Two-Bullet Tuesday:
Finance  |  Clean Energy  |  Productivity  |  Tips  |  Trivia
November 1, 2016   
Here's your weekly 4-minute digest of bullets on finance, clean energy, productivity, and bizarre facts to entertain your friends.

For those of you in the US, I hope you took the chance to dress up in costume for Halloween yesterday. Our kids are just now coming down from last night's sugar high. But no apple bobbing this year. When asked about it, our son said, "No way! I'm not sticking my head in a bucket full of other people's spit." Ah, tradition...

Have a great week.

Chris Wedding, PhD
CEO, IronOak Energy
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What does IronOak Energy do?
Investment advisory + research
SOLAR
Solar stocks plummet:
What the hell?
  • Solar economics are largely unrelated to the price of oil, which is rarely used to produce electricity. But that doesn't stop the general public as well as very smart investors from linking the two. However, the bigger reasons for solar stocks underperformance this year is more about oversupply of panels and excess leverage. Here's a good article about it from GTM's new editor (congrats!) Stephen Lacey. Thankfully, the recent poor performance of solar panel stocks looks very different from the world's strong current and projected solar growth.
 
Solar prices hit 2.69 c/kwh in Mexico:
How low can we go?
  • First, let's give the solar industry a big pat on the back. At these prices, solar is often the cheapest option for any source of new electricity. But now let's ask, how are investors earning their yield? Well, the projects will be built from mid-2018 through 2019, so build costs will be cheaper. As an example, Deutsche Bank notes that solar panel prices are falling from 60 c/W in Q2 this year to 35 c/W in early 2017. Plus, the solar insolation in Mexico is often equal to or greater than the best locations in the US. Construction costs could also be lower due to lower labor costs. Finally, most organizations that build at these costs are likely to benefit from value created at multiple points â€” development, EPC, O&M â€” in addition to a purely finance-driven IRR.
ENERGY STORAGE  |  ELECTRIC VEHICLES
Self-Driving EVs:
Coast to Coast 2017, Baby!
  • Elon Musk is a master marketer. His latest headline lays out plans to have a Tesla drive from LA to NYC Time square without a human, even during charging. Check out their "snake charger" - yep, cool and creepy. But it's not just a publicity stunt; all new Teslas are intended to have this ability. This guy is thinking bigger than dozens of executives combined.
 
2016 a disappointing year for batteries:
Don't shoot the messenger

  • One day, the hype around batteries will match reality. But not yet. Accordingly, energy executives worry about an oversupply of lithium batteries and a pending "blood bath" and "price killing field" as prices "fall through the floor." Yikes, pass me the anti-depressants. Thanks to David Hunt writing at Energy Storage News for the coverage.
PRODUCTIVITY   |   TIPS   |   TRIVIA
A boring $150,000-per-year job:
(Almost) no one wants it
  • Why do we work? Well, for most, it's not just for the money. According to Malcom Gladwell in his bestseller Outlier, three things are required to make work satisfying â€” (1) autonomy, (2) complexity, and (3) a connection between effort and reward. So, does your job have these attributes? How about the jobs of your staff? If not, how can you change that?

We have two stomachs:
Or so the Japanese dessert maker will tell us

  • How often have you, or the kiddos in your life, said yes to dessert, just after saying how full your stomach was from the main meal? It's a regular occurrence in our household. The word for this two-stomach phenomenon â€” one for entrees, one for sweets — comes from the wise Japanese. They call it "betsu bara," which literally means "separate stomach." After three years living in that wonderful and unusual island country, this phrase still conjures up a smile. It also makes for a nice trivia bit to empower you to say yes to that carrot cake and coffee after the main course.
 
ABOUT IRONOAK ENERGY
IronOak Energy  |  Catalysts for Clean Energy Investment    
  • Investment â€” Due Diligence, Deal Sourcing
  • Experts â€” Deep Research, Go-to-Market Planning, Complex Modeling
  • Team — PhD and MBA Rigor, Experience in 25 Countries
Copyright © 2016 IronOak Energy Capital, All rights reserved.


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