manufacturers are working on ways to build on substrates made of silicon, which would substantially reduce defects and thus costs. As prices drop, and if environmental law hits mercury laced CFLs next, LED’s cost advantage will start to widen significantly.

Inflection Point

This all means that the LED’s time has arrived. According to IHS, a global market and economic research firm, unit shipments of LED lighting devices will grow at a compounded annual rate of 40% between now and 2020.


In 2011, the size of the global lighting market was about $96 billion, and LED devices accounted for about 12% of that amount. By 2020, McKinsey & Company projects, the size of the market will be $136 billion, of which 63% will be attributable to LEDs.

With the LED bulb, we have a trend that’s been in the making for several years… and it’s now ready to surge. How should an investor play it? Certainly not with a blindfold and a dartboard, or a whole sector buy like an ETF, because not all participants in this market will prosper.

Some will not be a pure enough play to benefit, or will be cannibalizing their own incandescent and CFL business… like GE and Phillips. Others will find themselves producing a commodity with ever thinning margins… like Cree. And others still already have much of the anticipated growth priced into their shares.
However, we scanned the field and found a company that is well positioned to benefit from the growth of the LED market while, at the same time, actually improving its margins.

We believe this company’s stock is undervalued. That’s why we’re recommending it in the next issue of BIG TECH

For access to this recommendation and many more, simply sign up for a risk free trial of BIG TECH. 

If you decide to keep your subscription, it will only cost a mere $99, nothing compared to the profits just this one investment should bring. But, if for any reason you’re unsatisfied, simply cancel to receive a prompt, courteous, and complete refund of the entire subscription price. You have 3 full months to make up your mind.

The article Thomas Edison’s Dream Smashed was originally published at Casey Research




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Tuesday, June 17, 2014

Solar Energy Sector ETF Breaking Out – How to Trade It

During the past couple months several indexes, sectors and commodities have sold off more than 10 – 20%. But now some are looking like new buying opportunities. Over the next week I will bring a few of these trades to your attention as they start to unfold.

Today we are looking at the TAN solar ETF. This sector recently had a 23% hair cut in price. A 20-25% correction in price is a typical intermediate correction for a fast moving sector. The price correction has pulled the sector down to its 150 and 200 simple day moving averages. These levels tend to act as long term support for investors, a buying point.

Many of the individual stocks within this sector are starting to pop and breakout of bullish price patterns. These individual stock prices point to higher prices for TAN going forward. Be aware of crude oil…. I do think that as long as the price of crude oil stays up solar stocks will continue to rise overall. But if oil starts to roll over and break down, TAN will struggle.

My Technical Take on The Chart:
 
Big picture analysis shows a powerful uptrend with bullish consolidation.

Intermediate analysis shows a falling bullish wedge, test of moving averages, and a reversal breakout pattern.

tan

Short term analysis shows we are at a resistance level and we will likely see a pause of pullback over the next few days before it goes higher.

TANshortterm

TAN Trading Conclusion:
 
If price closed back below the $39.00 I would consider this bounce/rally failed.

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See you in the markets,
Chris Vermeulen
Founder of  Technical Traders Ltd. - Partnership Program


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Wednesday, January 19, 2011

Five New Ideas for Energy Markets to make Money With in 2011

2010 was an amazing year for commodity traders so we have to ask ourselves is the top in? Are we now in "bubble territory" when it comes to commodities like oil? And what about energy, do we still have room to run in the energy sector?

In today's short video we are going to show you some of the markets that we are looking at in the energy complex. We're going to be looking at coal, oil, solar and some other large energy companies and ETF's.

As this is a short video, be sure to check in and watch our webinar this Thursday, January 20th at 4pm EST/9pm GMT. You will need to reserve a spot as tour webinars typically reach capacity quickly. Just click here to register for this weeks webinar. As always all webinars are free to attend.

Take a look at what we will be covering in the webinar and check out our new portfolio manager which we will be using extensively throughout today's video. We also have a big surprise which will be announced at the webinar and I have no doubt that you will like. Today's video requires no registration and is free to watch:

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Friday, December 4, 2009

Oldest Oil Fund in the U.S. Targets Solar Stocks as Crude Outlook Dims


Petroleum & Resources Corp., the oldest U.S. oil fund, plans to invest in solar and wind power production for the first time since its founding in 1929 as governments crack down on fuels linked to greenhouse gases. The $555 million closed end fund, whose biggest holdings are Exxon Mobil Corp. and Chevron Corp., is analyzing wind power, biofuels, solar and hybrid car battery makers with an eye to making investments as soon as the second quarter of 2010, Chief Executive Officer Douglas Ober said.

Aside from an investment in an ethanol producer two years ago and a wind turbine manufacturer in the 1990s, the Baltimore based fund never before ventured into so called green energy, Ober said. That’s changing now because of legislative efforts to discourage use of oil based fuels and concern that global crude supplies are getting harder to find. “Climate legislation looks like it may become a reality in Washington, and that’s going to usher in significant changes for the oil companies,” Ober said yesterday in a telephone interview. “We realize there isn’t going to be oil forever, so we need to look for other types of stocks and find the right place to be”.....Read the entire article.

The Secrets to Building Your Own Solar Energy System.....For Under $200!

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