Stock Chat... What are you looking at?

[jyl]

Originally Posted by cabmandone

^^^ My cousin invested like that. I'm really just getting into investing in stocks. I'm not trying to hit any home runs, just looking for solid future growth. My hope is that once I have some loose ends tied up, I'll have more time to spend researching stocks that represent opportunity for growth.

Some interesting points in the linked Bloomberg article
"If the US continues to build high-voltage transmission infrastructure at its current rate, it will take at least 80 years to deliver what we need over the next decade."

"In the US, 55 GW of data center IT capacity is expected to come online in the next five years. For comparison, this is 10 times the average power capacity used by New York City"

The share of data centers projected to have at least some on site generation by 2030 went from 13% to 30%.

The thing I'm going to try to research is which source, whether that's gas turbine, fuel cell, or other technology represents the fastest installation to service time. The article touches on timely access to power. It would seem to me that removing diesel fired as an option due to cost puts natural gas fired turbines in the lead from a standpoint of cost to operate and time it would take to bring the power on line.

Interested to know what you find. Seems just as hard to pipe NG to a data center site as to build a transmission line. I wonder if we'll start seeing more LNG used domestically, trucked in (virtual pipeline) and regasifed on-site?

[Paul T]

I think the small modular nuclear reactors have promise for AI/Datacenters, but obviously a few years off. https://www.valaratomics.com/ is one I’ve been watching, but there are several others that are in development. Seems this administration is doing what they can to eliminate red tape in this area as well. Given the absolute astronomical power needs that are being forecasted, I kind of like this solution if it can be done safely and effectively.

There are also some interesting companies working on power packs that sit in between the grid and the data center for those that are connected to a traditional grid - sort of like a giant UPS. From what I understand, even if the total power requirements are there, most grids can’t handle the quick load variations that the DC’s have so these sit in between to handle the surges till the grid can catch up.

[jyl]

Originally Posted by cabmandone

Looking at fuel cells, Bloom Energy seems to have made the jump. Haven't looked, but based on their stock price jump, they must be a big player in data centers. Don't know about more upside. Fuel Cell Energy stock is cheap.

Companies that build transmission lines. Quanta Services, Mastec, MYR Group, Michels Power

I'm thinking ETF might be a good way to go to gain exposure to the bigger players.

BE trading at 10X sales, a valuation that implies sustained very very high growth or extremely high margins. Consensus has sales growing about 20%, which is not very high much less very very. EBITDA margin 12% which is modest. There are other fuel cell companies, none of their stocks are doing anything. So need to figure out why 1) BE has something that other fuel cell companies don’t and can’t have, 2) BE’s growth will accelerate a lot , 3) margins will rise substantially. Or figure out some other reason why it’s priced so high. Or entertain the notion that it’s just a meme name.

[cabmandone]

Originally Posted by jyl

Interested to know what you find. Seems just as hard to pipe NG to a data center site as to build a transmission line. I wonder if we'll start seeing more LNG used domestically, trucked in (virtual pipeline) and regasifed on-site?

I'd think one of the main site criteria would be proximity to gas supply lines when you consider the growth in point of use generation. I don't recall the exact figures, but from working with community Solar developers I learned that just increasing service lines was a staggering dollar amount. Then there's upgrades to substations.

[cabmandone]

Did a little search on Fuel Cell Energy (FCEL).

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/fuelcell-energy-just-landed-data-134502593.html

[cabmandone]

I did some looking into the differences between BE and FCEL. BE uses what is supposed to be superior technology in the form of Solid Oxide fuel cell (SOFC) whereas FCEL uses older Molten Carbonate fuel cells (MCFC).

In June, FCEL abandoned SOFC research as part of a cost cutting effort. It appears they have a very high cash burn and have been losing money for a while. Seems like all the stock for all the big boys using SOFC have shot up pretty well.

It looks like BE made a big play on data centers before anyone else in the fuel cell industry did.

Watt Fuel Cell out of PA is in funding stage series B (I'm learning new stuff!) They seem to be one pulling in the most funding from a list I looked at.