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1. Changing World IPO Is a No-Go
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2. Daily Sprout
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3. Recycling Slump Eats Into Waste Management's Sales
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4. Carbon Capture Investment Could Top $70B by 2030 — Who Wins?
Changing World IPO Is a No-Go
David Ehrlich - Big Green
This would’ve been the first cleantech IPO for 2009, and one of only a handful of initial public offerings set to take place this year. The company, which makes biodiesel, as well as fertilizer, out of animal and food processing waste, gave us a glimmer of hope a few weeks ago when terms of the offering were set at 2.75 million shares at $11-$15 each, or up to $42 million.
That was already a significant drop in value from the estimated $100 million target in the company’s original filing last August. Then earlier this week the price range was lowered even further, to $8-$12, before the IPO was withdrawn.
There are still some other cleantech IPOs hanging in the air, including battery maker A123 Systems. The Watertown, Mass.-based company first filed for the IPO last August, with an estimated target of $175 million. Then in January, the company lost out on a deal to build batteries for the Chevy Volt.
Elsewhere, Newton, Mass.-based wind farm developer First Wind is looking to raise an estimated $450 million, and solar module encapsulant producer STR Holdings in Enfield, Conn., has filed to raise up to $300 million.
We’re also still waiting on Hong Kong-based GCL Silicon Technology, a solar polysilicon and wafer supplier; Essex, Conn.’s Noble Environmental Power, a wind power company; and Global Water Resources, a Phoenix-based water, wastewater and recycled water utility.
Some analysts, however, have said that startups won’t have a good shot at going public until 2010.
Daily Sprout
Josie Garthwaite - Misc
Cellulosic Ethanol Ready for Prime Time (Really): Cellulosic ethanol has been “five years from commercialization” for so long that even ethanol company POET’s research director admits it has become a joke. Now he and a crew of scientists say it’s for real. — Christian Science Monitor
Giving the Slip: Kansas legislators endorsed a bill yesterday that ties two proposed coal-fired power plants in the state to proposals for promoting wind and other renewables. — Associated Press
Mediterranean Power: An effort to launch dozens of renewable energy projects over two years in the Europe and North Africa could become bogged down if the project focuses too heavily on one particular technology, such as concentrating solar power, according to speakers at Sustainable Energy Week in Brussels. — NYT’s Green Inc.
High-Speed Rail Gets Boost in Stimulus: The latest version of the stimulus bill includes $9.3 billion for development of high-speed rail and other intercity rail. Is California’s rail project a shoe-in? — MSNBC
Danish Pension Fund Goes Big for Clean Energy: Danish pension giant ATP is investing up to $400 million in Hudson Clean Energy, one of the most ambitious new players in wind and solar development. — Clean Edge
Recycling Slump Eats Into Waste Management's Sales
Kevin Kelleher - CNN Green
Good times or bad, the trash still needs to be picked up. But as Waste Management Inc.’s (s WMI) earnings report showed this week, the business of managing waste and recycling isn’t exactly recession-proof. The slowdown is hitting its recycling business particularly hard.
Waste Management said its revenue in the last three months of 2008 fell 7.5 percent to $3.1 billion vs. the $3.2 billion forecast by analysts. Net income excluding one-time items (such as a $13 million charge for backing out of union-sponsored pension plans) totaled 49 cents a share.
Recycling revenue, at $192 million, was down 37 percent from a year ago and 44 percent lower than the previous three months. CEO David Steiner explained there was not only less paper and other material being recycled, but less demand for recycled goods overall:
The sharp decline in economic activity in the fourth quarter did cause further volume declines in our more economically sensitive industrial collection, transfer and recycling businesses. Recycling commodity revenues were affected by both steep price declines and greatly reduced volumes as a result of the lack of demand for these commodities. We expect volumes in these economically sensitive lines of business to remain soft in 2009.
Revenue from trash collection was $2.1 billion, down 5 percent on the year and 7 percent from the previous quarter. Commercial customers such as restaurants and retail shops are needing fewer pickups and the slowdown in home and office building means less hauls from construction sites.
One relatively strong area was the company’s subsidiary, Wheelabrator, which saw revenue rise 5 percent to $229 million (although down 7 percent from the previous quarter). Wheelabrator builds incinerators near landfills, burns discarded wood and tires as well as coal, and sells the power to local communities. “Other” revenue, which includes the sale of methane from its landfills to power generators, rose 19 percent, to $51 million.
Shares of Waste Management are down 12 percent this year, and the stock might have fallen further on the earnings report had the company not announced efforts to cut costs. Those cuts are likely to come from the weaker-performing segments, such as recycling, leaving Waste Management an even more old-school answer to the country’s waste than it already is.
Carbon Capture Investment Could Top $70B by 2030 — Who Wins?
Josie Garthwaite - CNN Green
Carbon capture and storage technology has barely left the trial stage — let alone be proven as safe or effective at commercial scale. But according to a new report from Emerging Energy Research, the industry could be “well-positioned” for commercialization by 2016 if demonstration projects go well and government funds come through. EER reports that countries relying heavily on energy from coal are dumping cash on the cause — ramping up to as much as $70 billion per year by 2030 — in hopes of getting a jump on the learning curve between now and 2014.
Who’s at the front of the line to benefit from this growing investment (much of it through stimulus packages) in the U.S., western Canada, Europe and Australia? None other than the six global supermajors: BP (s BP), Chevron (s CVX), ConocoPhillips (s COP), ExxonMobil (s XOM), Shell (s RDS-B) and Total (s TOT), according to EER. This is not only because carbon regulations, natural gas price volatility and potential capacity shortfalls loom large in their futures and business-as-usual simply won’t cut it. It’s also because they already own the tools of the trade. As EER explains:
[T]he oil and gas industry is uniquely positioned to lead the sequestration industry forward — bringing with them a large number of potential storage assets, reservoir-engineering strengths, and carbon capture capabilities developed through their global natural gas processing and refinery operations.
To be sure, a commercial-scale carbon capture boom is not without barriers. EER identifies a number of them, including the high costs of capture, long-term regulatory uncertainty and liability. But there’s another critical uncertainty: Does it actually work?
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