Month: March 2025

Ron Filipkowski (via email):

 It was a bloodbath for Tesla shareholders today as the stock fell off a cliff, which followed a long string of losses in the last several weeks. The stock took a beating, losing an astounding 15.43% of it’s value after a worldwide boycott has taken hold because of people’s hatred of Musk. Tesla shares fell 40.52 to close at 222.15

… The Dow was also down another 890 points today. It is now down 2,514.59 over the last month, as people watch their 401Ks go in the tank.

Continue reading “Tesla Teeters as Tariffs Tip Markets”

New Energy Secretary Chris Wright comes with good educational and professional credentials, (ok, he’s a fracking zillionaire) but seems to be infected with the same used car salesman bug that other members of this cabinet have been showing us.

Guardian:

The world needs more planet-heating fossil fuel, not less, Donald Trump’s newly appointed energy secretary, Chris Wright, told oil and gas bigwigs on Monday.

“We are unabashedly pursuing a policy of more American energy production and infrastructure, not less,” he said in the opening plenary talk of CERAWeek, a swanky annual conference in Houston, Texas, led by the financial firm S&P Global.

Wright, a former fracking executive who was picked by Trump to the crucial cabinet position, also attacked the Joe Biden administration for focusing “myopically on climate change”.

“The Trump administration will end the Biden administration’s irrational, quasi-religious policies on climate change that imposed endless sacrifices on our citizens,” he said at the conference, for which tickets cost upward of $10,000. “The cure was far more destructive than the disease.”

Continue reading “New Energy Sec Furiously Flacking Trump Tariffs”

Keep up with fossil gas prices at the Henry Hub here.

Following markets is a good education in all things energy.

Senator Jeff Merkeley poses pointed questions to Trump appointees.

More of this, please.

Readers of this blog will be familiar with Mark Carney, one time chair of the Bank of England, who has consistently warned about the dire financial impacts of climate change on insurance and the financial sector.

New York Times:

Amid a generational crisis in Canada’s relationship with the United States, the Liberal Party of Canada on Sunday chose an unelected technocrat with deep experience in financial markets to replace Justin Trudeau as party leader and the country’s prime minister, and to take on President Trump.

Mark Carney, 59, who steered the Bank of Canada through the 2008 global financial crisis and the Bank of England through Brexit, but who has never been elected to office, won a leadership race on Sunday against his friend and former finance minister, Chrystia Freeland.

He won a stunning 85.9 percent of the votes cast by Liberal Party members. More than 150,000 people voted, according to the party’s leaders.

“America is not Canada. And Canada never, ever, will be part of America in any way, shape or form,” Mr. Carney said in his acceptance speech on Sunday evening to an electric crowd of party faithful, directly addressing Mr. Trump’s constant threat that he wants to make Canada the 51st state. “We didn’t ask for this fight, but Canadians are always ready when someone else drops the gloves.’’

NYTimes:

Mark Carney, the governor of the Bank of England, declared that the warming climate presented major risks for the global economy and global financial stability, and that businesses and regulators needed to move more quickly to try to contain the potential economic damage even though it may seem uncertain and far off.

Continue reading “New Canadian Leader Has Warned on Climate”

Know your globally destructive industry.
The topic came up in a recent post, and YouTuber Matt Randolph has helpfully, and totally serendipitously, started a quick video primer. I want all my readers to be able to discuss energy topics across the spectrum intelligently.
You’re welcome.

Matt Randolph is vice president and principal partner of Sentinel Energy, based in Oklahoma. He’s better known as “Mr. Global” on TikTok and YouTube.

Nebraska, a deep red state that voted heavily Republican, is finding out that acting President Musk views them as parasitic wasteful spenders.
Oops.
One way forward – build out clean energy, take advantage of huge natural resource, help farmers diversify their income as corn prices crash, and bring much needed revenue to hard pressed rural communities.

