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As the massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico continues to spread and affects both commerce and the environment, we’ve been taking a look at the disclosures companies are making. This morning we looked at concerns disclosed by companies (other than BP) within the oil sector.  In this post, we’ll include some of the disclosures from companies in other sectors.

Validus Holdings Ltd. (VR), a reinsurance company (it sells insurance protection to insurance companies) that provides coverage to property and shipping industries, filed an 8-K and press release on April 30 with loss estimates, one of the few companies so far to put a dollar figure on the spill.  It stated: “Based on an industry loss estimate of $1.3 billion, Validus expects its losses to be in the range of $38 million to $45 million. These loss estimates are net of reinstatement premiums, reinsurance, retrocessional and other recoveries.”  Validus added that the loss is “well within [its] expected large loss load for the quarter and the company has additional reinsurance in place if the ultimate industry loss increases above the current estimate.” It added, though, that its actual losses might “vary materially” from its estimates.

Companies that depend on tourism for revenues are also bracing for losses.

For example, in the 10-Q that West Marine, Inc. (WMAR) filed on May 12, the company, which sells boats and boat-related products and services, said that the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico may have a “substantial impact on boating usage in the area.”  The company has more than 300 stores in 38 states, Canada, and Puerto Rico, and it appears from its website that about a third of those stores are located in states with Gulf coastlines.  West Marine explained that “As we are entering into peak boating season, the continuing underwater leaks and resulting oil spill may have adverse effects on our results of operations by reducing demand for our marine products….”

Grocery chain Winn Dixie Stores, Inc. (WINN) filed a 10-Q on May 10 which noted that revenues in the fishing, tourism, and shipping industries are likely to suffer. Winn Dixie’s filing stated:  ”We have stores in the Gulf Coast region, on the west coast of Florida and the Florida Keys. A decrease in tourism in these areas as a result of the spill may have a negative impact on our sales in these locations.”  Winn Dixie is also trying to reassure customers that the seafood it sells is safe.  Its website now has a page with a letter to customers stating, in part:  ”We understand that you may have concerns due to the recent oil spill, so we want to remind you that, as always, all of our seafood is checked by local inspectors before it comes into our warehouse. It is then checked again by our local Seafood Associates before it is placed on display for sale.”  Given today’s news that tar balls are now washing up on Florida’s shores (although tests are underway to confirm that they originated from the BP spill), it seems likely that the accident will harm a wider geographical area than BP first predicted, and that Winn Dixie’s concerns are justified.

Hibernia Homestead Bancorp (HIBE), a bank that serves the New Orleans metropolitan area, filed a 10-Q on May 17 which reported that the company is currently evaluating the “potential effects” on its customers.  It added, “The future effects of the oil spill could impact the Company and our earnings, but until more is known about the magnitude of the situation, it is premature to reasonably determine the impact on the Bank’s loan portfolio.”

BP filed another 6-K update on the oil spill just yesterday to report its efforts to stop the leak, drill “relief wells” (which it says will take “some three months to complete from the commencement of drilling”), and contain and recover the oil that is spreading.  It states that over 650 vessels are involved in the recovery effort, that it has recovered 6.3 million gallons of “oily liquid”, and that

“…over 19,000 personnel from BP, other companies and government agencies are currently involved in the response to this incident.  So far 15,000 claims have been filed and 2,600 have already been paid.  BP has also received almost 60,000 calls into its help lines.”

Clearly, the oil spill will continue to have a great impact on the Gulf area, its businesses, and its residents.  It’s also apparent that the claims for losses will be both numerous and costly.

From time to time, we’ll continue to watch as companies update their filings and disclose how the oil spill is affecting them.

Image source: IBRRC via Flickr

“Can I get my picture taken with him? Can we please go on a tour to see the solar panels? What was your college major? Do you know much about nanotechnology?” were just a few of the questions posed by high school students who visited EPA’s Research Triangle Park campus on Earth Day 2010 to hear environmental advocate Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. speak.

