Most investors find sector-specific investments risky. However, with the surge in oil prices, it is advisable to explore energy investments to balance your self-directed IRA. Renewable energy sector has immense potential to develop. Recent government policies to boost renewable energy provide lucrative investment options in the sector.
Energy investments were practically unknown to the investor looking to protect his retirement portfolio, until recently. Even the passive investor is waking up to the volatile consequences of a series of disappointing economic events over the past few years. Investors need to have a complete understanding of the benefits of investing in energy assets through their self-directed IRAs.
Though a self-directed IRA provides you the freedom to select, invest and manage your portfolio, choosing a combination of direct and indirect energy investments makes your IRA portfolio powerful and balanced. Such a portfolio benefits from reduced taxes and asset protection. For example, you can avail tax benefits provided by the government, if you invest in renewable energy through your self-directed IRA.
Energy investments include investing in oil, natural gas, coal and renewable energy sources like solar energy, wind, or biomass etc. Investing in energy can take both the indirect and direct route. Energy investments through stocks and mutual funds form the indirect route whereas investments through limited partnerships or lease agreements take the direct route.
How to invest in energy?
In the current economic environment where oil prices reach higher levels everyday, investment options vary from picking the right oil stocks to investing in long-term master limited partnerships. Energy stocks that be...
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...ing wind power using windmills or wind turbines to create electricity. With an annual growth rate of over 30% in the last few decades particularly in Europe, wind energy is the fastest growing renewable energy next only to the biomass energy sector. Companies such as Vestas Wind Systems have increased their wind turbine capacities in line with huge capital inflow backing the wind sector.
Companies are adapting to energy-efficient business practices. As businesses increasingly continue to demand renewable energy, opportunities for green industries have grown immensely. Google’s $400 million investment in green energy has impacted its stock price positively. Likewise, GE Capital, ConocoPhillips and NRG Energy stocks have seen a positive rise in their stock prices after announcing plans to form a joint venture to invest $300 million on new energy development.
Its most known process of generating electricity would be movement of air through wind turbines. Wind power has two parts, mechanical and electrical systems. Mechanical systems are low speed and are used for mechanical tasks such as pumping water or grinding grain. Electrical systems are high speed and are used to generate electricity to power homes or schools. Many people feel that wind farms full of turbines, are aesthetically unpleasing, but wind power is a clean energy source and does not generate greenhouse gas emissions. It is a very abundant resource throughout the United States. Wind power is simple, relatively cheap, and low maintenance (Sambu). Wind power is again, free and very abundant so no matter how much we use now, we will still obtain enough in the
According to ExxonMobil, for future, the company will invest on exploration for oil and gas at around $34 billion annually. However, Exxon took criticism that investing on exploration for oil and gas affects to destroy climate by recklessly extracting and burning fossil fuel reserves. The company tried to rebuild its business image. Exxon’s recent investments have been in natural gas, which pollutes less CO2 than oil when it burned. The company spends about $6 billion a year for reducing pollute. Investing on exploration for oil and gas will generate revenue in
...onetary value, but in the end would make them fully sustainable. Third and finally, by continuing to offer financing and capital for new green energy sources and other companies to improve sustainability would not only help them reach their own green goals, but provide others with the ability to be fully sustainable.
The Shell Oil Company involves a group of energy and petrochemicals companies that operate globally. Shell employs over 92,000 employees and operates in more than 70 countries and territories. Shell is considered a prominent gasoline provider, offering products that range from energy fuels, lubricants for businesses, and petrochemicals for detergents, packaging, carpets, and computers. The Shell corporation is also making strides to embrace renewable energies “by creating hybrid energies with traditional fuels such as natural gas” (Shell Global, n.d.). Shell is building hybrid power plants that combine renewable energies, including those produced by sun and wind, with traditional fuels. By investing in emission-free energies, Shell seeks to improve its operations and competitive posture as renewable technologies advance.
Our country is currently suffering energy-wise, we have been powering with inefficient sources for years now and the harm that it is doing to the country has started to become apparent. Renewable energy is the only way to stop, or at the very least set back the inevitable downfall of our ecosystem. I think that the next big breakthrough for renewable energy is implementing off-grid communities that use renewable sources as their main sources of power, so that we can potentially escape the energy rut that we got ourselves stuck in.
