- More ways Obama plans to reduce America's dependence on oil
- Profit from Clean Tech’s revival
For the last decade it has been all too easy to make money by investing in house building companies, in property and in the banks. A great tide of cash has flowed through the commission-slicing hands of the bankers and into bricks and mortar. Many investors would like to see this return. But it is not going to happen any time soon. The next decade will be very different and you need to be prepared.
Barack Obama’s vision of America does not feature fat financiers, or complacent property speculators. His vision is of a world where the voices of scientists and environmentalists are heard above those of Wall Street. And it is not just all talk. Take energy policy for example. Obama has said that the entire White House fleet of cars will, by this time next year, have electric engines.
More ways Obama plans to reduce America’s dependence on oil
Obama will set this example, but his plan to give the USA a clean, green, and mean demand for energy goes a whole lot further than this. Plug-in vehicles for the White House are just one way in which the USA can use energy more efficiently and reduce its dependence on imported oil.
Here are some of the other things that Obama intends to achieve. He wants to see one million plug-in hybrid cars on the roads of the USA by 2015. He reckons that they should be able to do 150 miles before they need to be charged up. He wants to see 10% of the US energy supply come from renewable sources by 2012 and 25% by 2025. He wants to see sixty billion gallons of biofuels by 2030. Within ten years he wants the USA to be saving more oil than it currently imports from the Middle East and Venezuela.
How can this be achieved? There are sticks and there are carrots. Obama is proposing a trading system for carbon emissions, which will effectively put a tax on pollution and provide an incentive for reducing emissions. Obama will impose stricter fuel economy standards on vehicle and provide tax credits for the purchase of advanced technology vehicles.
He wants to force US oil companies to either start drilling their sixty million acres of licensed land or pass it to somebody who will. He wants to prioritise the building of the Alaskan natural gas pipeline that could feed 7% of US consumption. He wants to encourage clean coal technology and nuclear energy. He wants buildings to be more energy efficient and he wants an electricity grid that allows the power that is generated to reach its customers instead of leaking away en route.
Profit from Clean Tech’s revival
In other words he believes in Clean Tech. This is a phrase with which investors may be familiar. It’s a cover-all term to describe companies that are using technology for the benefit of the planet. That means saving energy, finding clean ways of generating power, and keeping the environment clean. There are thousands of such businesses, all based on the scientific innovation that Obama loves and respects, and all ready to play their part.
But, like all young companies, they need cash to go from the laboratory stage to commercialisation and with the money taps turned off that simply has not been forthcoming. So Clean Tech has died a death, and looks all too much like one of those seductive investment themes that promised more than it could deliver.
But I believe that its time has now come. Through tax incentives and grants Obama is putting billions of dollars into the Clean Tech industry, and with this encouragement I expect private finance to follow. It’s time to profit from Clean Tech’s revival.
Banking, as Gordon Brown has recently realised, should be the servant of industry. Homes and offices should be built for those who have earned the money to occupy them and not as an end in themselves. After a decade in which money has been directed at financial derivatives and bricks and mortar, a new age of enlightenment has arrived.
Investors should take note.
Good investing,
Tom Bulford
for The Penny Sleuth
P.S. I covered one exciting “clean tech” opportunity in my latest issue of Red Hot Penny Shares. If you’d like to get in on this recommendation, have a look at my latest issue. I’ll send it to you by return – read here for details.
P.P.S. If you want to follow the insights of a small company investor, and uncover the hidden gems of the stock market, find out more about The Penny Sleuth by clicking here.
