Soon, you won’t find 100-watt incandescent light bulbs any more. Along with the typewriter, it’s time has come for the trash heaps.

Yep, as part of the 822-page measure inked by the President, the 100-watt incandescent bulbs will be banned by 2012. All light bulbs must use 25% to 30% less energy than today’s lights by 2012.

By doing so, the U.S. would reportedly cut light electricity use by 60% by 2020, and cut U.S. electric bills by up to $18 billion a year. It’s news bullish enough to move Cree (CREE:NASADQ), an LED (light emitting diode) company.

This is an industry expected to exceed $1 billion by 2011, a 388% jump from the $205 million market value in 2005. You really can’t go wrong with buying Cree on that potential.

Heck, even Royal Philips Electronics is aware of the potential. It just announced it was buying Genlyte for $2.7 billion as part of its LED-related company buying spree, serving as another blow to its competitor, General Electric, as it strengthens is energy-efficient lighting business.

Who knows, maybe it’ll put pressure on GE to buy a company like Cree. Would it be a shock if a company, wanting to guarantee a supply of LED, came forward and paid Cree what it is worth? No. There’ll be plenty of demand, and possible tight supply, which will benefit Cree-like companies.

We said the same thing about polysilicon supply companies. There was too little supply for mountainous demand, which produced stellar gains for our HOKU trade in SCTradingPit.com.

Other key provisions of the measure include:

• Requiring automakers to boost fleet-wide fuel economy for cars and light trucks to 35 mpg by 2020.
• Asking for an increase in the amount of biofuels (ethanol, for example) to 36 billion gallons by 2022. This may be a boon for Pacific Ethanol (PEIX:NASDAQ).
• Increasing federal research into how to trap carbon dioxide emissions from power plants and store them in the earth.
• Encouraging geothermal energy use, or energy from the Earth’s heat, which could benefit US Geothermal (UGTH:OTCBB)

Ian L. Cooper
http://www.energyandcapital.com

P.S. This ran in last week’s Wealth Daily . In case you missed it, here’s the latest on T. Boone Pickens purchase of 395,000 shares of Clean Energy Fuels (CLNE:NASDAQ).

“I learned long ago not to bet against T. Boone Pickens. He’s not one to throw around investment dollars at just any company. A man of his stature is sure to have done plenty of research, and to be well in the know before investing a nickel in any company.

So when a guy, made famous as a corporate raider, inking high-profile deals with Cities Service, Gulf Oil, Phillips Petroleum and Unocal, buys 943,964 of a company, like Interoil (IOC:NYSE) in August 2007, it’s not a shock to see a one-day 20% move.

Fortunately, former Agora readers of mine were well-positioned for that $25 to $40 Interoil move. This was an undervalued, unfairly beaten company developing a liquefied natural gas project in Papua, New Guinea, with hopes that the project would begin production by 2012, with a billionaire investor to boot.

So it’ll come as no surprise when shares of energy fuel stocks take off on Pickens latest 395,000 share investment in $677 million Clean Energy (CLNE). Pickens holds the belief that clean fuel is the “fuel of the future” and knows that Wall Street is unfairly overlooking an under-the-radar stock.

He’s even speculating that natural gas (which sells for 10% to 15% under the cost of diesel) will eventually replace diesel, and that we’ll see $100 oil before $80 – a further boon for the natural gas companies.

Plus, in our opinion, a company like Clean Energy could be the perfect buyout candidate -- wild speculation, but not out of the question. This is a small $677 million company, with $89 million in cash and no real debt, flying well under Street radar.

Would it be a shock if a company, like Exxon (which has plans for a floating liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal on the East Coast) bought CLNE? No.

A major U.S. oil company with LNG dreams could acquire CLNE, instead of going through a process of building new plants on the West Coast. CLNE already has plants in New York, California, Colorado, New Mexico, Texas, Wyoming, British Colombia and Ontario.

If that’s not a good enough reason to buy clean energy stocks I don’t know what is.”