It has occurred to me that the optimal level of marketing for my podcast Volts, upon which my family's entire income depends, might be higher than its current level of zero.

Bsky hive mind: have any connections to folks working at American Public Power Association? I need some data help for an electricity affordability project! Paging: @kevinjkircher.com @johnffarrell.bsky.social Thank you!!

▓▓░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░ 13.56%

Scientists: if you have pursued/secured philanthropic funding in the wake of federal research funding cuts, I want to talk to you. Reposts appreciated!

periodic reminder of what clean air act gave the united states

“The U.S. no longer has emission standards of any meaning,” said Margo T. Oge, who served as the E.P.A.’s top vehicle emissions regulator under three presidents and has since advised both automakers and environmental groups… “Nothing. Zero,” she added. “Not many countries have zero.”

‘District heating supplies a large proportion of Kyiv’s 1600 high-rise blocks. In a cold climate, it’s an efficient way to deliver heating and hot water to a large number of people. But in war the system is horribly vulnerable.’ @jenstout.bsky.social in Kyiv. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

Straight up don’t give a shit anymore

I feel this shouldn't have to be said, but if you're running an @OpenClaw bot please don't let it spam GitHub projects with PRs and then write aggressive blog posts attacking the reputation of the maintainers who close those PRs simonwillison.net/2026/Feb/12/...

This was one of the biggest mistakes of the environmental movement, framing fighting climate as inherently sacrificial. EVs are better vehicles than gas cars, I love every day I can ride a bike or walk to work, heat pumps heat & cool, video conferencing give us our time back, etc.

Listen to @electronecon.bsky.social and @volts.wtf dig into utility return on equity, why it's not the same as the utility's cost of equity, and what we should do about it. You won't regret it. www.volts.wtf/p/are-utilit...

Just found five AI-generated, completely fraudulent submissions to the journal that I edit. Submitted rapid-fire by a gmail address affiliated with researcher who does not exist. The era of AI slop in academic journals is here, right now. The fraudsters will only get better from here.

Final EIA-860 is out, and 2025 really did it: 54 GW of new U.S. electric capacity, 96% clean. Solar again carries the offense, and we built more storage in 2025 than the cumulative total through 2023. More and more and more additions... but also record low retirements.

very plain english best practices of using claude code without nuking your system

Anthropic will cover electricity price increases from datacenters... apparently www.anthropic.com/news/coverin... will pay for - grid infrastructure costs - power procurement - flexibility - local communities Is this how they signal AGI is here?

Attention good government, infrastructure, abundance, and state capacity nerds: here's a terrific new paper on how we arrived at one particularly ineffective (though good-sounding) practice -- lowest-cost bidding -- and what to do about it. papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

mental model of our world from the dude who wrote Harry Potter and the methods of rationality

"The grid is decarbonizing" is not the same as "everyone benefits." New EPRI analysis connects nodal power system modeling with community vulnerability data to track distributional air quality impacts. The who is the point.

So enlightened

important to touch grass

I finally got what I wanted, a chart that shows how much of a given year a heat pump is suitable for a given climate. I find that I can get heat pumps to work pretty well in most houses down to 25° or so.

The Indiana House passed a performance-based ratemaking (PBR) bill that would tie regulated monopoly utility profits to the levels of reliability and affordability they provide to ratepayers. It would also ban utility shutoffs during heatwaves. Small steps, but moving in the right general direction.

AV public discourse is almost similar to that of AI, where warranted skepticism against Silicon Valley leads to premature dismissal of and disengagement from the tech. Both AI & AV will proliferate (maybe time for a quicktrip to SF or Phoenix to see for yourself), but WE try to put the guardrails

Legit concerns about AVs risk metamorphosing into a general panic when these incredible inventions should instead be the tip of a legislative spear for prodding automakers about gaps in their own safety systems. One senator even alluded to the US losing jobs for safety drivers, please be serious.

“I’ve been cast at the Winter Olympics Opening Ceremony” “What are you?” “A stovetop espresso maker.”

