President elect Obama has not taken office as of yet (only 40 more days till OIL IDIOT BUSH gone) and yet there are opportunities out there for some wind stocks given the Obama position of pumping 15 billion into green power and green jobs. AMSC and ZOLT look to be the two best US investments into wind power. AMSC has alot of chinese exposure also and ZOLT supplies carbon fiber to almost all wind players worldwide. AMSC and ZOLT promise to be good plays if and when the usa gets its credit problems straightened out. APWR is a pure China player in power production and wind is an added bonus to APWR given its power plant building capacity.

China is preparing to take over number one spot in Wind Power Production end of 2009.
The report said wind power could produce 12 percent of the world’s energy needs and prevent 10 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions within 12 years. By 2050, wind energy could comprise 30 percent of the world’s electricity, according to the report.

The global wind industry spent €25 billion ($37 billion USD) to install a record 20 GW of new capacity in 2007 to reach 93.8 GW, led by the U.S., Spain and China.

The top countries in installed capacity at the end of 2007 were Germany (22.3 GW), the U.S. (16.8 GW), Spain (15.1 GW), India (7.8 GW) and China (5.9 GW). Wind energy is being deployed in 70 countries.

India added 1.5 GW of wind energy in 2007, mostly driven by mandates in 10 of 29 states requiting 10 percent of energy from renewables. More than half the country’s installed wind is in the southern state of Tamil Nadu.

China is expected to surpass Germany as the leading wind-energy country by the end of 2009, the report said. China added 3.3 GW in 2007, representing growth of 145 percent over 2006.

China now has the largest wind turbine manufacturing industry in the world, with leading producers such as Goldwind, Sinovel Wind, Dongfang, Windey and Sewind (see American Superconductor gets follow-on order from Sinovel). China had 40 wind component manufacturers at the end of 2007, accounting for about 56 percent of global wind equipment installed that year. Domestic manufacturing capacity is about 8 GW and is expected to reach 12 GW by 2010.

Other leading turbine manufacturers are based in Denmark, Germany, Spain, the U.S. and India

None of the wall street guys is predicting oil going up due to the current day to day pricing oil is doing with the world economic crisis taking all the headlines. Tomorrow, OPEC meets to cut production which will immediately raise gasoline and oil stock prices. Alt Energy prices of wind stocks are sure to catch the “”Obamanomics Wind”” and go north soon. AMSC, ZOLT, and APWR are going to be MUCH HIGHER by summer of 2009 than current pricing. AMSC and ZOLT do NOT produce the profits like APWR currently does and APWR P/E going forward into 2009 is around 2P/e which is totally ridiculous in normal pricing formulas for valuation of stock pricing. A reasonable P/E for APWR would be 10 so the stock price going forward should top $20 by end of summer 2009 if APWR delivers promised results and contracts and wind power projects continue as advertised. THIS is the time and APWR is my horse to run the alt energy race to clean the worlds air quality. Timing is everything and before APWR delivers the next round of contracts, any price around 4.50 is a daggone good price going forward. Author BOUGHT MORE APWR today at $4.27 FAIR DISCLOSURE!!!!!!!!!!

Enjoy the cheap gasoline as OPEC is going to meet tomorrow and you can BET an OIL PRODUCTION CUT coming by OPEC which will raise Alt Energy Stocks and Prices. I look for OIL to hit $100 next summer and energy stocks to soar along with renewable energy wind stocks. APWR in the drivers seat to power ASIA with clean green power.

AMSC down 9%, APWR down 8%, ZOLT down 7%……….wind got smacked even though the DOW was up by 1%. No rhyme nor reason other than the past 4 days , wind stocks were way up to the tune of 25%-35% each. As the retailers say’, ”its on SALE”’ for the upcoming week!

Now it appears that China’s home market for solar products is facing a very dim future as well from decades of pollution.

ABCs reflect solar radiation back to space by absorbing heat in the atmosphere.

In China, ABCs can cut sunlight on the Earth’s surface in two ways. Fossil-fuel particles such as sulphates reflect and scatter rays back into space, while black carbon in soot, absorbs sunlight before it reaches the ground.

According to the report, smog blocks 10-25% of the sunlight that should be reaching terra firma in China.

This isn’t just a thin layer of pollution blocking out the sun. In some places, it can be a mile thick. It can stretch from the Arabian Peninsula to the Yellow Sea, sometimes drifting as far east as California.

The U.N report says “In China the observed dimming trend from the 1950s to the 1990s was about 3-4 per cent per decade, with the larger trends after the 1970s.”

I know all the tree huggers will call me a commie but the facts and numbers dont have an opinion ESPECIALLY when the CEO of STP says the same………
The Third China International New Energy Summit was held in Beijing on Nov. 27 2008. This two day summit attracted many industry leaders in renewable energy sectors, including solar, geothermal, and wind. According to China’s QQ news report, Suntech Power (STP) CEO Shi Zhengrong attended the summit, and told reporters that the company is expecting 0% gross margin in Q4, compared to 21.6% gross margin in Q3. The gross margin drop is mainly due to the dramatic drop of PV module ASP and the weakening Euro. It is reported that nearly half of the company’s factory has been shut down due to weakening demand.