Outdoors, under clear blue skies, the 40 students from Hillside, Jordan, Northern, and Southern High Schools in Durham focused their full attention on Mr. Kennedy as he passionately shared multiple stories and statistics to demonstrate that protecting our nation’s environmental resources makes economic sense. The hidden costs of getting our energy from non-renewable resources and accounting for the true costs of fossil fuels, as well as developing the infrastructure for renewable energy like solar, wind, and geothermal power, were themes that particularly inspired the students.

No texting, no talking. All eyes were glued on Kennedy, a senior attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council, throughout his 1-hour talk as he offered a range of topics to pique their teenage minds as they consider subjects to explore in college and as careers: environmental science, engineering, law, politics, environmental justice, math, and history to name a few. In addition to Kennedy’s environmental anecdotes, he also shared personal stories including his trips to the White House as a child to visit his uncle, John F. Kennedy, in the Oval Office. I was in awe.

As Kennedy’s inspirational talk concluded, we did have many questions answered. YES, you can get your picture taken with Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and YES you can take a tour to learn about our newly-installed solar panels. Students from Northern High School went on an impromptu tour of our environmentally-friendly building, learned about EPA’s air pollution research, and talked to several employees about their educations and their jobs. As for the nanotechnology question posed to me by a high school junior, I was “saved” at the last minute in the EPA Café line by running into a co-worker who does research in the area.

You can learn more about Kennedy’s Earth Day talk at EPA at http://www.allbusiness.com/government/government-bodies-offices/14335415-1.html or http://www.dpsnc.net/news/frontpage-news/a-kennedy-kind-of-earth-day/?searchterm=kennedy%20epa. To read about the EPA Administrator’s visit to Southern High School last fall, go to http://www.dpsnc.net/news/community-news/president2019s-cabinet-member-chooses-southern-to-speak/?searchterm=EPA%20administrator.

About the Author: Kelly Leovic manages EPA’s Environmental and Community Outreach Program in Research Triangle Park and has worked for the EPA as an environmental engineer since 1987, though this is the first time she had the opportunity to hear a Kennedy speak in person. She has three children and loves to inspire them, and anyone else who will listen, to protect our environment.

It has been nearly a month since the Transocean Ltd. Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded on April 20, killing 11 workers and unleashing a torrent of crude oil into the Gulf of Mexico. BP PLC (BP) – which has a 65% interest in the exploration well called Mississippi Canyon 252 – continues to lose millions of dollars each day.  Its credibility has also taken a hit because of the company’s inability to stop the leak.

Since the spill occurred, BP has filed nearly two dozen separate 6-Ks to provide regular updates on the company’s efforts to contain the oil spill and mitigate its damages. (We don’t generally write about 6-Ks, so it might help to know that foreign companies use them to report material disclosures; they’re similar to the 8-Ks that U. S. companies file.)

In a May 10 filing, BP stated:

“Provided BP can stem the well and clean the spill within a reasonable time, the company has adequate liquidity and financial headroom to meet immediate costs, in our view. However, it is still too early to estimate with any degree of confidence the full future impact on BP from the spill, as the causes of the incident have not yet been fully investigated. Litigation involving the well’s owners and various contractors … may take several years to play out. The effectiveness of BP’s actions to mitigate the environmental impact of the spill will be important in the final assessment of the incident and any long-term reputational damage could be significant.”

But what about other companies that depend on the Gulf of Mexico for their success?

To answer that question, we researched numerous SEC filings submitted by companies other than BP. Although many companies say it’s too early to predict their damages, it’s clear that companies are bracing for a variety of losses.

In this first of two posts related to the spill, we’ll look at some of the companies within the oil sector.  Later today, our second post will include filing disclosures from companies in other sectors.

A number of companies warned that the spill could prompt new regulations, with unpredictable results. Houston-based Noble Energy, Inc. (NBL) filed a quarterly report on April 29 noting simply that “we cannot predict how government agencies will respond to the incident or whether changes in laws and regulations concerning operations in the Gulf of Mexico, including the ability to obtain drilling permits, will result.”

Anadarko Petroleum Corp. (APC) filed a 10-Q on May 4 that also expressed concern about the impact of new regulations, including calls from government officials and federal agencies for increased inspections of deepwater drilling operations in the Gulf.  That, and other regulatory changes, the company said:

“…may result in substantial cost increases or delays in our offshore exploration and development activities, which could materially impact our business, financial condition and results of operations.”

