this repost = endoresement

Thanks for this 🧵, Mark Last week, I had a conversation with a Texan now living in Singapore. He asked (paraphrasing), "What do you think would it take for you Americans get it (back) together, and is it possible to actually do all that?" I should have just shown him your thread.

Here's a syllogism+ for all the utility regulatory folks out there: --Rules and standards are not self-executing --Performance-based regulation (PBR) is a set of complex and potentially dynamic rules and standards --PBR is *not* self-executing And now the "+" --PBR only works if states staff up

Lincoln-on-Jefferson commentary! I only learned the term "2nd founding" (a reference to the basic changes wrought by the Civil War and Constitutional amendments 13-14-15 that followed it) in law school. That term should be a commonplace in high school history classes.

RFK, jr & team are trying to squash the market for vaccines and US funding for vaccine R&D and thereby cut off vaccine development globally. It's incumbent on other powers (including e.g. US states) to act to preserve the vaccine development system with research and vaccination funding.

THESE DATA EXIST Hear that PhD advisors?

Question for the team: Has anyone done solid research on ambient temperatures *inside* dwellings in the U.S. across the 20th century? Obviously, the more cross-tab-type info the better (region, housing type, climatic zone, income, energy source(s) etc.). #EnergySky

Most colossal moment of this maybe ever

1. This amounts to breaking the judiciary's reading glasses to make it harder for judges to see something important. 2. The suggestion that the authors of the manual have an agenda other than informing decisionmakers of true things is absurd. Like, LOL.

Here's the link: thefutureofheat.com/publications

The Future of Heat Initiative just does not stop examining how gas utility capital spending is affecting energy affordability across various states. New to the list: #9 Colorado #10 Oregon

Seems like a good day to remind people -- especially Americans, but not exclusively Americans -- that this book exists and might reveal to them historical facts and insights that, for me, ranked somewhere between "wow, didn't realize" and "[sits down with shocked look on face] so that's why."

This thread can't be reposted enough

Just saw my first electric yellow school bus in the wild!

Time to get ready. When, you ask? No time like the present.

The Future of Heat Initiative has more affordability primers for you! Because gas utilities are actually pipe companies and the pipes ain't getting cheaper. #7 Connecticut #8 Rhode Island thefutureofheat.com/publications

Election admin (and election protection, for the lawyers in the house) is tedious stuff but really not hard to help accomplish. I've cleared my calendar for Nov 2-3, 2026 and am exploring where to sign up. I've gone to Pennsylvania in past years (easy enough from NYC). Might stay in NY this year.

Here's the slide I use when I talk about rising costs in BOTH gas and electricity systems. Capital expended on distribution poles, wires, and pipes is the main cost for utilities and are the main driver of your rapidly growing energy bills. Gas 4X and electricity 2X inflation between 2003 and 2023.

If your family is American, what brought them here? Dad's side: Puritanism*; not wanting to fight/die for Bismarck Mom's side: Cossacks, basically * Some amateur genealogy suggests that my ancestor wasn't the most pious and was maybe the first one executed in the Mass Bay Colony

My face did this upon reading the post -- haven't even read the paper yet. (Honestly, I'm afraid to.)

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*.

Maybe being a lawyer has confused me, but I continue to find that some of the clearest, best contextualized descriptions of the DJT administration being inept, destructive, and shameless all at once have appeared in judicial opinions.

We've gotten some strong applications already, but we want more! Why, you ask? Why do we want to GIVE PEOPLE $$$ to do some research-for-publication? 1/3

Over the next 50 years this aspect of housing is going to shift from "nice additional factor that might possibly show up in market pricing" to "1st or 2nd question posed to sell-side broker"

When a winter storm takes out a power line that feeds someone's home, the only way their heat stays on is if they have a battery. This is true whether they heat with gas or an electric heat pump. Gas furnaces and boilers need power for their controls, fans and pumps. No battery, no heat.

Some good, bare-knuckled legislative ideas here from my NY Assembly Member

Your mission, Mr Bessent, is to make parody and satire impossible -- to deprive the enemy of these weapons.

Thank you @nycdot.bsky.social for clearing the snow from the bike lanes!

As a regulatory lawyer who is happy to see this administration tie its own shoelaces together & then double-knot them, I say: Go for it, but be sure to also use AI to respond to comments filed in response to the NPRM, keep on telling everyone that you're using AI, & good luck with judicial review!

#6 Maryland

electrek.co/2026/01/19/g... New big Rondo heat battery project in Germany, tying the largest existing project (100MWh - notably only 10% of facility demand). Between this and Eavor, Germany showing that a lot of clean heat pencils when you don't have cheap gas (unlike US).

I went to law school with Seth. Before he became a journalist he was an attorney (an intimidatingly good one). And before that he was a veteran. He is a profoundly responsible person. If your rep is on this House committee, please consider contacting them about the bogus subpoena described below.

Name reality. We are on the Pequod.

Pleased to say that just the other day I crossed out "hard to decarbonize" in a scoping document and commented "not sure this term is useful any more -- and maybe it never was"

It is a rare and exciting thing when you think of something that could make people's lives better, describe the idea, and then see it show up in the world and actually make people's lives better. (I'm not taking credit for the work being done in NC and elsewhere here. Just admiring it.)

We, your friends at The Future of Heat Initiative, have posted quick, accessible, here's-what-you-need-to-know analyses of rising utility-delivered gas bills in five (5) jurisdictions: CA, IL, MA, NY, and DC. More are on the way. Here's the link: thefutureofheat.com/publications

That there’s not a massive, credible, instant, bipartisan impeachment/25th Amendment move over these senseless and destructive Greenland threats is a sign of how broken our politics are — and especially how broken the Republican Party is.

Trump-appointed judge allows New York's 810 MW Empire Wind offshore project to resume construction, pausing the Trump administration's December 22 order to stop work (gift link). 🔌💡 www.nytimes.com/2026/01/15/c...

Sean's illuminating thread here is an n-of-1, but there are lots more similar n's behind it.

I forget sometimes that the scale of offshore wind's potential hasn't really broken through in the US. Even in energy-world there's lots of "well actually"ing about initial costs. Wish I knew how to convey to people just how much clean power is sitting there, ready to be tapped.

This is so much more polite, upbeat, and indirect than I would have been. Good for the MTA.

Reposting to echo and amplify that "woah" WOAH

Sad trombone for all the folks who fought this interregional transmission line that will deliver clean power to New England through all the (sometimes dubious) means available to them. Hey, at least you managed to delay it by a year or so and make it a scooch more expensive.

I paid for a scan of the Oct 1912 cover of Electric City Magazine from the LoC, which I saw in Harold Platt's "The Electric City: Energy and the Growth of the Chicago Area, 1880-1930" years back 🔌💡 here's a link to the 250MB tif if you want to get your own print drive.google.com/file/d/16a8w...

In Illinois, as in Massachusetts, residential customers are using less natural gas. But because of how utilities have invested in their distribution systems, utility bills are still going up. The pattern spells trouble, and it's present in other states too (stay tuned for those).

Waves happily from a 3BR in Manhattan.

Lovely thread about the birth of the NYC fare card that MTA is now laying to rest

Big news for the upper upper west side of Manhattan in 2026

The era of the mad libs mayor is over Buh bye