Sunpower Corp, which trades using the symbol SPWR, makes photovoltaic “modules” that turn sunlight into electricity. These can be small enough to power a calculator and large enough, when linked together, to power homes, stores, warehouses and office buildings. Johnson & Johnson uses solar power at its Cordis facility in Warren, NJ. As does Whole Foods in Princeton, NJ. and Timberland in various factories around the world.
Sunpower, through its Powerlight
subsidiary ‘designs, deploys, operates and maintains the largest solar power systems in the world.’ Other publicly traded solar energy companies include Akeena
, Evergreen Solar, First Solar, World Water and Power. They compete with BP Solar, a subsidiary of British Petroleum, Kyocera, Nanosolar, Sanyo, Sharp. Home Depot sells BP Solar’s best panels.
Microsoft Corp, which trades using the symbol MSFT, is a software company. It writes computer programs such as Microsoft Windows, Office, Exchange, SQL Server, etc.
The question is not will Sunpower start writing software, but will Sunpower’s stock price, or that of any of their competitors, follow a tragectory like Microsoft’s. What trajectory? A $3 Thousand investment in Microsoft stock at their IPO March 1986, would be worth something like $1 Million today. Each share of stock purchased in 1986 is worth 288 shares today, after splitting 9 times. (Click Here and Here) Because Microsoft, along with Intel, Apple, Sun, Oracle, Compaq, and other companies, changed the way we work, play, learn, and, think. They shifted the paridigm.
Solar panels turn sunlight into electricity without pollution, toxic wastes, radioactive wastes, mercury, greenhouse gases. There is no fuel, so there are no fuel costs, fuel spills, etc. There are no greenhouse gases as there are with fossil fuels and no security ramifications, as with nuclear power.
And Clean Energy costs less. Solar power costs about $7 per watt not counting any tax breaks or government subsidies. Wind is $3 per watt for offshore turbines, less for land based turbines, altho the maintenance costs are higher. Nuclear is hard to price because it relies so heavily on government subisdies. When you factor in the “externalities,” the time required to build, the fuel costs, nuclear power is probably on the order of $20 to $50 per watt.
So as Otis said, ‘Sittin in the mornin’ sun. …’ I can feel the paradigm shifting.
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In the intrests of disclosure,. I am not a licensed financial advisor and I do not currently work in the financial industry. I do, however, own stock in some of these and other companies.