Current* conditions near Hamilton, ON:

I tried super hard to stay above and ahead of it, but finally the winter and ~~ everything ~~ is finally getting to me.

We are excited to see what you do with this data, and hope to build on this work in the future. You can read our full paper at nature.com/articles/s41467-025-68019-2 This is joint work with Rachel Young, Maria Fitzpatrick, @nkgarg.bsky.social, and @emmapierson.bsky.social! 9/9

MIGRATE is also useful for studying local migration trends. For example, it reveals dramatic rates of out-migration after wildfires in California that are invisible in previous Census datasets. 7/9

i refuse to cede the em dash to ai. absolutely not you can pry that long thin line from my cold dead hands

Former chairperson of Indian Oil Corporation Limited (the country's largest government-owned oil and gas company) writes an op-ed calling for a focus on industrial decarbonisation www.thehindu.com/opinion/lead...

I'm told the catastrophic Washington Post layoffs today include at least 14 climate journalists. Totally gutting. Details: www.climatecoloredgoggles.com/p/washington...

broke: artificial intelligence woke: spicy autocomplete bespoke: haunted probability matrix that learned to care

I follow this stuff closely. I wrote about it a few months ago. I'm shocked how fast this is happening for big trucks. "China’s rapid adoption of electric trucks — which overtook gas-powered vehicle sales for the first time last yea"

Lead (Pb) in archived hair in Salt Lake City. "Lead (Pb) in archived hair documents a decline in lead exposure to humans since the establishment of the US Environmental Protection Agency " www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

My favorite detail about Wire Season 2 is that they were always unloading stuff at the docks. Never loading.

As a general economic matter, caps on return are bad policy (because risk and return are supposed to be linked, and because it’s the spread against zero-risk rates that matter, not the absolute rate per se.). But I’m glad we’re finally having this conversation. www.nytimes.com/2026/01/31/b...

Next time someone asks you about energy and land use, maybe remind them that the ~35 million acres that currently grow corn for ethanol in the US could produce ~15 PWh per year of electricity from solar photovoltaics. That's ~3.5 times more than *total annual generation from all US power plants*.

Put another way, we could get rid of corn ethanol, switch 30% of the freed-up farmland to solar to generate 100% of US electricity, and use the other 70% of the freed-up land for whatever we want.

To meet its current consumption levels with renewable energy, the United States would need the area equivalent to what’s currently used for maple syrup.

Put a third way, growing corn for ethanol to move combustion vehicles around uses ~100 times more land than making solar electricity to move electric vehicles around.

i didnt think i could experience joy on the internets anymore

Part 2: m.youtube.com/watch?v=qCM2...

New gas power plant -- behind the meter, only to service datacenter -- on the site of coal-fired power plant in Homer City PA, will generate 4.4 GW of power, as much as peak winter demand of Scotland. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

Massachusetts's Electric Power Division is hiring for an energy analyst. Ratemaking + electrification + reliability. Super cool job! www.mass.gov/alerts/the-e...

I’m not sure what’s happening at Anthropic but between picking fights with pentagon, Dario’s blog, and now publishing this result, I think they might be trying to position themselves as The Responsible AI developer. Anyway sending this to my class.

A new study from Anthropic finds that gains in coding efficiency when relying on AI assistance did did not meet statistical significance; AI use noticeably degraded programmers’ understanding of what they were doing. Incredible.

i love this piece. It's creative in its question, brave in its attempt (an almost narrative essay in a science magazine? yes please!), and so, so well-written

A strange but true finding about NYC congestion pricing: Drivers’ time savings have overwhelmingly gone to those traveling *outside* the toll zone (i.e., driving from Brooklyn to Queens or within NJ) – not those headed into Manhattan. Me, in Bloomberg 🧵

Stop Guessing, Start Planning. Ever look at a single snow forecast and think, "But what are the actual odds?" The Probabilistic Precipitation Portal is a resource to help you get ahead of the storm by moving beyond a single number to give you the full picture. www.wpc.ncep.noaa.gov/Prob_Precip/ 👇