Month: February 2025
State Farm Asks California to Increase Insurance Rates in Wake of Fire
Allstate said this week that it expects to lose $1.1 billion due to the Los Angeles fires, making it the second major insurer to announce the financial impact of the country’s single most costly blaze.
The Northbrook, Ill., company said the figure represents its losses on a pre-tax basis and after deducting payments it received from reinsurance. Despite the size of the hit, the company‘s quarterly net income grew 30% to $1.9 billion.
Allstate said the minimal impact on its financial performance reflected its “comprehensive reinsurance program” and its decision starting in 2007 to reduce its market share. Allstate had a 5.8% share of the state’s homeowners market in 2023, making it the sixth largest carrier. Insurers acquire reinsurance typically from other larger insurers in order to limit their payouts during huge wildfires and other catastrophic events.
Continue reading “State Farm Asks California to Increase Insurance Rates in Wake of Fire”Oil Giants Tell Trump: Go Frack Yourself
As I’ve been reporting, more evidence that there is some magical spigot of oil that can be opened to lower the price of gasoline is a fantasy.
Oil Giants have told the administration there is no way they will drill more, crash the price of oil, and their own stock.
Some talk here building more pipelines and other items on Big oil’s wish list, but resistance will keep building to those kinds of projects as climate change tightens its grip.
President Trump wants to boost oil drilling. His allies in the U.S. shale industry and Saudi Arabia are pushing back.
Trump for months has encouraged the U.S. shale industry to “drill, baby drill,” but another American oil boom isn’t in the cards soon, no matter how many regulations are rolled back, according to oil executives. After many producers overdrilled themselves into bankruptcy during the shale boom’s heyday, the industry is now focused on keeping costs down and returning cash to investors.
The president’s advisers concede that U.S. frackers won’t pump much more, according to people familiar with the matter. The advisers say his best lever to bring down prices might be to persuade the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and Saudi Arabia, the group’s de facto leader, to add more barrels to the market.
But Saudi Arabia has told former U.S. officials that it also is unwilling to augment global oil supplies, say people familiar with the matter. Some of those former officials have shared the message with Trump’s team.
The president believes a fresh tidal wave of oil would solve many of his problems: It could quell inflation and pave the way for interest-rate cuts. It could also strengthen his hand in coming confrontations with petrostates Russia and Iran.
In a January speech, Trump said he planned to ask Saudi Arabia and other OPEC members to bring down oil prices. The president is planning to visit the kingdom in one of his first foreign trips of his second term, and he is expected to push for higher Saudi oil production in person.
Trump’s fixation on oil prices is vexing to some in the industry. Currently around $73 a barrel, prices are relatively low compared with 2022, when they averaged over $94 a barrel and the national average gasoline price hit a record over $5 a gallon. Gasoline prices are averaging $3.10. The president has declared a national “energy emergency” and vowed to cut Americans’ overall energy costs in half.
Keith Kellogg, Trump’s special envoy to Ukraine and Russia, has said global producers should try slashing oil prices to $45 a barrel, to pressure Russia into ending the war with Ukraine.
Continue reading “Oil Giants Tell Trump: Go Frack Yourself”Climate Change “Pain Points” Will Hit Home Values
In aggragate, assuming large real estate gains in the next 25 years, the overall impact seems manageable. But for those caught in the cross fire between rising risks and rising costs of insurance in high risk areas, the consequences could be devastating.
Climate change will cause a $1.47 trillion decline in U.S. home values by 2055, according to a new study from climate-research company First Street.
Rising home-insurance costs and more homeowners spurning some risky neighborhoods will drive these declines, First Street said.
The study is an attempt to quantify the economic risk that weather events such as hurricanes, drought and heat waves pose to many Americans’ biggest financial asset—their homes.
Thousands of displaced Americans are currently contending with the fallout from recent natural disasters including this year’s wildfires in Los Angeles and hurricanes that ravaged the Southeast last fall.
The relationship between climate change and home values has become a more urgent question as losses from storms, wildfires and other natural disasters are hitting new records. Climate change is making many of those events worse, scientists say, and more Americans have moved to disaster-prone areas in recent years, increasing the number of properties at risk.
First Street projects the hardest-hit places will have rising home-insurance costs and population declines. The counties with the biggest projected population loss over the next 30 years are Fresno County, Calif.; Ocean County, N.J.; and Monmouth County, N.J.
Other regions are projected to have higher home-insurance premiums but continued population growth over the next 30 years, because strong local economies or other amenities are drawing people to those areas. These include counties in the Houston, Miami and Tampa, Fla., metro areas.
Continue reading “Climate Change “Pain Points” Will Hit Home Values”Trump’s California Water Waste Baffles Experts
Releasing water meant for irrigation in the dry season, at the peak of the rainy season, makes no sense.
