Impressive wait times for an odd-year election with only a bunch of constitutional amendments and a single proposition on the ballot. I think prop Q is driving turnout, but moreover I think people are just venting. I found it cathartic to vote this morning; my wife called it “hate voting.”

My 7th grader carved his pumpkin and included “6-7” as an Easter egg. Can you find it?

i don’t know how to cross-post this from FB but this is absolutely heartbreaking. The age of scientific ocean discovery we were brought up in is gone & will never come back. I can’t.

Monarch butterflies coming through Austin

I was a little confused about Real Simple teaching us about the wind but then I saw it’s actually a conversation with @drkatemarvel.bsky.social! Worth a read. Well done.

Snapshotted from The Other Place… China is eating our lunch on nuclear energy. H/t @dwallacewells.bsky.social

Austin Energy (our local publicly owned utility) with a big battery storage deal: austinenergy.com/about/news/n...

I don’t know about the West Coast areas but there’s very little resource potential on the Atlantic margin. Baltimore Canyon Trough, Carolina Trough, Georgia Embayment, all explored by the majors + COST wells back in the 70s and there‘s nothing. 1/2

The energy emergency is over, good job everyone! www.nytimes.com/2025/10/22/b...

An account that I have blocked informed me that solar is subsidized, so why should it be cheap? Fossil fuel production is also heavily subsidized. Actually more so! This was literally in the news the other day. The bots aren’t bringing their A game. Do better, trolls. www.nytimes.com/2025/10/16/c...

Good! Solar is the fastest growing electricity source in the state that produces the most electricity. And it’s cheap!

The statements by the current CEO of Liberty contrast strongly with those of the former CEO. Tariffs are “a path to mediocrity, not excellence…They raise prices, cut profits, increase unemployment, diminish productivity and slow economic growth.” www.msn.com/en-us/money/...

Monday funday!

I hate to dunk but have these guys looked at exploration techniques from 20 years ago? AI might add value in quantifying subsurface uncertainty- and my colleagues are looking at this! - but this assessment is a joke.

As summer stretches into October in Texas, a reminder that this is predicted and will affect grid stability by constricting times when power plants can conduct maintenance. Growth in renewables and storage will help. Here’s my 2024 oped with @joshdr83.bsky.social. www.expressnews.com/opinion/comm...

We are in the midst of the geothermal unit of my sustainable energy class and this podcast is on point - Quaise is tackling a gnarly problem (and I was skeptical of their approach as recently as last year!) Volts continues its tradition of excellence. Y‘all should listen.

New paper! We looked at every single permeability measurement from scientific ocean drilling boreholes so you don't have to. 71% are from the Pacific and the other oceans are jealous. Only 159 of the 4143 boreholes drilled have permeability data. (1/2) doi.org/10.1016/j.ma...

I’m sorry folks, but what the heck are we doing. Is there an energy emergency or not. What’s the plan here. Is there even a plan. If so what actually is it.

@arvindpawan1.bsky.social from the top rope

Crepuscular rays at Mueller Lake Park

Got my flu and Covid shots today! Please clap. Insurance paid everything but I did have to tick the box that I have a “sedentary lifestyle” (ngl, I kinda do).

As an antidote to *extends hands* all this, I won the AGU lottery by having every presentation I’m involved in get scheduled on the same day, and not even conflicting! Please clap.

Go sox

PhD student Ali Mohamed is out on the R/V Neil Armstrong right now collecting high-frequency seismic data in our study area around the Cape Fear Slide offshore North Carolina. Here he is on our 2023 Langseth cruise launching an XBT, and a photo he took of the Armstrong. Watch out for hurricanes Ali!

Ok Bsky friends, my other life is classical music. Almost went to conservatory - story for another day. I had a music dictionary in high school where Brahms 4 mvmt 2 was an example of some German dance, and I cannot find any record of this on the internet. Pic shows the rhythm. Am I out of my mind?