According to Shi, he will not be surprised to see 0% gross margin in Q4, and the worst is yet to come. In recent developments, most solar companies slashed Q4 and 2009 outlook. Sunpower (SPWRA) lowered profit in Q4, citing the weakening Euro and weak demand. Solar PV makers Trina Solar (TSL), China Sunenergy (CSUN), Yingli Green (YGE), Canadian Solar (CSIQ), and JA Solar (JASO) all reported a dramatic sales drop in Q3 and presented gloomy pictures going forward. In the US, companies like First Solar (FSLR) and Energy Conversion Devices (ENER) are also hit hard by the financial crisis. This confirmed Shi’s concern that “The worst is yet to come in the solar sector”.

APWR is going to be in the drivers seat by year 2012 and will be WORLD LEADER in China by 2020.

Two small China cleantech plays
One is Fuel Tech (Nasdaq: FTEK), which manufactures air-pollution reduction systems for use in (among other applications) coal-fired power plants. Given that China may face a 10-gigawatt energy shortage this year and already plans to build the equivalent of one coal power plant per week over the next decade, this is an enormous opportunity for Fuel Tech, a company that’s already seeing adoption of its products in China and has just $87 million in trailing revenue and a $300 million market cap. And on Friday, the company announced that it had been awarded a second demonstration of its FUEL-CHEM product in the PRC.

Wind power is also a candidate for widespread adoption in China. According to a recent report in Shanghai Daily, the government is thinking about increasing subsidies to wind power to expand capacity from 5,600 megawatts to 100,000 megawatts by 2020. GE’s expertise in this niche means that it will almost certainly be involved, but small Chinese company A-Power Energy Generation Systems (Nasdaq: APWR) also moved in 2007 to “become a full-scale producer of high-quality wind turbines,” according to Chairman and CEO Jinxiang Lu.

According to the CREIA report, Wind Force 12 in China, China’s current wind energy plan is to reach 20 Gigawatts (GW) (2) by 2020. Germany, the world wind energy leader today, has just under 17GW. However experts within the Chinese industry believe that 40GW can be delivered within 15 years; rising to ten times this by 2050. This scale of wind power would need 20,000 typical modern wind turbines by 2020 and the investment generated could be worth USD 40 billion; putting China on track to become the world’s biggest wind energy market by 2020.

The report goes on to highlight the full extent of China’s total wind energy resources.

Li Junfeng, Director of CREIA and the report’s lead author said, “According to the China Meteorological Administration there is enough viable wind resource in China to power the whole country completely. The capacity of wind potential in viable windy locations in China could match current total national capacity of all China’s existing power stations combined, four times over.”

Greenpeace and the EWEA co-sponsored the report, which was produced by CREIA after they were inspired by the renewable energy vision laid out in European reports like the original Wind Force 12. Both Greenpeace and EWEA have been involved in consultations on China’s first Renewable Energy Law, which comes into force on January 1 and is widely expected to mark the take off of the Chinese wind industry.

time will tell if I am right………my money is where my MOUTH is!
1) If APWR meets its’ 2008 EPS estimate of a minimum of $1.04 per share, it will report Q4 EPS of $.48. That is a pretty nice number (best Q ever) and will certainly give credence to its’ 2009 projection of $2.00 minimum. Keep in mind that we are talking minimum numbers here so things could even be better, especially in 2009 which is not far away.
2) We hear a lot about the rate of growth of the wind turbine markets in the various countries around the world. China had a higher growth rate in 2006-2007 than any other country and was way ahead of the second place finisher. The wind turbine market grew at a rate of 127% in China in the 2006-2007 period. In second place was France with a 56% growth rate followed by the U.S. at 45%. And with China’s huge need for clean energy, things are just cranking up.
3) At the Roth conference last week, APWR spent some time talking about their emphasis on large turbines (the 2.7 MW brand). A-Power is going to open a new and important market in China with these monster turbines. It took about ten years for the wind turbine industry to reach a high usage rate for turbines of 1 MW or larger. The world is now at an approximate 95% usage rate for those size turbines. But when we look at turbines at or larger than 2.5 MW, we find we have a 2007 usage rate of just 6%. Yet these big turbines are the turbines of the future as they will provide much better returns to the users. In China, that is the market that APWR intends to create and dominate (while they also compete in the smaller turbine market). So with the big 2.7 MW turbine as its’ principal product, coupled with the huge, new production facility, along with the proven technology Fuhrlander has incorporated into these machines, APWR appears to have positioned itself to pull this thing off. They have the capital, the production facilities, the partners, the cash flow, the products, the technologies, the market, the management team, government support, environmental initiatives, and even revenues and earnings that are materializing at an exceptional rate. Now if we could just get this faltering economy and insane stock market turned around and out of our hair. Remember though, the market will turn up long before the economy does, and that is what draws our daily attention.
As always, just one opinion and only The Shadow knows for sure.
Jan