For those of you that remember me from my days as editor for Material Profits, the commodity-based newsletter that has since evolved into Christian DeHaemer’s BreakAway Investor, you will also remember that I had quite the “green crush.”

My first international trip for Taipan Publishing Group was to a tiny island off the coast of Denmark called Samso. It had won a contest to participate in a ten-year race to become 100% renewable energy-based.

This year is the tenth year, and the tiny island has been more than successful. It now sells electricity back to the mainland.

So you can say that I was duly enthralled, and my model portfolio was packed full of alternative energy companies… most of which performed extremely well. (To be fair, some did perform poorly.)

My recommendations didn’t make me many friends…

I remember fondly the insults slung via email calling me a leftist treehugger that should just stick to investment picks instead of researching and recommending pie-in-the-sky renewable energy companies.

Well, as climate change and energy independence have headlined a number of events during the past two years of presidential campaigning, I’m happy to see alternative energy back in the investment ring.

Surprisingly, many top-notch European companies see the U.S. as a major growth region for the renewable energy business, and they are coming over in droves to set up shop.

Let’s take a look at just one of the technologies that’s already being employed around the world: wind power.

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