In the quarterly report that Marine Petroleum Trust (MARPS) filed May 17, the company – which hasn’t been directly affected by the spill yet – stated that it may be adversely impacted as the oil slick spreads, as well as from new, more stringent regulations.

Likewise, in the 10-Q that ATP Oil & Gas Corp. (ATPG) filed on May 10, the company expressed concern that the government’s moratorium on offshore drilling permits, which is currently set to expire May 28, may be extended.  Stating the obvious, ATP Oil & Gas added, “A prolonged interruption in our drilling or production operations would adversely affect our financial position, results of operations and cash flows.”

Hercules Offshore, Inc. (HERO), which provides offshore contract drilling, liftboat and inland barge services, added in the 10-Q it filed April 30 that the spill could damage its vessels or delay its operations.  That potential damage and/or delay, along with potential regulatory changes, “…could reduce our revenues and increase our operating costs, resulting in reduced cash flows and profitability and could impact compliance with our Credit Agreement.” In the more recent 8-K that Hercules filed May 13, the company said it has three jackup drilling rig operations that fall within limited exceptions to the moratorium that should be able to complete their work during the moratorium period. However, it doesn’t expect new contracts until after the moratorium is lifted. It then stated: “If the moratorium is extended beyond May 28, 2010, it could also affect our other jackup drilling rigs in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico regardless of contract status. We believe that some of our contracts may not be fully permitted, or may not be fully permitted for the entire duration of the contract.”

Newpark Resources, Inc. (NR), a diversified oil and gas supplier, filed an S-3 on May 12 to state that its Gulf Coast customers “may possibly be forced to curtail or cease operations in the areas impacted by the spill, resulting in less demand for our drilling fluids and waste disposal services.”  The company said it might also have to suspend operations and could have trouble delivering its products by barge.  ”Either of these events could potentially result in a reduction in revenues or an increase in our costs,” the filing stated.

And finally, Blue Dolphin Energy Co. (BDCO) filed a 10-Q on May 17; in addition to the increased costs and potential delays that may come with increased federal regulations, the company noted that increased regulations “may lead to increased difficulties obtaining insurance coverage on economically manageable terms.”

This afternoon, we’ll examine how other companies outside the oil industry are being affected by the BP oil spill.  Please check back with us for that report.

Image source: uscgd8 via Flickr

Howard Lovy wrote:

A funny thing happened on the way to the green economy. Real-life market forces have a way of foiling the best-laid plans of mice, men, and government incentives. When petroleum diesel was 4 bucks a gallon a couple of years ago, biodiesel seemed like such a deal. But then, says Derrin Leppek, of Detroit-based biodiesel catalyst developer NextCAT, “the price of petroleum diesel dropped, biodiesel was no longer competitive, and soybean prices went through the roof.”

So, says Leppek, 80 percent of the biodiesel producers in the United States sit idle. Government regulations and environmental concerns may be increasing demand for biodiesel, but market realities are holding them back. That’s where NextCAT comes in with what it says is a solution to the problem. Its technology can take biomass that’s less expensive than food feedstocks—like soybeans, corn, or sunflower—and convert nonfood feedstocks like algae and recycled cooking oil into fuel.

NextCAT, which is located at the TechTown business incubator in Detroit, signed an option agreement to produce technology developed at the National Biofuels Energy Laboratory at Wayne State University in Detroit. The company also recently received $50,000 from the Michigan Microloan Fund and another $50,000 from the First Step Fund, newly created by the New Economy Initiative, a Detroit-based philanthropic partnership.

That $100,000 will take the company a long way—far enough to conduct its first pilot plant test sometime in the next 90 days. Leppek is a technology commercialization fellow at Wayne State on loan full-time to NextCAT. The university pays his salary. Founder Charles Salley and other executives are working without compensation.

