⛰️Really excellent and thoughtful piece by a Sierra Club board member on what it means to be an public interest environmental advocate today. davekarpf.substack.com/p/every-gene...

This weekend, the New York Times ran a story claiming Sierra Club’s values have diluted our mission. They couldn’t be more wrong. The list of their errors is too long for one social post, but we go over some examples in these slides.

The lesson is NOT that social justice will tear an organization apart. That's either a fundamental misunderstanding or an unspoken political agenda to maintain unjust systems. The lesson is that, like painting a room, most of the work is preparation.

Having a tough time reconciling NYT critiquing my org for relevance, and then literally posting my work as a full page graphic the next day.

I was at the Sierra Club during the period described in this article and although I have my criticisms, it gets the issues in the Club fundamentally wrong. A 🧵 www.nytimes.com/2025/11/07/u...

New article on large load tariffs (utility ratemaking, not imports!), which are designed to buffer utilities and ratepayers from speculative data center developers. 💍https://www.sierraclub.org/articles/2025/11/put-ringfence-it-appreciation-large-load-tariffs

Its like the great countdown. This year is 2.0? Looks like 2030 will be 0.0.

I'm excited to join As You Sow, S&P Global, and Colectric for a webinar today launching the report Compute and Consequence - looking at utility and climate risk of data center growth. us06web.zoom.us/webinar/regi...

Hey Nevada PUC web techs... y'all ok?

Not too late to get in on the action, and join thousands of others as we dig into the impacts - and mitigations - for data center buildout. Join us on Wed at 7pm ET / 4pm PT.

🔌On Aug 20, I'll be hosting a public webinar exploring the scale of data center buildout, how utilities are reacting, and what policymakers and the public can do to protect health, rates, and our climate targets. Register here! act.sierraclub.org/events/detai...

On August 20, I'll be running a public webinar on the impacts of unconstrained data center growth on affordability, climate, and health - and what we can do about it. Join us here and share around! act.sierraclub.org/events/detai...

A big old bubble? 23 utilities are claiming more than 700 gigawatts of data center in their "economic development pipeline" - which smells a lot like a speculation boom. www.sierraclub.org/articles/202...

I'm going to contend that DOE Sec Burgum's "capacity density" order is maybe the stupidest document ever leveled by that agency. But, "based on common sense, arithmetic, and physics" what other metrics should we examine? kWh per joule of insolation? tons of public land converted per MWh?

Motherfucking wind farms…

🔌On Aug 20, I'll be hosting a public webinar exploring the scale of data center buildout, how utilities are reacting, and what policymakers and the public can do to protect health, rates, and our climate targets. Register here! act.sierraclub.org/events/detai...

Join us for a public webinar on August 20th to learn about the data center explosion, and how states, regulators, and utilities are grappling with that growth. act.sierraclub.org/events/detai...

We're calling on Big Tech to clean up their act.

Yesterday, @sierraclub.org @amzn4climate.bsky.social @lcv.org and @publiccitizen.bsky.social published a full page open letter in SF and Seattle calling for big tech accountability for data center impacts! www.sierraclub.org/press-releas...

Yeah, it's true - the rates are just too damn high. Fuel cost spikes, wildfire costs, and slow interconnection are driving up electricity costs faster than inflation. public.tableau.com/app/profile/...

Great article from EI! Here's a companion dashboard showing that coal costs have gone up pretty much everywhere - and are staying up. public.tableau.com/app/profile/...

Hey, a whole new level of gross. 🤢🤮 Greg Beard, who until March ran the dirtiest bitcoin op in the country, is now gearing up to run DOE's Loan Program Office. (🧵/5) www.eenews.net/articles/doe...

