My cousin’s son made bank last year after Hurricane Helene slammed into Florida.

You see, he’s a lineman.  He’s the guy that installs and repairs power lines.  And anytime there’s a major weather event, his overtime card gets clocked.  There’s a big demand for new linemen these days, and I suspect this will continue as extreme weather events become the new normal. 

Another “new normal” is accepting that the climate is changing, and that there’s a mountain of cash to be made by investing in climate adaptation companies. That is, companies that provide products and services that are helping us adapt to this changing climate in a way that allows us to keep living our very fortunate way of life. Even while the forests burn, the oceans rise, and our coastal lands become too cost-prohibitive to insure against persistent flooding and 150-mile-per-hour hurricane-force winds.

It’s textbook “crisis = opportunity.”  And we’re here for it.

Now we’ve already discussed Generac (NYSE: GNRC) at length.  This is the generator company that’s cleaning up thanks to an increase in intensity of hurricanes, wildfires, and heatwaves.  The company did $4 billion in net sales in 2023.  2024 numbers will be even bigger.  

Make no mistake: it’s a good time to be the biggest generator company in the world.

But Generac isn’t the only company providing climate adaptation products and technology.  One that I recently came across really piqued my interest, as it focuses on wildfires. 

California Wildfires: Heat and Hard Cash

An increase in heat waves and extended droughts over the past couple decades has been a key driver in the increasing risk and extent of wildfires, particularly in the U.S.

As reported in Forbes, the current spate of wildfires could cost the U.S. economy more than $89 billion in lost output, and have a profound effect on the national economy. We’re talking about the loss of 466,000 jobs and $89.6 billion in lost economic output.

Another study, which was conducted last year by the U.S. Congress Joint Economic Committee found that an increase in the intensity of wildfires cost the United States between $394 billion to $893 billion each year in economic costs and damages.

Then consider health care costs related to wildfires.  According to this study, wildfire smoke exposure caused 6,200 respiratory hospital visits and 1,700 PM2.5 related deaths in 2021. This is expected to cost around $16 billion a year in health care costs. 

To clarify, PM2.5 are fine particles that have a diameter less than 2.5 micrometers (more than 100 times thinner than a human hair) and remain suspended in the air for longer durations. The health risk with PM2.5 is that they can travel deep into the respiratory tract, reaching the lungs and entering the bloodstream.

So indeed, the economic damage as a result of wildfires is not trivial. Which is why I was intrigued with a relatively new company called Pano.

Pano has developed a connected, intelligent platform for fire professionals that helps them detect threats, confirm fires, and disseminate information to responders, faster than ever before.

The company speeds response time by empowering detection specialists with enhanced visual equipment and rapid data analysis, supported by AI. 

Specialists have a single, unified view combining ultra-high-definition cameras, geo satellite data, field sensors, legacy cameras, emergency alerts, and other data feeds — as well as the ability to share everything in real-time with their extended team. Altogether, this makes it possible to quickly identify and contain wildfires.

Here’s how it works …

Pano Stations

Pano Stations are deployed on high vantage points and continuously scan the landscape using 360-degree, ultra-high-definition cameras and artificial intelligence to spot, evaluate, and signal wildfire activity within a 10-mile radius.

Detection

Pano uses deep learning AI and computer vision to automatically detect, verify and classify wildfire events in real time. Pano software enables real-time viewing and triage of wildfire alerts, and built-in communication tools to get information out to the field.

Confirmation

When Pano detects a threat from any source, it automatically alerts fire monitoring professionals and provides intelligent, auto-centered images with enhanced zoom, speeding confirmation of the event and triangulation of the exact fire location.

Dissemination

Once a fire is confirmed, Pano helps fire monitoring professionals quickly disseminate information to their extended team in real time. With built-in alerts and mobile notifications, first responders always have up-to-date time-lapse imagery and key information on fire location and movement. This empowers them to respond to wildfire events with greater accuracy and control.

Although Pano is not a public company, I wanted to share this with you as we continue to provide you with the latest intel on new climate adaptation technologies that are getting hundreds of millions of dollars in funding. And, of course, could ultimately lead to opportunities for retail investors, too.

You can check out a short video about Pano here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1zo9YP2AHhE