Leppek says the company has “also received indications” that it will receive a …Next Page »

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Environmental News Network: Energy giant BP was making some progress on Monday with its efforts to contain the oil gushing forth from a ruptured well in the Gulf of Mexico,

But the stakes are high amid fears of an ecological and economic calamity along the U.S. Gulf Coast. Investors have already knocked around $30 billion off BP’s value and its share price will be closely watched this week.

After several tough weeks, this is shaping up to be another rough one for the company. A U.S. Labor Department official told the Financial Times that BP has a “systematic safety problem” at its refineries.

“BP executives, they talk a good line. They say they want to improve safety,” Jordan Barab, a senior official at the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, told the paper.

“But it doesn’t always translate down to the refineries themselves. They still have a systematic safety problem.”

Last year U.S. regulators slapped a record $87.4 million fine on BP for failing to fix safety violations at its Texas City refinery after a deadly 2005 explosion.

BP reported limited success at containing the oil flow on Sunday but a skeptical Obama administration downplayed it.

After other attempts to contain the spill failed, BP succeeded in inserting a tube into the well and capturing some oil and gas. The underwater operation used guided robots to insert a small tube into a 21-inch (53-cm) pipe, known as a riser, to funnel the oil to a ship at the surface.

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Bruce V. Bigelow wrote:

It was just over a year ago that some of San Diego’s biggest life sciences research institutions announced the formation of SD-CAB, the San Diego Center for Algae Biotechnology, amid some outsized calls to make San Diego the top of the mountain in biofuels development. Since then, we’ve continued to see occasional flurries of activity, including startup financings, industry partnerships, and development plans.

At another level, though, a lot of hard work remains to make algal biofuels a reality. An all-day symposium held last month at the Salk Institute highlighted some of the basic R&D that still needs to get done. A two-day Algae World Summit that begins today at the Del Mar Hilton is more of the same, with sessions on “real world” experiences in growing algae, “meeting the challenges” of growing algae in industrial quantities, and practical considerations in project development.

Jose Olivares outlined some of these technical issues for me when he came through San Diego a few weeks ago. Olivares, who was a deputy biosciences leader at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, is now executive director of, the National Alliance for Advanced Biofuels and Bioproducts (NAABB), a consortium of industry, academic, and government researchers. Locally, the alliance includes UC San Diego, as wells as some scientists from HR BioPetroleum and Kai BioEnergy.

Basically, what Olivares told me is that while it is scientifically possible to make gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel from algae, a host of complex engineering and production problems must be solved before algal biofuels production can become an economically viable industry.

“Our mission is to cover innovative technologies that can be brought to bear on any and all parts of algal biofuels production,” Olivares said. Officially, the NAABB’s mission is to lay the technical foundations for a scalable, responsible, and affordable renewable biofuels industry. “We can bring basic scientific principles to prove that the technologies work, and if they don’t work, to establish under what conditions they don’t work,” Olivares said.

As a national alliance, Olivares said the NAABB is focusing its …Next Page »

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William G. Klehm III wrote:

The first step in getting any venture ecosystem going is capital formation. With all the retired auto industry execs in the region, there should be no shortage of angel investors. But someone has to organize them and convince them that they are angel investors—and that investing in local innovation is a worthy expenditure of their time and money.

When the engineers at Ford were asked how to improve fuel economy in the early days of the Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFÉ) challenge, they would simply say “cut the belts.” By this they meant, get rid of the expensive “parasitic” losses caused by power steering pumps and air conditioning compressors (which were driven by belts that tied into the engine).

One of the things Detroit could do is figuratively “cut the belts” that drive all those ponderous and inefficient business systems, and look for new ways to promote and adopt broader use of new technologies. In that vein, here’s a specific suggestion: How about setting up smaller, and more user-friendly trade show events that make it easier for small companies to get their technologies in front of the big auto manufacturers?

In order for these technologies to provide the kind of long-term return on investment that investors will pay attention to, they must be able to sustain a competitive advantage over time. Detroit’s major automakers should pay heed to the way major companies like Qualcomm and IBM have helped to protect their ecosystem of suppliers and affiliated companies by encouraging them to patent and license their key technologies. One reason why Gentex (NASDAQ: GNTX) trades at 19 times earnings is because its patents protect its technologies for rearview mirrors with integrated electronics. Patents provide the ability to create a competitive advantage, and defend it.

