Eco-Investments

Eco-Investments by Richard Matthews

Green investments are full of promise, but like any investment there is always some risk. To protect themselves against risk, investors diversify. Within the realm of green investing there are many diverse sectors that are destined to grow. Here is a selection of companies in the conservation, solar and raw materials sectors that are expected to perform well.

Conservation

Fuel Tech: A US company that is working to cut a substantial percentage of carbon emissions from fuel combustion units. Fuel Tech’s APC technologies are installed worldwide on over 580 combustion units,including utility, industrial and municipal solid waste applications. Products include customized NOx control systems, which can reduce emissions from 30% – 85%, and proprietary urea-to-ammonia conversion technology, which can provide safe reagent for use in selective catalytic reduction systems.

Clean Air Power: A London-listed company working to get trucks to use natural gas. Clean Air Power has entered into a concept development agreement with Navistar, Inc. to develop a MaxxForce 13 Natural Gas/Diesel Engine Program for the North American market. The development program will utilize Clean Air Power’s Dual-Fuel™ combustion technology to deliver an engine that achieves the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) 2010 emissions standard. Negotiations have been underway for 2 years, during which time Navistar has evaluated a number of different environmental technologies and chose Clean Air Power’s Dual-Fuel™ technology.

Solar

Q-Cells: A German company that makes photo-voltaic (PV) cells. This company started with 19 staff members in 2000 and now has over 1,500 staff. It exports half of its product and is the world`s second largest maker of PV cells, after Sharp of Japan.

Elements (raw materials)

Recyclex: A French company producing gallium amongst other metals. Recylex is a European specialist in the field of recycling lead and plastic (from automobile and industrial batteries), recycling zinc and metals for the electronics industry. The group operates in France, Germany and Belgium and brings together a dozen production sites.

New Jersey Mining Company: This company produces gallium from mining operations in Idaho. They are also exploring for and developing gold, silver and other base metal ore resources.

Gold Canyon Resources: A Canadian-based unique mineral exploration company with a long history of exciting projects in both Canada and the United States. They own prospective gallium deposits in Nevada.

Bluglass: An Australian company that produces gallium. They produce LED lighting technologies that lower energy consumption with LED lighting. They have developed a new technology for producing semiconductors. Through this technology and approach to depositing gallium nitride, LED manufacturers can produce less costly light emitting diodes (LEDs) in a more environmentally sensitive way. BluGlass has taken the first steps to commercialise this technology for a rapidly growing world market for LED devices. To secure a share of this market, BluGlass has built a strong technical and commercial team and has been seeking out potential partners and customers. The plan is to refine their gallium process in the new BluGlass research reactor and in a commercial-scale demonstration reactor in Ireland.

Dowa Mining: Listed in Japan, it is the worlds largest producer of gallium. Guided by its corporate philosophy, “Through its business operations on the world stage, Dowa seeks to contribute to a high standard of living and the emergence of a resource-recycling society,” the Dowa Group seeks to offer various types of value to its stakeholders and to make a contribution to society.

AXT INC: A NASDAQ-listed maker of satellite solar panels, mainly producing semiconductor substrates for electronic and optoelectronic uses. AXT is committed to environmental protection and positive corporate citizenship. In 2006, they were certified as meeting the international standards of ISO 14001:2004, an Environmental Management Standard. The certification followed an audit of our Beijing facility and environmental systems, conducted by SGS an ANSI accredited third party auditor.

Richard Matthews is a Marketing Consultant and author of The Green Market, a blog dedicated to green investing and the economy. Richard hails from Quebec Canada. He enjoys hiking, canoeing, and rock-climbing.