Matsushita Electric Ind. (ADR) (MATSF.PK)

GreenMycon (< 20) Submitted: 6/13/08 8:51 PM : Start Price: $22.36 MATSF.PK Score: 2.15

Matsushita Electric currently has a patent for an organic based rechargeable battery. As energy is not going to go away any time soon, and is going to be moved to the forefront of global policy, there are a few areas of overall energy investment one should look into.

Current energy requirements can roughly be divided into three sections, albeit more divisions are possible: Transportation needs, Utilities needs, and consumer needs.

Under transportation, consumer, and utilities lies the traditional oil and gas company which will continue to be a power house for at least the next 10 years, probably longer. Even if, today, every single car company started manufacturing a car that was 100% independent of petrol, it would still take 10 years for the average car on the road to change over to this new technology (economic policy might facilitate slightly faster growth). Even if transportation is entirely free of traditional oil, the utilities sector and consumer product sector will not be so lucky.

Given the exponential growth of energy requirements on top of the exponential growth of the human race, oil will continue to get more expensive (with slight dips and fluctuations.) Again, assuming transportation requirements for oil can be neglected, developing countries still will require consumer products as will already developed countries. This leaves the chemical and plastic industry (which relies entirely on the oil industry to function) as a primary user of oil. Part of the demand can be bet my biomass refining (of course it can be assumed that transportation will use most of this availability). As such, oil companies will continue to be able to cater to this demand. Bottom line: Invest in large oil companies/refineries (refineries are not going to go anywhere. ever.)

Also in the consumer market is the reliance on a viable energy source to power electronic devices. As materials limitations will be met for many devices with the ever increasing population, an increased dependence on organics will occur. Especially concerning is the Lithium-Ion trend in batteries. If we continue to grow and advocate rechargeable lithium-ion batteries in devices, it will be impossible to keep up unless an alternative is found. Organics prove to be one of the most promising research endeavors due to their cheapness and abundance. Again, problems exist with providing the necessary throughput, but research is looking to overcome that. Therefore, it is well worth investing in companies providing promising battery solutions to the traditional Lithium Ion technology. MC has something in the works and is in place as a global company to readily provide solutions.

The utilities sector will be making use of more renewable energy technologies in the future, and ever-growing dependence will be placed on organic-based solutions (organic PV technology, Carbon nanotubes, etc.) Thus, while it may be worthwhile investing in current renewables, it is important to realize that materials limitations will play a huge role in the currently advocated infrastructure if technologies are to be adopted on a large scale.

MC Considerations: The company has a very good debt/equity ratio, and is on the forefront of technology. Given that it is a large company that seems to have patents issued for next-gen consumer-level energy technology and it is a profitable company, the company is in a great position for the future, although immediate gains should not be anticipated.

Report this Post Replies: 0 | Reply