In creating these investable vehicles based on sustainable technologies, Detroit also must leverage the large talent pool in its own back yard—this is particularly true for tactical and operational talent.

Value is created by making products that can be produced today using commonly available resources and leveraging available expertise. Scientists, governments, and venture capitalists are all enamored with the dream of changing the world with a new “shiny box,” but new shiny boxes cannot be made at scale for years. The reality is that the only way we will become oil independent is to make improvements to vehicles that can be implemented tomorrow. This means that the components need to be made from available materials with available manufacturing processes.

Sustainable and patentable technologies still make this possible, and Detroit has the innovative minds and manufacturing expertise to make it happen. In order to rebuild the “Detroit” supply chain, everyone must contribute—the machinists at toolmakers are some of the best resources for “makeable” ideas. Silicon Valley is filled with very smart people with great ideas, but those ideas often cannot be made affordably. No idea can impact the auto industry if it cannot be manufactured perfectly a million times at a price consumers are willing to pay. With all of the manufacturing experience in the Detroit area they have a distinct competitive advantage. All those assets just need to be organized.

[Editor’s note: To help launch Xconomy Detroit, we’ve queried our network of Xconomists and other innovation leaders around the country for their list of the most important things that entrepreneurs and innovators in Michigan can do to reinvigorate their regional economy.]

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UNDERWRITERS AND PARTNERS

Read WRI’s formal comments to the World Bank Group on its Energy Strategy Review.

Download WRI’s Comments >>> (PDF, 12 pages, 162 Kb)

A New Energy Strategy for the World Bank Group

This year, the World Bank Group (WBG) is reviewing its decade-old Energy Strategy, and is expected to develop and finalize a new Energy Strategy in early 2011. As the basis for this discussion, the World Bank Group has authored an “Energy Strategy Approach Paper” outlining the Bank’s planned approach for energy sector lending.

The paper proposes a renewed focus on improving access and reliability of energy supply and facilitating a shift to more environmentally friendly and sustainable energy sector development. At the same time, the Bank hopes to improve their operational and financial performance and strengthen governments in borrowing countries so that they can achieve the twin objectives of greater access to energy and a sustainable energy supply.

The Energy Strategy Review Process

As part of the Energy Strategy preparation, the World Bank Group is conducting a comprehensive multi-stakeholder consultation process. The first round of face-to-face and electronic consultations is taking place from January to June 2010. During this consultation phase, civil society has the opportunity to raise concerns over the current policy and the Approach paper, and suggest recommendations for the future strategy.

Based off this first consultation phase, the World Bank staff and the Committee of Development Effectiveness (CODE) will develop a draft energy strategy to be released in September 2010. A second round of web-based multi-stakeholder consultations will then take place from November to December 2010, giving stakeholders an opportunity to provide their reactions and input on the draft strategy. These comments will be addressed and the draft strategy will be presented to and discussed by the Board of Governors in early 2011. A final Energy Strategy is scheduled to be released in April 2011.

WRI’s Comments on the Energy Strategy

The World Resources Institute is actively involved in the consultation process. We participated in the March 5, 2010 Washington, DC face-to face-consultation and submitted comments on the “Energy Strategy Approach Paper” through the World Bank’s electronic system. The World Resources Institute’s comments on the World Bank Energy Strategy review are below:

Download the PDF >>> (PDF, 12 pages, 162 Kb)

Shares in BP plc are trading calmer on Friday, but the financial fallout from the oil giant's disastrous oil spill off the coast of Louisiana may not be over yet. 

"Our sense is the fall in the share price is an over-reaction," Jon Rigby, an analyst at UBS AG said in note to clients. 

"However, the uncertainty of the eventual issue, its cost, and who is responsible, plus the longer-term implications will make investors rightly cautious."

As of Thursday's close, BP's share price is down more than 9% since April 19, representing a loss of US$17-billion in market capitalisation.

