President Elect Barack Obama promises to rebuild America “calloused hand by calloused hand.” David Fessler says Airgas Inc. (NYSE:ARG) is an great way to play an infrastructure boom. The company is the largest manufacturer and distributor of industrial, medical and speciality gases in the country. It’s business is well insulated from the economic slowdown, and it just hiked its dividend payment by 33%.

The energy sector is oversold, says Dave Fessler in Investment U.

That’s because traders dumped energy stocks as oil came down off its late July highs. The market also ditched infrastructure stocks, banking on less infrastructure projects thanks to less demand for oil.

Don’t bet on it. The world still depends on crude oil. And even if people are driving less, they still have to get around.

Dave has picked three energy and infrastructure stocks that are bargains right now…

As I’ve driven across Canada and down into North Dakota, I’ve been seeing energy everywhere.

In 1986, the U.S. government created a tax loophole for a handful of special American businesses. The government wanted to give these businesses a big incentive to expand the national infrastructure. So it gave them an incredible advantage: They don’t have to pay corporate tax.

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.

Sky-high crude oil prices are threatening global growth for the first time in decades, according to Thomson Reuters, and are “spurring a desperate surge in interest in energy alternatives and new technology to keep conventional oil flowing.”

“The richest investment opportunities can be found in the fast-emerging alternative energy sector,” says Mike Burnick in The Offshore A-Letter.

Five energy companies made year-highs on your Money Morning sidebar today. We realised with a start that they’re all coal companies. Yep. They all have a little coal property to call their own. The new Australian dream, perhaps.

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.

Recently, legendary Texas oilman T. Boone Pickens made headlines with another big bet on energy…but it was No ordinary oil & gas investment.

As crude oil prices smash the $135-a-barrel barrier for the first time, Taiwan, Malaysia and Indonesia say they will take action to protect their state-owned oil companies.

“If oil prices keep going up, it is simply not in any country’s best interest to keep subsidizing these prices indefinitely,” says Peter Gastreich, a UBS oil and gas analyst, in the Financial Times.