Nebraska Examiner:

The federal government is again planning to decrease the percentage of state Medicaid costs it will cover for Nebraska, leaving state lawmakers on the hook for an additional $90.3 million this budgeting cycle.

State Sen. Rob Clements of Elmwood, chair of the budget-writing Appropriations Committee, announced the revision Thursday, one day after legislative staff found the overlooked Federal Medical Assistance Percentage (FMAP) revisions from January. 
–
Clements’ committee issued a preliminary budget Feb. 18 that identified $171 million toward closing the shortfall. However, some of those items, including a $14 million cut to the University of Nebraska, will be fought in committee and, if advanced, during floor debate.

With the Medicaid changes but without the committee’s recommended cuts, the state budget shortfall for the 2025-27 fiscal years is $457 million. Including the committee’s changes, the shortfall would be about $289 million, according to the legislative fiscal office.

Clements said it will be “a tougher year than we thought” to balance the budget.

Nebraska Public Media:

Sen. Tom Brandt, who represents a southern Nebraska district that leads the state in percentage of unpaved roads, said low corn prices contributed to the shortfall.

“When you take the 46,000 corn farmers in the state of Nebraska, and their income has all got basically cut in half, it has a direct impact on the amount of income taxes paid into the state of Nebraska,” he said. “I doubt anybody forecasted that.”

Continue reading “Trump/Musk Cuts Hammering Nebraska. Clean Energy Might be a Way Out”

I keep asking “Where is the Tesla board?”.
Good point made here – China now has powerful leverage on US government due to Tesla’s big profits and investments there.

“Running the US government might be more interested for (Musk) than running Tesla.”

“You find out who’s naked when the tide goes out.” – Warren Buffet

These are the same guys rifling thru your financial and medical data.

Independent:

A group of Department of Government Efficiency agents repeatedly pressured a federal official to open a large water pump system in California — and then flew there to do it themselves, according to a new report.

DOGE staffers attempted to pressure the acting head of the Bureau of Reclamation to open a water pump system, CNN reports. The staffers wanted to send the water to Los Angeles amid the devastating wildfires in January — even though the system wouldn’t have allowed it to reach the scorched city, CNN reports. 

Despite this, they still decided to take matters into their own hands.

In January, DOGE staffers called the Bureau of Reclamation claiming President Donald Trump wanted water pumps turned on at the Jones Pumping Plant, which sends water to the state’s Central Valley, CNN reports.

But when the official didn’t give in, staffers Tyler Hassen and Bryton Shang flew to California to open the pumps themselves and get a photo while doing so, CNN reports. But two issues stopped them.

Continue reading “DOGE “Instant Experts” Behind California Water Fiasco”

Topline:

The idea that the US can walk away from Canada’s oil is droll, baby, droll.
Kudos to CNN for finally explaining to me what “light, sweet” crude is.

Like I’ve been saying, “Drill Baby Drill” is a slogan for low information voters, but does not reflect the real world. Trump energy policy is a mess. The clean energy transition is unstoppable, but if this crowd doesn’t change course, we’re headed right into a depression ditch.

CNN:

Oil falls on a spectrum from light to heavy, depending on how much sulfur it contains. The recent shale revolution — with new fracking methods extracting more oil from Texas, New Mexico and North Dakota — has pushed the US to become the biggest oil producer in the world. It’s also generating an expensive, light crude oil, which made up most of what the US exported in 2024: 4.3 million barrels per day.

Oil experts call it “the champagne of crudes.”

But that is not the kind of oil that has powered cars and industry in the US for decades. America was built on a thick, gunky crude that comes from other countries including Canada, Saudi Arabia and Central and South American nations.

“All crude is not the same,” said Bob McNally, president of consulting firm Rapidan Energy Group. “Some crudes are like coffee grounds — they’re gunky, awful, viscous, dirty. Some crudes are like champagne, light and un-sulfurous.”

Continue reading “Drill Baby Drill is Dead”