Solar stock Ersol rose to a new record after German engineering giant Bosch said it paid $157 a share, a premium of more than 60%, for a controlling stake in the company. This from The Guardian:

Shares in leading German solar stocks rose substantially on expectations that other big players, including oil groups, are on the prowl in a market that grew to €6.6bn last year and is forecast to top €18bn by 2020.

Companies specializing in centralized fossil fuel fired generation need to move towards energy efficiency and diversity of generation, Scottish and Southern Energy, Britain’s second largest energy supplier, said today.

“The days of meeting an unchecked demand for energy through monolithic carbon intensive power stations are coming to an end. Increasingly the emphasis will be on energy efficiency, renewables, cleaned up fossil fuel plant and micro generation,” the company said in a statement accompanying its full-year results, according to Britain’s The Guardian newspaper.

Nearly 90 years ago, German researchers Franz Fischer and Hans Tropsch developed a process that will solve our energy crisis. Today the term “Fischer-Tropsch” is seen frequently in articles about synthetic fuels.

On May 20, 2008, I put out a buy on this alternative energy company. Today, this company got its first Wall Street analysts’ upgrade in more than two years with a $3 price target.

China’s nuclear power companies have ambitious export plans, but massive domestic expansion may stop them from going global for up to a decade, according to Thomson Reuters:

A $1 billion deal signed last week with Russia to build and supply a uranium enrichment plant in China was another step towards civilian nuclear independence, less than two decades after its first nuclear generator came on line.

When it comes to high-priced oil, Congress just doesn’t get it.

I have an entire stable of powerful “cleantech” picks waiting in the wings — any one of which could serve up triple-digit, long-term returns.

Costs for solar thermal energy will be cheaper than coal as soon as 2020, according to a report from the US Department of Energy, making one solar ETF a great way to profit.

Google, Chevron and Goldman are all betting that this prediction is correct. This from Bloomberg:

Unlike photovoltaic solar panels that convert sunlight to electricity, solar thermal focuses sunrays with mirrors to heat oil in glass pipes to about 700 degrees Fahrenheit (370 degrees Celsius).

China is already the world leader in producing solar cells – now it wants to make a grab other sectors of the alternative energy market.

“Prepare for the onslaught of relatively inexpensive Chinese turbines,” said Steve Sawyer, head of the Global Wind Energy Council, in Wired magazine.

In 2007, China became the world’s number one producer of photo-voltaic cells, holding 35% of the market. Sawyer reckons that China will make enough equipment to generate 10 gigawatts of power annually by 2010 — more than half the capacity that the whole world installed in 2007.

The recent Goldman Sachs oil price projection that put oil at $200 a barrel looks a little less likely today, as the price of oil eased off its $126 a barrel record. Analysts say oil’s drop is due to a combination of profit taking and a strengthening of the dollar against the euro and the yen. This from Casey Research on oil’s recent highs:

There is this overwhelming reluctance to admit that we’re simply in a new paradigm for prices and short of a wholesale collapse of the global economy, prices just aren’t going to pull back to a $75 level for oil,” wrote Neal Ryan, of Ryan Oil & Gas Partners.