This from Investment U:

Under the Obama administration, I expect there to be many profitable energy investment opportunities under what will likely be a very “green-friendly” four- or possibly eight-year timeframe. Many of the opportunities will arise from his focus on energy independence and corresponding energy infrastructure.

Reducing energy bills means ultimately reducing demand and controlling its costs. Weaning the country off fossil fuels won’t happen overnight. After all, it took us over 100 years to get to where we are.

But Obama recognizes we need to get started now. His plan has several strategies that help reduce our need for fossil fuels while alternative solutions are developed. And we’ve found three companies that are perfectly positioned to help the United States “bridge” the gap.

The United States’ Energy Investment Opportunities

A quick, cheap and easy strategy to increase efficiency is simply to save energy. And one of the best solutions is to weatherize older homes. While homes built in the last few years are far more efficient than those built even 10 years ago, many older residences are huge energy thieves.

Since 1976, the U.S. Department of Energy’s Weatherization Assistance Program (WAP) has provided help to 5.6 million low-income families – enabling them to permanently reduce their energy bills. But help doesn’t come in the form of a check, which might be misused. It contracts for weatherization services on the homeowner’s residence.

Upgrading or replacing a home’s old furnace, sealing leaky heating ducts, fixing or replacing leaky windows and adding insulation reduces the average home’s heating bill by anywhere from 20% to 40%, and results in an overall annual savings of $358 at today’s energy prices. Replace old appliances and change out incandescent bulbs for florescent ones – and the savings get even more impressive.

Obama plans to expand this program, as nearly 28 million U.S. homes remain eligible for assistance. His goal under the Energy for America plan is to weatherize an additional one million homes every year.

Of course, the largest energy user in the country is – you guessed it – the good old Federal Government, which spent a whopping $14.5 billion on energy use in fiscal 2008.

Obama plans to lead by example: All new Fed buildings will have a 40% increase in energy-efficiency within five years. The new administration wants all federal buildings carbon-neutral by 2025 and he ultimately expects to achieve a 15% overall reduction in government energy use in just six years (2015).

Weatherize your Portfolio: 3 Energy Investment Opportunities

When looking for ways to play the energy efficiency/savings angle, the field narrows, but below are three energy investment opportunities. Adversely affected by the general housing downturn, many companies that would be a consideration under Obama’s plan are off the table.

There are a few we can consider, however:

• Apogee Enterprises, Inc. (Nasdaq:APOG) designs, services, installs and sells glass walls and window systems that make up the outside skins and entrance areas of large commercial and institutional buildings. Through its subsidiaries, it’s engaged in the design and development of numerous glass products, services and systems. Apogee’s glass will be in high demand for weatherizing the nation’s windows.Earnings have held up remarkably well, particularly in the face of the housing slowdown. It’s had little real effect on the company since its exposed more to the commercial side of the building business. At current levels, the stock has a yield of around 6%.CEO Ron Huffer had these forward-looking observations in a recent press release: “We believe that our markets offer significant longer-term opportunities, due to the increasing importance of green building, a sector demanding energy-efficient products that we supply and the overall growth in the use of value-added products in commercial construction projects.”
• A good blue-chip play that stands to benefit as well is 3M Company (NYSE:MMM). 3M is a diversified technology company engaged in industrial products, transportation, and numerous other sectors. Its industrial products division makes hundreds of items for the construction industry like window and door materials, including adhesives, tapes, films and abrasives.
• And let’s not forget General Electric (NYSE:GE), perhaps the best, safest energy and infrastructure play in the world. It has exposure to nearly every area of engineering and manufacturing that we use to build and power our country. Infrastructure and green energy continue to be focal points as spending in these sectors could jump-start the global economy back to life. GE is better positioned than perhaps any other firm to profit from this spending influx. And at prices of around $13 a share, it’s a steal – especially when you consider its nearly 10% dividend yield.

As Obama’s New Energy for America plan comes up to speed, investors could see a huge slug of cash – perhaps as much as $1 trillion – being thrown at the energy and infrastructure sectors.

And stakes in the above mentioned companies will make sure you get in on the action.

Source: Energy Investment Opportunities: Why 28 Million Customers Need These Upgrades

T. Boone Pickens, oil man, hedge-fund manager and natural gas entrepreneur, made headlines earlier this year when he announced an initial investment of $2-billion in a new Texas wind farm. Wrapped in the brilliance of Old Glory, he stepped up to the soap box and declared how he would wean America off evil foreign oil. Overnight, the 80-year-old Texas legend became the most unlikely poster boy for the green energy movement.

Given Pickens’ Texas Holdem swagger, wind energy – and by association all alternative energy – took on a measure of safety that deluded many investors into thinking they could simultaneously buy their way into the Wall Street Hall of Fame and the Pearly Gates of St. Peter.

Now, it turns out, Pickens’ massive project is sucking cash instead of blowing in the wind. And in one of the most under-reported stories of the year, Pickens finally admitted that the wind farm has been put on hold indefinitely.

Just as investors followed Pickens to the alter of green, they should now also pull green from their portfolio.

The same market dynamics that forced Pickens away from wind continue to crush the green industry as a whole: difficult financing and low oil prices. Some rosy optimists still cling to the belief that President-elect Obama will wave his magic green wand and make all those problems go away. But with record unemployment, the struggle to save Detroit and expensive wars in the Middle East, we contend that Mr. Obama’s green initiatives will prove to be nothing more than campaign rhetoric for at least the first 12 months of his administration.

Certainly big money men such as Pickens, electric-car magnate Elon Musk and Silicon Valley’s new breed of green venture capitalists have influence in Washington. But we’re still not convinced that Obama, for all his good intentions, can make a convincing argument to throw billions behind green in these tough, recessionary times.

As it now stands, Pickens’ Mesa Power has already placed orders for the first phase of the Pampa Wind Project, 667 wind turbines from General Electric capable of generating 1,000 megawatts of electricity, enough to power more than 300,000 average U.S. households.

The first phase of the project, estimated at $2 billion, was originally scheduled to come online in early 2011.

He still expects to take delivery of the project’s 2,700 turbines in 2010, but their installation might be delayed until wind is more competitive economically, he was quoted as saying. Still, 2010 isn’t that far away, and the likelihood of oil rebounding to this summer’s high of near $150 by then is quite slim.

Futures of light sweet crude were trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange at about $57 a barrel, a 21-month low. Unless, Obama can create thousands of new jobs in 2009 so consumers can drive to the mall, oil prices will continue to remain depressed.

While green investments will certainly make a rebound in our lifetime, it won’t take place in the next 12 months.