The Appalachian Speakeasy has you covered for NY's Eve. Leave your inhibitions at the door. Time for a special New Year's Eve Cocktail and a conversation about Prohibition and what prime directives should, and should not, do. Also, happy anniversary Mrs. W. 🍸🍹 #cocktails WV #appalachia

The newest map of data centers, real and planned (imagined?), and transmission from the NREL (now National Lab of the Rockies). 🔌💡 🏛️ 📊📈

There is a very tangible cost to being purveyors of experiences rather than knowledge and analytical thinking. AI, polarization, and corporate organization does indeed render grades useless. #highered

This, but for all of them - they sell themselves on the complex stuff they don't do well and forget to sell themselves on the simpler things they would do well. Their marketing model should be MS Office, not iphones.

Take a look folks. People are saying @3streamsblog.bsky.social went BIGLY this year! 😎 🏛️ #polisky

Important PSA. USPS 📨

The closures bit is the important part, and it's just as true of the east as the west - policy. 💡🔌 🏛️ "The increase is being driven by higher natural gas prices and slower-than-expected closures of coal-fired plants, according to the IEA report."

Good geospatial analysis by @pewresearch.org this year on the siting of data centers. It's not likely that we are setting our phones, computers, and other systems aside anytime soon. As a professor, ask me how I know. 1/2 💡🔌 🏛️ #WestVirginia #rural

Head over to the Appalachian Speakeasy for this week's cocktail and tales of coal, cream, and trains. 🍸🍹 #cocktails #Appalachia #WestVirginia

Looks like a great project for Garrett County. Lots of potential across Appalachia. 💡🔌 #rural #coalcommunities

Let's see those deals. Also, Talisker is a favorite - smoke, but not Islay smoke, vanilla, and the sea spray is 🤌. Hire me, Talisker.

West Virginia peeps. If you want to comment, get to it soon. #WestVirginia 🔌💡 Also, follow @caitycoyne.bsky.social.

This weekend is Winter Solstice, the shortest day and longest night. That's right, the best day of the year. The heathens are coming to celebrate. First, the oleo saccharum #cocktails

States and localities are caught in a pincer. 🧵 🔌💡

This is the science we need.

"customers" = manufacturing

Its year's end, and the @jeppjournal.bsky.social has been kind enough to fill our stockings with some FREE, Open Access articles until Dec 31st. One is dear to my heart. A 🧵 on fiscal federalism and local government fiscal policy. 🏛️ 🌐 doi.org/10.1080/1350...

Nice write up. The title speaks for itself. Programming for undergraduates should formalize this notion that at least some young scientists will be, by career or choice, publicly engaged. #science

Mentions of "rural" in official congressional e-newsletters, over time, by party

This week's cocktail is the best type, a punch. Saint Cecilia's Society Punch. This is for my friends in South Carolina, who can definitely appreciate a subtle slight to their neighbors from Georgia. 🍸🍹 #cocktails #punch

Good 🧵.

Folks at the WVOE are looking for public input on the state's Comprehensive Energy Policy. Posting here for those who'd like to comment (due Dec. 27th).🔌💡 #WestVirginia

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It's not often the CEO of a power company makes news in the first hour of a PSC hearing, but that happened today. Tony Campbell of East Kentucky Power Cooperative says it is seeking $90 million from the U.S. Department of Energy for its coal plants. www.weku.org/the-commonwe...

It was an honor to stop by Becca Coltogirone's class this past Friday to discuss when, why, and how science matters in the policy process. The students were bright, engaged, and quick to grasp what it means to be publicly engaged scientists. #publicpolicy #science #WestVirginia #letsgo #wvubiology

Process & outcome of PJM's data center interconnection policy is major test for RTO model. Other models exist, & tradeoffs are frequently debated. Can a multi-state electricity market adequately protect consumers? One of many questions that will be asked. heatmap.news/energy/pjm-d...

Between the lines, AEP customers paid for excess capacity that will now be sold, a double dip for AEP. 💡🔌 #rural 🏛️

You can sort by margin here and count about 50 current R districts that were Trump +14-15 or less last year.

I love Don's commentary on all things. Let's bankrupt him.

This commentary aside, failure to seat Gore was easily the most consequential political choice of my lifetime. More so given the particular problems we faced then and their metastasis to come.

If you need to catch up on happenings in the Mountain State, the WV Weakly has you covered today. State elections, public policy, guards members, music venues, and a cocktail from yours truly. Give 'em a read. #WestVirginia #rural

New from Brian Arbour @3streamsblog.bsky.social medium.com/3streams/rep...

Nice summary of @stpp-um.bsky.social's new report on small modular #nuclear reactors, often touted as an unproblematic solution to the energy thirst of #AI and data centers. We'll be hosting a webinar on the report on December 11th at noon Eastern. Sign up here! umich.zoom.us/webinar/regi...

The incentive, if not lesson, is cash the checks, dole the A's, and move on. You can't simultaneously be a customer service organization and enforce quality standards. For admins, the customer service model would be greatly aided if we dropped the pretense of grades at all.

"FERC rejected a call by the PJM Interconnection’s market monitor ... to assess how Amazon’s data center could affect capacity and energy costs for ratepayers as well as grid reliability, saying those issues were outside the scope of the proceeding." 😮 www.utilitydive.com/news/ferc-pe...

Couldn't agree more and I see this up close. Off-cycle elections are an abomination. There is no good-faith pro-democracy argument for them.

Yes, and none of this is ever accounted for in the balance of payments discussions we see on here all the time.

There is a little place called Reims, fount of Kings and the Nectar of the Gods. No cocktail surpasses it's straw glow. Happy TG everybody. 🍾 #champagne

Norms aren't restored by application of or "rule of law" but by meeting defection with defection.

I don't know about the veracity of any of these arguments. But, I do know that if Dems could lose 60-40, or even 70-30, instead of 80-20, the world would be a very different place. #rural

One of the central problems with opinion polling in West Virginia, and even more so with national polls about West Virginians, is that they represent a few folks from our larger cities. West Virginia is a hard place to poll for geographical and infrastructure reasons. Quick 🧵. 🏛️🌐🗺️

In every dystopian novel: the government bans books. In reality: we gave up reading voluntarily.

Explore this PSJ article from our latest issue examining how local agendas evolve in response to national signals, population growth, and institutional change. By Peter B. Mortensen & Brooke Nicole Shannon Read more here: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/... #PSJ #PolicyStudiesJournal

This week's cocktail comes from Scotland. Its OLD and perfect for Argyle weather. But disrespect it, and like a muscular Scot, it'll throw you down a well. This is the Atholl Brose. 🍸🍹 #cocktails

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Interesting paper 🔌💡

🚨New report!🚨 Small modular reactors are seen as neat, carbon-free solutions to the problems of energy-hungry tech like AI. But our analysis @stpp-um.bsky.social argues it will have serious environmental, social, and justice impacts and offers 12 policy recommendations across the nuclear fuel cycle.

Behavioral lock-in. Abysmal.

44% of Americans say they have heard nothing at all about the CDC’s changes to COVID-19 vaccine recommendations (issued in early October). Among those who have heard at least a little, 63% say the changes have had no influence on their decision whether to get an updated vaccine.

1/ Announcing GovScape – a public search system for 10 million U.S. government PDFs (70 million pages)! GovScape offers visual search, semantic text search, and keyword search. Explore below: Website: www.govscape.net ArXiv link: arxiv.org/abs/2511.11010