Roberts, MJ, Lassiter, JB & Nanda, R 2010, US Department of Energy & Recovery Act Funding: Bridging the “Valley of Death”, Harvard Business School, Cambridge, USA.
In the long, increased amounts of renewable energies are more likely to encourage the use of natural gas as a complementary source of power. Natural gas plants have the operational flexibility to vary their production rapidly, so this will allow them to be able to provide more reliability to the electric power system as it transitions to greater shares of renewable generation.
I chose to look into General Electric for this project because they are an energy supplier and multi-national company. Energy providers have a reputation as a money hungry companies that care about the bottom line more than people and the planet. It is easy for a person to assume that a corporation of GE’s size, money would be its only concern. What I learned was that GE has a public image problem more than a Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) problem. The company has been working to make the people of the planet more Earth friendly by creating technology that has higher efficiency with fewer emissions and lower resource demands. GE has a well-established strategy for Corporate Social Responsibility. As a result of CSR the company has reaped profit benefits as well as a perceptibly better company image. It was with great expectation that I chose GE in the hopes to find an area that a global energy supplier would need improvement. I found that GE is within the top-10 of companies that demonstrate CSR. GE shares this distinguishment with other companies such as Patagonia, Nike and General Motors. Besides continuing the course they have started, GE could further add to their repertoire by providing roadmaps for other companies to follow in order to be a business with demonstrable CSR.
The execution of our investment strategy occurred in three stages. First, we invested in t-bills and bonds according to our original set out investment plan. This was to decrease potential losses and risk associated with the declining equity market. Therefore, we invested about two hundred thousand of our funds into these low risk assets to maintain buying power. Due to inflation, we did not want to lose buying power by leaving funds in an account without earning interest. Further, we invested a small portion of funds into the commodity market. With a slumping equity market and a positive outlook on the gold commodity, we invested in Gold Corporation at the same time we invested in income assets.
Going green in the workplace is a new trend in business. In choosing to go green in the workplace you may be challenged by an elevated initial start-up costs, however savings earned from this investment will more than pay for those initial costs in the future. Many people see this as a controversial issue, and granted it does have its own unique set of pro and cons, but if a business makes careful choices going green can prove to be very rewarding. Companies are doing this to save money on energy expenses as well as deploying it as a means to help reduce the carbon foot-print they are leaving behind.
Kinder Morgan is the largest energy infrastructure company in the North America and has an interest
...els: Answering the Energy Challenge.” Foreign Affairs 2012: 134. SIRS Issue Researcher. Web. 3 Apr. 2014.
The wind is an incredibly valuable renewable energy source and is in the forefront of renewable energy developments. It is used to convert wind energy into energy that can be harnessed and used via a variety of methods, including; wind turbines, windmills, sails and windpumps. For a renewable energy source, however, it is wind turbines that are used to generate electricity (see figure 1). Wind power has been used for this since the end of the nineteenth century, after Professor James Blyth of the Royal College of Science and Technology first attempted it (Boyle, 2012). However, It wasn’t until the 1980s that using wind power technology was sufficient enough to experience a rapid growth of the technology.
Wind is a form of solar energy. The term wind energy describes the process by which the wind is used to generate electricity or mechanical power. Wind turbines convert mechanical energy from the wind into electrical power. Wind turbines usually have three main parts. There are blades that connect to a central hub, a box behind the blades that contains the generator, and a long stem that connects to the ground. The way how it works is that the wind turns the blades, which spins a shaft that connects to a generator making electricity. After the electricity is produced it is sent through transmission lines to a substation that is sent to business and homes. For the sake of our planet, we must promote a renewable energy economy. Wind power can be a foundation of that sustainable energy future because it provides jobs in states that are building wind turbines, is a renewable energy source, and does not damage our environment. The environment will not be damaged by the pollution, the natural resources will not be used up, and there won’t be generating of hazardous wastes. Welcoming wind energy today will lay the foundation for a healthy tomorrow that will affect everyone in the United States. There are obstacles and challenges that will make it more difficult, but the environmental impact is well worth it to invest more money into wind energy.
middle of paper ... ... g the Energy Revolution." Foreign Affairs. Nov/Dec 2010: 111. SIRS Issues Researcher.