The next victim of Lehman Brothers is showing up, this time in the alternative energy sector.
This is an interesting eco-twist on the credit situation that we are experiencing. Noble Environmental Power is developing several wind farms in the New York and SPP (southwest power pool – Oklahoma, Kansas, Arkansas, etc) markets, however their main financial backer for many of these projects was Lehman Brothers. Thus, everything that was not already fully underway is being shut down and layoffs are hitting hard. In another interesting sidelight they are also trying to go public, as they filed with the SEC in May for a $375 million IPO (underwritten by Lehman).
Obviously the credit crisis is hitting industries with a great need for financing, but energy, and specifically wind energy is right at the top of the list of those being hit hardest, primarilty because of the large up-front investment and relatively unproven returns. Any progress towards building new nuclear power units is likely to be shelved as well, unless we suddenly see an investor willing to commit $2+ billion to a project that won’t see any returns for 10 years.
*image source: coal-is-dirty.com
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Wind power is a good source of electricity but it also takes up lots of space just like solar power plants.’..