For some I've been considering a new sector for AEI - commodities. So this story in Business Week was a promising idea - looking at the companies that supply the infrastructure for alternative energy, whilst being decidedly light onw what those companies might be.

I think the anwer has to be the underlying commodities - this is the supply side story.

Some of them already have sophisticated markets - like ethanol, corn, soya - which are the feedstocks for biofuels and are traded on the Chicago Board of Trade futures markets. Other feedstocks like silicon for solar and lithium (as lithium ion) for energy storage are much less transparent in price. Meanwhile, the spiralling price of platinum for fuel cell catalysts has been a significant constraint on fuel cell production. Rising steel prices too have raised the costs of wind turbines, because steel is used in the towers to hold the turbines aloft.