For 2013 the top performing U.S. ETF was the Guggenheim Solar (TAN), up 122% (beating out an inverse VIX)
In just the last couple weeks you have China plowing $10 billion into new coal capacity at the same time the state says it will support the near-bankrupt solar industry as it continues to sell below cost amid huge overcapacity.
You've got Germany doing a "Dash for coal" that has it back to 1990 levels i.e when many of the East German brown coal plants were still running while a major wind park developer is within days of insolvency.
On the same day the NYT prints "Spain's Solar Pullback Threatens Pocketbooks" New York's Governor Cuomo announces $1 Billion for New York state solar.
If you can navigate these cross-currents the rewards can be immense.
From Nick Butler's blog at the Financial Times:
In a provocative paper published by the Institute of Economic Affairs just before Christmas Professor Colin Robinson, one of Britain’s most senior energy economists, says that the energy sector in the UK has been “effectively renationalised”. The language is strong and the case overstated. The claim is not true in any literal sense. Companies are not being taken over or expropriated by any Government agency. There has been no transfer of ownership. But behind the rhetoric is a real trend. There has been a transfer of effective control, the consequences of which are pushing large parts of the sector back under Government authority.
Professor Robinson’s paper focuses on the UK. But the trend is not restricted to Britain. In different ways a similar shift is taking place in Germany, Japan, and even to a limited extent in the US.
In what has always been a hybrid sector built on a mixture of public policy and private capital the balance of power is shifting year by year. In each of these countries and many others Government is now determining outcomes to a degree unseen since the wave of privatisation in the 1980s.
Of course Government has already played a big role in energy issues not least through the tax system. In the UK the percentage take on petrol is almost 80 per cent. Tax also shapes the pattern of development in the North Sea. The oil and gas industry is one of the few sectors with its own unique tax regime.
But in recent years two other forms of intervention have become more common. The first is the attempt to control the fuel mix. This starts with the various prohibitions. By Government decree the nuclear sector in Germany is being run down and not replaced. In France despite the country’s long history of mining and substantial deposits of shale gas and tight oil there is to be no fracking. In Japan the nuclear sector is closed for the moment and perhaps forever. In the US regulations to control power stations emissions will lead to the closure of coal fired power stations....MORE
