Who’s The Next Google? Meet 8 Contenders (4 Public, 4 Private Firms) 1st Two: Energy Recovery & Konarka
Submitted by EnergyTechStocks.com
In search of that one investment that will make you filthy rich? EnergyTechStocks doesn’t have a crystal ball. But it spends a lot of time studying how the biggest industry in the world – energy – is undergoing profound changes that will make this planet very different within 5 to 10 years. We hold that hundreds of companies may make money for investors and that a handful – some public, some still private – have the look of a contender for the title “The Next Google.” We’ve picked out eight (an arbitrary number), starting with:
Energy Recovery Inc., a California-based firm that trades on NASDAQ, and Konarka Technologies Inc., a private firm in Massachusetts.
Energy Recovery might seem an odd choice. The company is in the water desalination business. But its expertise lies in reducing the amount of energy required to desalinate sea water. According to the web site EcoWorld, Energy Recovery innovations have reduced the amount of power needed to produce fresh water by well over 50%. The web site reports that thanks to Energy Recovery, “A desalination plant, running on a constant energy input of only 60 megawatts, can desalinate enough seawater to provide fresh water to 1.0 million residential customers. And a plant of this capacity would only cost about $500 million, or about $500 per residential customer.”
In short, Energy Recovery is really an energy efficiency and intelligence company whose technology may make it possible to achieve what EcoWorld calls “one of the most important breakthroughs in the history of civilization,” large-scale water desalination for a world in which it is estimated that more than five billion people (more than half the people on Earth) will have insufficient fresh water or face severe water shortages by 2025.
Picking any company involved with solar power is dangerous because solar-electric technology is still rapidly evolving. But listen to Konarka CEO Rick Hess and you sense that this company that will stay on the cutting edge of solar development. Konarka makes material that converts light to energy. With its technology you can manufacture thin solar cells using an inkjet printer. One day soon those solar cells may be incorporated into everything from clothing to house paint, turning you (and your home) into a solar power plant that serves to heat, cool and more.
Beyond that, Konarka is working on solar technology that won’t require the sun. As EnergyTechStocks.com has reported (See How Execs at 30 Top Cleantech Firms Expect to Make Lots of $$ (Part 3 of 7) With New Solar Tech, You Won’t Need the Sun!) the company wants to “capture” indoor lighting and, by changing the spectrum, re-use that energy to do things like power electronic door locks and heat hallways with wallpaper containing Konarka’s printed solar cells. “People haven’t even imagined yet” some of the uses for solar electric technology, Hess recently told an investor conference.
