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Nov.18

2:28 PM ET

Tuesday, 18 Nov 2008

Voice of Cramerica: Green Isn't Green

Posted By:Cliff Mason

Sectors:Oil and Gas

Companies:First Solar, Inc. | Shaw Group Inc. | Foster Wheeler Ltd. | Anadarko Petroleum Corp

Cliff Mason
Senior Writer
Mad Money

Green isn't green. If you caught last night's edition of Mad Money, you may have been a little puzzled that we talked about Anadarko Petroleum [APC Loading... ()

] as a green stock, and our list of green stocks from the first green week included companies like Foster-Wheeler [FWLT Loading... ()

] and Shaw Group [SGR Loading... ()

] that build oil and petrochemical refineries -- not exactly the most environmentally-friendly endeavors.

We're not just trying to be perverse. The truth is that, other than a handful of companies like First Solar [FSLR Loading... ()

], a lot of green plays -- think most of the solar stocks -- just aren't any good. Now, our original green week stocks have gotten killed, so maybe that's not much of an excuse, but before getting annihilated as oil prices fell, they were up an average of 76.8% from April of 2007 when we created the green basket, to April of 2008 when we had our third green week.

Now obviously our green thesis has taken a thrashing, but our original idea has always been that the companies that make us incrementally greener are the ones that work. That's how Anadarko can be a green stock, even though it produces oil, because it also produces the much cleaner, natural gas.

That may not be a renewable fuel, but it would be a whole lot better for the environment if we used less crude oil and more natural gas. It's how Shaw Group [SGR Loading... ()

] could be in that list, because of its nuclear power operation -- because even though nukes aren't everyone's idea of green, they're a lot cleaner than burning fossil fuels.

Cliff Mason is the Senior Writer of CNBC's Mad Money w/Jim Cramer, and has been that program's primary writer, in cooperation with and under the supervision of Jim Cramer, since he began at CNBC as an intern during the summer of 2005. Mason was the author of a column at TheStreet.com during 2007, which he describes as "hilarious, if short-lived." He graduated from Harvard College in 2007. It was at Harvard that Mason learned to multi-task, mastering the art of seeming to pay attention to professors while writing scripts for Mad Money. Mason has co-written two books with Jim Cramer: Jim Cramer's Mad Money: Watch TV, Get Rich and Stay Mad For Life: Get Rich, Stay Rich (Make Your Kids Even Richer). He is 100% responsible for any parts of either book that you did not like.

Mason has also had a fruitful relationship with Jim Cramer as his nephew for the last 23 years and will hopefully continue to hold that position for many more as long as he doesn't do anything to get himself kicked out of the family.

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