I greatly enjoyed this and you will too. Particularly the bit about where LFP batteries will or won’t lead us. But the whole thing is great.

Today was International Talk Like a Pirate Day. Did anyone complete a full lecture in pirate voice? I said “avast” and “briny deep” and “yo ho” a few times. Ye scurvy landlubbers.

I get that this is an Elder Millennial thing but I just want to turn on PBS at 6 pm and hear “Good evening, I’m Jim Lehrer” with the original trumpet theme and know that everything is under control. That’s what the post-9/11 years were like for those of you too young to remember.

Group project #1 presentations in my class this week. One option was to research incentives etc that different countries are taking to decarbonize. Some great content and discussion! #energysky 1/x

I just finished responding to the most reviewer-2iest of all reviews (and it was literally reviewer 2!) and the rebuttal was longer than the actual manuscript. Please clap. 1/5

Many of you have seen the recent Nature article on limitations on the amount of CO2 that can actually be stored in the subsurface. You’ll not be surprised that I have thoughts! Which I detail here. #energysky 1/6 lhttps://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-025-09423-y

Talking Heads first identified submarine hydrogeology as a research area back in 1981. Get David Byrne as a co-PI on your next grant.

Hey y’all, just a reminder that rare earth elements and critical minerals are different things. The former are mainly lanthanides, which are radioactive, while the former are defined by the USGS as important for energy security.

Bad news guys - I’ve already been informed by a Retired Scientist™ that this is too expensive. Pencils down I guess! It was fun while it lasted.

This is awesome and Equinor has established themselves as a leader in carbon storage. Problem is, this cost almost $2 billion and we’ll need like 1000 more of them. But the expertise in the oil and gas industry is necessary to make it happen & reduce costs. jpt.spe.org/northern-lig...

1st class of the semester today & I showed this plot from Carey King’s book of world energy percentage by source since 1800. Note how increasing energy demand has always been met by increasing diversity of energy sources. We should let diversity expand to meet projected demand growth. #energysky

Whewph, guess the energy emergency has been solved, good job everyone

Well, there it is folks, I got an associate editor full house this morning.

Interesting to think about the 1930s dust bowl and ensuing New Deal in contrast to who’s really feeling climate change this time.

Got this banger by @vermontgmg.bsky.social to read on vacation. Fun fact: I’m pretty sure Garrett was a year ahead of me in Winthrop House and bought a keyboard and mouse from me that I had advertised on the house listserv, around 2002ish. Looking forward to reading the atomic bomb book!

My post-dinner lecture on finding the roots of second-order polynomials went over about as you might expect with the wife and kids.

Doesn’t look like much but this is pasta puttanesca (Chrissy Teigen’s recipe). Made this every week during COVID - I would shop Thursday bc shorter line to get into the store, make it that night. Ah memories. (1/2)

Philosophical questions from my 10-year-old tonight: “Would you rather be a crocodile or a snake?” “Would you rather be dead or extinct?”

I'm writing up some carbon mgmt stuff and I found this banger of a paper from last year by Ruud Weijermars that looks at challenges in geologic carbon storage. I loved this passage bc of (1) calling out reviewers and (2) we need to move faster if this is ever going to work. doi.org/10.1016/j.es...

Is Trump going to fire the rig count folks at BakerHughes or what

Fireflies in our front yard in Austin on August 1! Never seen this before. #atxwx

At this point if you’re not making investment decisions based on this I dunno but here we are. Taco Thursday?

Y’all, I regularly comment on gasoline prices on the radio and stuff and this is just not true and I don’t get why he keeps saying it.

Oh, you know, just normal congressional district boundaries in the Austin area (proposed D10 stretches way to the east of I-45)

Actually, when you look at the top 10 largest earthquakes recorded, the only 2 that we've done a good job probing with scientific ocean drilling are Sumatra 2004 and Tohoku 2011. Kamchatka, Alaska, Chile - not well constrained. I'll leave this here but write more tomorrow.