This guy has a serious Napoleon complex, and he’s going to do a lot of damage.
“I know more about the California irrigation and flood control system than anybody…”
Trump issued the executive order last weekend in response to the catastrophic wildfires in Los Angeles after he had falsely blamed water shortages during the response on California’s water management policies. The president has claimed that the Democratic-run state can simply turn on a “valve” to let more water flow southward, suggesting that it would have aided in last month’s fight to contain several wildfires. Hydrants, which are not typically tapped to fight such blazes, instead ran dry because of spiking demand that made it difficult to refill them.
Southern California’s reservoirs are above historical levels, and experts said water released into the Central Valley would not reach Los Angeles.
Continue reading “Trump’s California Water Waste Baffles Experts”This Farmer Wants Donald Trump to Know the Good News About Clean Energy
Not an outlier, not unusual at all, it’s the most common thing you hear in the rural areas where clean energy is being most commonly sited.
“I definitely voted for Donald Trump”, said Randy Elenbaum, when I interviewed him in a closed Caseville sports bar, in Michigan’s thumb region.
A 5th generation farmer, Elenbaum has seen the benefits to his community, and to farmers, from wind development.
“Knowing that he was going to look badly at upon wind and solar energy, … I still voted for him, and I’m involved in this quite heavily. One of the reasons I agreed to do this interview is,….somebody needs to get to this new administration, and explain some of the taxation things,…so that possibly they will change their minds..” about wind and solar energy.
“It’s good for everybody,” he said. “It spreads the wealth.”
I edited in some conversations with other local leaders who back up Randy’s observations, Bill Chilman, who just retired as Superintendent of Beal City Schools, in Central Michigan, and Steve Vaughn, a County Commissioner in Huron County, where Elenbaum lives.
Music Break: Mandolin Orange – Spanish Boots of Spanish Leather
So glad this song is back in rotation following the release of “A Complete Unknown”, the Dylan bio pic.
This version really got to me – the fiddle break is heart rending.
Must have struck some other folks as well, this version’s had 17 million views.
And woof. A “lonesome Ocean.” That’s a mouthful. Been there.
Definitely been there.
US Nuclear Reactors Reliant on Canada
Seems relevant.
Energy Information Administration:
In 2023, U.S. nuclear generators used 32 million pounds of imported uranium concentrate (U3O8) and only 0.05 million pounds of domestically produced U3O8. Imports accounted for 99% of the U3O8 they used in 2023 to make nuclear fuel. Foreign producerspredominantly supply the U.S. front-end nuclear fuel cycle, but federal policies have been implemented recently to build out the domestic U.S. nuclear fuel supply chain. The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) recently received $2.7 billion in congressional funding to help revive domestic fuel production for commercial nuclear power plants.
Energy Information Administration:
The uranium material used in U.S. nuclear power reactors is largely imported because it’s more abundant and cheaper to produce in other countries. In 2022, 95% of the uranium purchased by U.S. nuclear power plant operators originated in other countries. Canada, which has large, high-quality uranium reserves, was the largest source of uranium purchased by U.S. nuclear power plants in 2022 at 27%. Kazakhstan was the second-largest source at 25%, followed by Russia at 12%.
Although the United States banned imports of oil, natural gas, and coal from Russia following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, uranium was not sanctioned.
Do Wind Turbines Cause Divorce? and Other Tales from the Thumb
Got a break in the weather the other day and got myself up to Caseville, on the shores of Saginaw Bay, in Michigan’s thumb.
Caseville is kind of a resort, harbor and beach community, but surrounded by large tracts of farmed land. The constant breezes here made this the first area in Michigan to attract large scale wind parks, and local farmers were pro-active in making it happen.
I met with 5th generation farmer Randall Elenbaum, who gave me some history of the projects, and the farmers who banded together originally to bring wind into the community, held together in the face of fossil fuel organized opposition, and whose communities are reaping the benefits today.
Problem Solved: Trump Begins Purging “Climate Change” from US Websites
That oughta do it.
Project 2025 in action. See “Training video” above, which mentions that all reference to climate change must be “eradicated”, apparently from anywhere.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture has directed agency officials to review and remove content related to climate change from its public websites, according to internal emails obtained by ABC News.
The directive instructs web managers to identify, archive, or unpublish materials mentioning climate change by “no later than close of business this Friday,” according to the emails.
In an email sent Thursday, USDA Director of Digital Communications Peter Rhee detailed the process, requiring staff to “identify and archive or unpublish any landing pages focused on climate change” and track related content in an attached Excel spreadsheet for review.
“OC will review the submitted materials and make determinations on next steps,” Rhee wrote, referring to the department’s Office of Communications.
A separate email sent to website managers at the Agricultural Research Service (ARS) emphasized the urgency of the request.