Based on estimates, the current clean up effort could cost roughly US$360-million until the first relief well is drilled, but significant landfall is likely to result in even higher costs, perhaps in the billions. But it is unlikely to be US$17-billion, Mr. Rigby said, nor is it likely to be solely borne by BP.

"The problem for equity investors is the uncertainty," the analyst said. 

While he reiterated his Buy rating on the stock, he acknowledged a vacuum of financial information. Without a clear idea of the extent of the spill, or who is responsible, he said it is impossible to make a judgement as to how the costs will be allocated.

"What is more the incident is so unprecedented the legal and reputational implications are also impossible to judge at this stage." 

David Pett

Gulf oil spill nears Louisiana coast. (Photo: ABC News)

By Tom Kessler
Green Right Now

By some estimates, it now appears the Gulf oil spill could be months away from being capped and may surpass the scale of the infamous Exxon Valdez of the 1980s. And that has the White House today telling ABC News that there will be no new domestic offshore drilling until the investigation into the Gulf of Mexico oil spill is complete.

But a review of government testimony and the oil industry’s safety record in deep water drilling suggests that the federal government may never get the reliable assurances that it is seeking. Indeed, the most troubling aspect of the Gulf disaster is that efforts of  top oil industry experts and the U.S. Coast Guard have had no impact on containing the spill thus far.

The Deepwater Horizon exploration well was operated by BP Oil, the largest oil and gas producer in the U.S., and owned by Transocean Ltd., the world’s largest offshore drilling contractor. The U.S. Coast Guard estimates that 210,000 gallons a day are leaking from the wellhead deep in the gulf. The rig operating the well exploded and started burning April 20. Southern winds are pushing the oil onto the Louisiana shoreline, endangering beaches and wildlife in the region.

John Amos, founder and president of SkyTruth, a non-profit organization that investigates environmental disasters using satellite technology, said this “could be a catastrophic spill for the U.S.”

“What’s of greater concern to me is not just the numbers (of gallons spilled), but however big it is, it has clearly overwhelmed one of the world’s largest oil companies and the United States Coast Guard,” Amos told CNBC.

According to Bloomberg reports, the disaster that killed 11 workers on the oil rig and resulted in this massive oil slick, was triggered when a safety device on the ocean floor failed to cut a pipe. Ron Bohuslavicky, senior well-control instructor at Well Control School in Houston, told Bloomberg that all sub-sea oil wells are equipped with steel blades known as shear rams that are supposed to slash through the pipe at the top of the well during dangerous pressure surges when all other safety devices fail.

U.S. study found high failure rate of devices designed to stop spills

But Bloomberg reports that a 2002 study commissioned by the U.S. Minerals Management Service, the agency that oversees the offshore oil industry, found that 50 percent of the shear rams tested failed to cut through pipe and halt the flow of oil.

SkyTruth’s Amos was among those who testified about deep water drilling before the senate’s Energy and Natural Resources Committee last November. He warned then that there have been several instances of oil spills that were notable for their “magnitude and the potential risk they expose.”

Among other examples, Amos cited a deep-water oil accident off the coast of Australia last August in which oil and gas flowed uncontrollably for 73 days. He said the spill gushed at up to 2,000 barrels per day, according to estimates by the Australian government’s Department of Resources, Energy and Tourism.

Testifying at that same senate hearing on Environmental Stewardship and Offshore Energy Production, BP America’s Vice President of Gulf of Mexico Exploration David Rainey said “releases from oil and gas operations are rare.”

“To be clear, any release of hydrocarbons from our operations into the environment is unacceptable, and we continue to invest in research and technology to drive us to our ultimate goal of zero discharge,” Rainey testified.

Rainey touted several examples of the technologies that reduce accidental releases, including “down hole flow control valves that shut down the well automatically if damage to the surface equipment is detected,” “blowout preventer technology which includes redundant systems and controls,” and “new and improved well control techniques which maintain constant control of the fluids in the wellbore.”

BP in 2009: “Voluntary programs” to prevent spills have been “very successful”

Despite the industry’s safety efforts, the U.S. Minerals and Management Service has logged more than 1,400 offshore oil drilling accidents between 2001 and 2007. The MMS has identified human error as a factor in many of the incidents.

