Alternative Energy Stocks as Growth Investments

It is possible to have a portfolio which is profitably invested in alternative energy stocks and funds. "Green" energy production is expected to be a multi-billion dollar industry by the year 2013.

The most recently developed wind-turbine technologies have made wind-produced energy which is both more cost efficient as well as more accessible. Newer state-of-the-art wind energy technologies are typically more market competitive with conventional energy technologies.

These state-of-the-art wind-power technologies don't even kill birds like the earlier models! Wind energy production is a growing and thriving business. Stocks of these companies would make an excellent addition to a growth or aggressive growth portfolio.

Also worth serious consideration are solar cell, or photovoltaic cell, technologies. These can be found implemented in private property lights, pocket calculators, US Coast Guard buoys and other applications. More and more they are found on the roofs of housing, commercial buildings and building complexes.

Costs associated with solar energy continue to become more affordable. Their energy efficiency (which is the ratio of the amount of work needed to produce their energy versus the amount of energy actually produced) is steadily rising.

As an example, the conversion efficiency of silicon cells has increased from a humble four percent in 1982 to over 20% for the most recent technologies. Photovoltaic cells create absolute no pollution as they generate electrical power. However, photovoltaic cells are not currently as cost efficient as "utility produced" electricity.

"PV" cells are not presently capable of producing industrial-production quantities of electricity due to their present constraints on space. However, areas where photovoltaic cell arrays can be utilized are increasingly available. In summary, costs are going down while efficiency is increasing for this alternative fuel technology.

Many alternative energy investment portfolio advisors are confident that green energies derived from water currents, tidal motion, and temperature differentials are poised to become a new and predominant form of clean energy.

The French are actually quite progressive with hydro-electric power generation. And research is being conducted in Scotland and the US along these same lines.

There are some concerns about the deterioration of metals in salt water, marine growth such as barnacles, and violent storms which have all created disruptions to energy production in the past.  However, these issues for the most part seem to be solved through the use of different, better materials. Ocean-produced energy has an enormous advantage because the timing of ocean currents and waves are well studied and reliable.

Investments in hydro-electric technology have grown in the past two decades. Hydro-electric power is clean but also limited by geography. While already important as a power source, older, large dams have had problems with disturbing aquatic life. Improvements have been made on those dams in to protect aquatic life, but these improvements are expensive. Consequently, the focus now is on low-impact "run-of-the-river" hydro-power plants, which do not have these ecological problems.

The fact is, the energy future is green, and investors would do well to wisely add alternative energy stocks and funds to their portfolios.