Aventine REH has just reported third-quarter net earnings of $5.29 million, or 12 cents a share, compared with $17.7 million, or 49 cents a share, a year earlier.

Obviously, this wasn't meant to happen. Received opinion assumes that alternative energy prices only go one way and that's down because the price of the underlying fuel is free (at least for sun and wind). But because markets are inefficient and the global economy is still suboptimal, there are unpriced externalities that have to be factored in too. Like;

i) The commodities global supercycle - raising the cost of steel and so that of wind turbine towers, and increasing the price of installed wind per megawatt by approx 25% over the last 3 years

ii) A lack of capacity in high grade silicon production - keeping solar prices at where they were 4 years ago

iii) And now we see with bioethanol producers something similar - they too are not immune to the run on corn and high oil prices increasing their freight prices