Spending way too much time working and not in the places I thought I was trying to save.

Me wanting to wade into the bad-faith discourse on racial capitalism on the other site but also needing to work on *checks notes* transmission permitting stuff for me job.

Data centers (in their current form) are deeply contingent upon the imaginaries of a platformized web, which began consolidating in the mid-2000s. They are far from inevitable and alternatives already exist. They’re just not as cheap, ubiquitous, nor profit-generating.

I think a lot of ostensibly pro-climate people in energy (e.g. regulatory, policy, research), broadly speaking, have made the foregone conclusion that data centers are inevitable so should be done “right,” and I think this is wildly mistaken.

I recently hired someone. During the search, finalists submitted timed written essays. One of my colleagues flagged two responses as AI when reviewing. Different tools showed different likelihoods of AI use, from 3%-70%. Then I plugged my original writing in and it said 80% AI. We are cooked.

Jerk chicken, beans and peas, mango salsa, fried plantains. Heaven.

So like what should I stock up on before the bread lines start to grow

One plausible reason data centers elicit more outrage than fossil fuel infrastructure is a problem of visibility, of "materializing" fossil fuel infrastructure beyond sites of extraction (h/t energy humanities scholarship). Data centers are just more tangible.

It is striking to me that pro-data center officials are experiencing more violence than fossil fuel execs. Not sure what to think of this yet.

Placing data centers within a broader corpus of large infrastructure that harms local communities but purportedly contributes to a “greater good” (dams/mines/pipelines), they aren’t visible technical marvels and it’s very hard to craft disingenuous stories about their real benefits (which are few).

Placing data centers within a broader corpus of large infrastructure that harms local communities but purportedly contributes to a “greater good” (dams/mines/pipelines), they aren’t visible technical marvels and it’s very hard to craft disingenuous stories about their real benefits (which are few).

Source tells me the TPUSA SRP candidates are stable. Please god

Source tells me the TPUSA SRP candidates are stable. Please god

The coal state/community to data center hub is something to keep an eye on.

In the past week I: Learned we were awarded $600k to do some really exciting work on transmission permitting. Hired a brilliant policy analyst to support my work in the Intermountain West. Worried constantly about nuclear war, genocide, and food and fuel scarcity Installed a new garbage disposal

Journalism schools around the country should design a new course called “How to not be a transactional piece of shit” centered around Jake Sherman.

Even Ezra Klein doesn’t think Trump’s doing nuclear threats the right way.

I’m thinking a lot about people who have been arguing since early 2025 that the military would do the right thing in the event of a fascist takeover… as they now gratuitously commit war crimes in Iran.

So SAVE ending is going to destroy our finances. Super awesome.

I can’t imagine what it’s like to be searching for a job in climate and clean energy right now; there scores of smart and dedicated people and too few roles. I’m moving toward completion of our hiring process and it’s kind of heartbreaking to not be able to hire more than one person.

A sense I think I’ll never shake is anxiety I’m not doing enough on climate. I felt like that in academia and at a national lab and now as I work on transmission/grid stuff. But I think that just comes with a problem so enormous it’s tough to see measurable progress in the near-term.

Honestly wondering if I should take this work trip tomorrow.

I'm sure unpaid TSA agents are super eager to collaborate with and train currently paid ICE agents on airport security.

Unless there's a sudden shift in weather conditions, preliminary estimates show that 2026 set another new record low maximum extent for #Arctic sea ice. This follows very closely with last year, which previously set the record. Not good! Download graphic at zacklabe.com/arctic-sea-i...

Anybody else going to RES in Vegas?

Super stoked to fly this week.

I used to teach a unit on UFW in my environmental justice class focused fully on Dolores Huerta (secondary theme in the course was women in the EJ movement) and my students argued this even before the monstrous Chavez allegations came to light.

I used to teach a unit on UFW in my environmental justice class focused fully on Dolores Huerta (secondary theme in the course was women in the EJ movement) and my students argued this even before the monstrous Chavez allegations came to light.

I’m not feeling great about the circulating argument that data centers are inevitable, so we may as well tap them to pay for grid expansion. While that may seem shrewd, the notion that infrastructure is “inevitable” has led to a lot of unjust outcomes for hosting communities and beyond (see: dams).

I’m not feeling great about the circulating argument that data centers are inevitable, so we may as well tap them to pay for grid expansion. While that may seem shrewd, the notion that infrastructure is “inevitable” has led to a lot of unjust outcomes for hosting communities and beyond (see: dams).

This is funny because the DOE’s socials have been by far the worst of all the government accounts except the WH during Trump 2.0.

So overconfident, condescending, verbose without saying anything at all, quotes inaccurately from memory, funded for way too long, still likely to land a tenure track job anyway?

Exhibit A:

The world is burning but found out we we have a large escrow surplus (which, wtf?) so maybe we can buy a lot of canned goods to get us through the apocalypse if the check comes on time.

The hand of the market not looking so invisible now

We are going to hear people argue that the silver lining of the illegal war in Iran will be an accelerated energy transition and that the coming humanitarian crises will be worth it. Those people are not to be trusted and in fact deserve your scorn.

If you say you care deeply about the energy transition but then openly despise people who live where critical infrastructure must be built to ensure that transition without trying to understand their experiences and perspectives, then you are just a deeply unserious person with a fucking podcast.

It honestly makes more sense for the face of the American Gestapo to be named Markwayne tbh

If the same app you use for free to find a recipe that uses up the nearly expired food in your fridge is being used commercially to incinerate school children, it may be time to rethink things.

We received 125 applications for the energy policy analyst role at Gridworks. It's like sorting through an embarrassment of riches. There are so many qualified applicants, refugees from fed agencies. It's sad we can only hire one. Reach out if you're hiring; happy to forward candidates along to you.

Daines out in Montana literal minutes before the filing deadline. Good riddance, wtf?!, should I run, etc.

Glad Ryan Zinke is retiring. Fake-ass Montanan to the core. I remember the time he was in an ad claiming he would do right by Montana's hunters and anglers holding a fly rod upside down, rigged backwards.

It’s hilarious to me, in a dark kind of way, that I saw like 5 DOE social posts boasting about gas prices under Trump as an obvious reason to vote GOP in the midterms and now gas is gonna be $10/gallon if the oil can make it around, like, the Cape of Good Hope.

A pretty simple litmus test: any Dem who isn’t clearly and vehemently opposing an illegal war with Iran is not sincerely opposed to Trump and fascism and does not deserve to be elected.

If Mamdani is such a Trump whisperer why doesn’t he make IT happen

There’s still time to apply for this Energy Policy Analyst role to work with me at Gridworks! Role is focused in the non-coastal western U.S. feel free to reach out with questions.

Might soon have some exciting work funded on interstate transmission permitting, Tribal transmission work, and capacity building in red state/rural contexts. I've been grinding the past six months, but hopefully soon we can get cooking on this work!

A reworked Monkeywrench Gang but the target is data centers instead of billboards and bulldozers.

When I was in Wyoming, I learned that every 5-10 years, someone looks around and wonders why young people are leaving Wyoming for opportunities elsewhere and starts and initiative or public discussion to address the problem. Governors and legislators deride or ignore it, and things get worse.

Which makes the productivity of many junior scholars these days all the more remarkable - it’s all done under the extreme duress of intensively auditioning for other roles!