"Green aka Alternative Energy is likely to take front and center stage next year.
The latest endeavor involved pumping CO2 gases back into the ground where they originally came from rather than allowing industry to pump these gasses into the air as they have for the past century and longer.
GE is providing Chevron, Exxon Mobile, and Shell with compression “trains” that will pump CO2 back into the ground to create the world’s largest carbon sequestration project. The goal is to pump 3.3 million tons of CO2 that are normally released when mining natural gas into an underground reservoir.
This project is expected to start in the next couple of years.
Although this may sound like a foolish endeavor there are obvious advantages. Natural gas comes from the ground and returning CO2 into the ground rather than continuing to harm the atmosphere may be a temporary solution to a much more complicated endeavor.
All of this is happening in Australia which has agreed to be responsible for the carbon storage underground after 15 years.
This is not a new concept. Underground storage of carbon dioxide has been going on for many years and has been monitored all that time. So far, nothing has escaped back into the atmosphere and it appears to be a safer method of handling CO2 than just pumping it into the air.
At any rate, if it is a success, then Australia could realize a sizable increase in income from the big gas companies over man years of time.
Certainly the 37-40 billion dollars GE is going to receive for the project will give the venerable firm a much needed boost in revenues over the next few years.
The storage of natural gas CO2 paves the way for so called “clean coal” which requires a similar sequestering of unwanted CO2 by products.
What we are seeing right now are interim steps to attempt to reduce the impact of global warming. We are in a transition phase from a world the depends on oil, natural gas, and coal for energy to a world that will be using a variety of new, non-polluting or lower polluting energies in the future.
This means a transition for investors as well.
Many investors will cling to the older energy systems since they have performed well in the past few years but the huge speculative market that we saw in 2007 is signaling the end of an era.
Certainly we could see another huge speculative rise in current energies but newer technologies are being embraced by the mass market consumer and the business consumer..." Martha Stokes, C.M.T.
Member of Market Technicians Association
Senior Technical Analyst: Decisions Unlimited, Inc.
Instructor and Developer of TechniTrader® Stock Market Courses
Martha Stokes, C.M.T. (c) copyright 2009 all rights reserved.
Disclaimer: All statements, whether expressed verbally or in writing are the opinions of TechniTrader®, its instructors and or employees, and are not to be construed as anything more than an opinion. Student/subscribers are responsible for making their own choices and decisions regarding all purchases or sales of stocks or issues. At no time is any stock or issue on any list written or sent to a student/subscriber by TechniTrader® and its employees to be construed as a recommendation to buy or sell any stock or issue. TechniTrader® is not a broker or an investment advisor it is strictly an educational service.