As a result of the findings, the Associated Press reports, the MMS is developing new rules that will require rig operators to develop programs focused on preventing human error. The agency also called for audits once every three years on programs to prevent human error. But BP has opposed such “extensive prescriptive regulations.”

“We believe industry’s current safety and environmental statistics demonstrate that the voluntary programs implemented … have been and continue to be very successful,” BP vice president Richard Morrison wrote in a September letter opposing the proposed rules.

Meanwhile, Deepwater Horizon operator Transocean continues to proclaim on its web site that “our operations will be conducted in an incident-free workplace, all the time, everywhere.”

Wind energy isn’t just clean, renewable and plentiful — it’s a major source of current and future jobs in the U.S. That wind-win situation is the message breezing into nine states over the next month as one of GE’s giant, 131-foot wind turbine blades — which is nearly half a football field long — travels 2,436 miles as part of our “Capture the Wind” tour that just kicked-off. Last year in our “Blade Runners” series on GE Reports, we traveled with driver Chris Lewis of Landstar Ranger trucking as he hauled one of the massive blades from the Iowa factory of our supplier TPI Composites to GE’s Renewable Energy Global Headquarters in upstate New York. This year, we’re back with Chris at the wheel as the blade snakes its way to the huge Windpower 2010 conference in Dallas, Texas — with people all along the way signing the blade in support of clean energy. In the video below, it gets the marching band treatment as it leaves the factory of our supplier MFG, which stands for Molded Fiber Glass Companies, in Aberdeen, S.D.

As GE’s Vivek Kemp explains in the clip below, the signatures can mean support of more clean energy manufacturing in the U.S., more clean energy itself, or support for new government policies that will help juice the growing clean energy economy with stronger renewable energy standards. To highlight the personal role that everyone can play in making clean energy a reality, the blade will carry the message: “I’m helping to build America’s energy future.”

In the clip below, South Dakota Lt. Governor Dennis Daugaard explains the huge impact that green energy jobs are having on his state. But he notes there’s a catch: Despite being a net exporter of energy, there are huge missed opportunities in South Dakota as electricity transmission and distribution issues prevent them from exporting even more.

You can follow the progress of the “Capture the Wind” tour – and see daily updates from Vivek on the road — on www.facebook.com/ecomagination. Below are some of the photos shot during the first couple of days of the trip.

Gallery guide: Click on the small half-circles on the right and left side of the gallery to see more images. To magnify or reduce an image, either click on it or roll your mouse wheel.

GE Reports will also be providing updates over the next few weeks as the blade winds its way to Texas. If you’re in one of the cities below, stop by and put your John Hancock on it. And if you pass Chris on the highway, honk if you like wind!

Tour stops:

• April 30: Top Crop Wind Farm – Ransom, Ill.
• May 6: Center of Science and Industry Museum – Columbus, Ohio
• May 7: Clean Air Fair – Columbus, Ohio
• May 13: GE Appliance Park – Louisville, Ky.
• May 15: Louisville Zoo – Louisville, Ky.
• May 19: Molded Fiber Glass Companies – Gainesville, Texas
• May 23: Windpower 2010 – Dallas, Texas

* Read the launch announcement
* Track the blade’s journey on this map
* See daily updates on http://www.facebook.com/ecomagination

Learn more in these GE Reports stories and videos:
* “Blade runners Part 1: How 134-foot wind blades are born”
* “Blade runners Part 2: Truckin’ down I-80 with GE’s wind blade”
* “Blade runners Part 3: GE’s wind blade breezes into town”
* “$450M manufacturing investment powers offshore wind”
* “Took a whole lot of trying, just to get up that hill”
* “Renewables study: 274,000 jobs can be added”
* “Builder of largest US wind farm inks $1.4B turbine deal”

Bruce V. Bigelow wrote:

When Ira Ehrenpreis came through San Diego a couple of weeks ago, the cleantech investment partner at Palo Alto, CA-based Technology Partners said there was no such thing as a cleantech investment category when his firm began investing 25 years ago. At that time, Technology Partner’s investments in environmentally friendly technologies amounted to less than 1 percent of the firm’s portfolio.

In contrast, VCs invested $100 million in cleantech deals during the first week of 2010, according to Ehrenpreis. Even during the credit crisis and nationwide recession, cleantech has shown over the past two years that it’s an enduring sector. Ehrenpreis told the San Diego Venture Group that cleantech is emerging as “the third leg of a VC, along with IT and the life sciences”—which traditionally represent the two largest VC investment categories.

Other analysts emphatically agreed.

But it is difficult to quantify just how big cleantech has gotten, because it is measured by different investment monitoring organizations in fundamentally different ways.

For example, the National Venture Capital Association (NVCA) and PricewaterhouseCoopers count renewable energy and many energy deals as cleantech investments in their quarterly MoneyTree Report. Also included are VC investments in air filters, purification and monitoring equipment; water treatment and waste disposal systems, and a dozen other environmentally oriented categories. But Dow Jones VentureSource counts energy and utility deals separately from cleantech deals in its surveys—and uses its own list of nearly a dozen industries to define what cleantech is.

The San Francisco-based Cleantech Group says it coined the term “cleantech” when the firm was founded in 2002 and it began analyzing VC investments in energy efficiency, biofuels, transportation, and other clean and green technologies as a distinct sector. The group specializes in cleantech market research and business intelligence, and its cleantech data has been screened and honed to perfection. But you can’t compare it with the NVCA or Dow Jones data, because the group combines its cleantech investment data for the U.S. with the countries of Central America, Mexico, Canada as part of the North America Region.

In North America, cleantech startups raised $3.5 billion in 298 VC investments last year, a 42 percent decline from 2008, when there were 314 deals, according to the Cleantech Group.

The MoneyTree Report, which counts only …Next Page »

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UNDERWRITERS AND PARTNERS

Greenwire: Citing high costs, Royal Dutch Shell PLC announced that it plans to hold off on expanding oil sands projects for at least five years.

Marvin Odum, the Americas head for the energy company, said the oil sands have become one of the most expensive places to build and extract oil, so Shell will wait on expanding the Athabasca Oil Sands Project and instead focus on getting more production from its existing infrastructure.

The company’s retreat comes after strong declarations in 2007 that it could eventually mine almost 800,000 barrels of bitumen a day. The oil sands were set to be a boom for Shell, which managed a per-barrel profit 66 percent higher than its other assets in the first year of production at AOSP. But the expansion plans have been more costly than originally thought, rising from $9.4 billion in 2006 to $14.3 billion this year, and predicted oil prices won’t cover that difference.

That has led Shell to focus more on a pipeline to Asia or offshore oil in Alaska, Brazil and the Gulf of Mexico. And simply increasing existing production in the oil sands could net Shell an extra 30,000 to 80,000 barrels daily above the current 255,000 barrels per day rate.

The oil sands have also been assailed with environmental complaints over high energy and water use and possible destruction to the land. Odum said Shell has a strong environmental record and that the greenhouse gas emissions in the oil sands were “not ridiculously high,” although he conceded the company could advertise that better (VanderKlippe/Ebner, Toronto Globe and Mail, April 28). – JP

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Greenwire: General Electric Co. could end up moving more of its work overseas with the United States “stalled” on renewable and nuclear energy development, CEO Jeffrey Immelt said during an interview yesterday.

Europe has invested heavily in wind energy, while Asia is quickly taking the lead on solar energy, Immelt said in Houston before the company’s annual shareholder meeting. China will install five times as much power capacity as the United States over the next five years, and the United States is building two of the 50 nuclear plants under construction worldwide, he said.

“Some leadership in Washington would be helpful,” Immelt said. “We’ve all done a disservice to the debate by hanging it as a ‘green initiative’ when really, it’s about energy security, energy productivity and pollution reduction.”

If the United States does not craft an energy policy that promotes the development of renewable energy and nuclear power, he said, GE will end up doing more business abroad. The company recently announced plans to invest about $200 million on offshore wind projects in the United Kingdom and Norway, creating about 2,000 jobs.

“We have to go where the action is,” Immelt said (L.M. Sixel, Houston Chronicle, April 28). – GN

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