Kudos to AECJ for this clear-eyed investor resolution at Amazon. Just for perspective, if AWS were a state, it would be the 35th largest electricity consumer *now*. And if we look at what's in the queue, its on its way to being the 20th largest, consuming more than states like OR, CO, or MA

"Real commitment would be a public plan with interim milestones to meet Amazon's net zero goals despite AI growth. Real answers mean no risks obscured, no solutions conflated or exaggerated... It’s not just the future of the company that depends on it. All our futures depend on it."—Eliza Pan

🤨I've been digging through utility IRPs, rate cases, and investor decks, and the total claimed "economic pipeline" of data centers in just 23 utilities is > 320 GW (!!) - that's like 2/3rds of US demand today. I'm picturing a bunch of kids cheering that they're *definitely* going to win the lotto.

Congrats to the Ohio legislature for finally putting a stinking garbage pile of corruption behind it by repealing HB6 yesterday. What was HB6? Corrupt bailout for two awful coal plants and a nuke. Why was it corrupt? Glad you asked. www.cincinnati.com/in-depth/new...

I feel like I just need a repeating post here. This is nuts. I mean, nerd-class nuts, but still. Again, PJM is seeing LMPs of $100/MWh, driven largely by Dominion's $400/MWh, which are in turn driven largely by $1200-$1400/MWh prices from NoVA's data centers. That's up from $30/MWh.🥜🔩!

👀Okay, I'm going to shout into the void here, but this is remarkable. Data centers are driving up energy costs in VA in a spectacular way. Since the start of 2025, nearly 12% of *ALL* wholesale power costs in VA are attributable to congestion charges from data center demand in Northern VA.

They’re all grifting. They know nothing of patriotism nor public service. It’s purely a way to enrich themselves. They are disgusting people. www.nytimes.com/2025/04/23/t...

Interested in thoughts on cost allocation for very large loads when there's a clearly disproportionate impact on marginal energy costs.

Gosh, I wonder what could be driving >$1000/MWh LMPs in northern VA.

Department of smoke and mirrors

Who doesn't like a healthy dose of mercury in their water, lead in their soils, or acid in their rain? Who isn't a fan of spreading nuclear waste on their lawns?

The most recent executive order be like

ICF has supported the National Climate Assessment and the IPCC for nearly two decades with professionalism & integrity. Yesterday, ICF's contract to support NCA was cancelled. All federal staff details for OSTP + USGCRP were already returned to their agencies. There's no one left to work on NCA.

Just boosting myself because this is feeling pretty relevant at the moment. Coal ain't cheap (and it ain't clean). And declaring otherwise doesn't really change that.

Rewinding air regulations has real implications for real people. From our October article: "[Air pollution controls on power plants] prevented approximately 3,100 to 9,000 premature deaths in 2023, with an annual benefit between $35 billion and nearly $100 billion."

Coal isn't on its way out because of some magical dem bullet that can be reversed by exec order, it's on its way out because utilities are done with it. public.tableau.com/app/profile/...

Reminder: more coal retired under Trump 1 than any other administration.

Um, we need to double American electricity production for AI alone? Is that really what we're being asked to pay for here?

This is as good a time as ever to remind folks that #coal has seriously fallen out of fashion everywhere. Utility contracts for coal fell from 2010 through 2021 (Trump I too) and the remaining coal is priced sky-high. In the SE, the price of coal has doubled. public.tableau.com/app/profile/...

@nytgames.bsky.social my kids demand to know- you're bringing back Vertex?!

Hot take: Trump Bros buy into Hut8 bitcoin mining enterprise is a short sell on the US energy sector. A short thesis🧵 (1/8) www.cnbc.com/video/2025/0...

Well this just speaks for itself. Bitcoin mining by design, drives short-run decision-making, with unfortunate long run consequences. Sounds about right

UPDATE: USDA goes super weird on federal funding with a new unsecured portal for "voluntary" changes to obligated awards. 🤨 But is responding a good idea? Well, this is worth a quick thread.🧵 (1/10)

Go on, take the money and run. Hoo-hoo-hoo.

Its hard to find places in the US where it doesn't look like the remaining coal industry is running on literal fumes, with deliveries to reporting coal plants down by about 2/3rds since 2011. (1/5)

Help, anyone care to translate spin? www.usda.gov/about-usda/n...

Greenpeace has vowed to appeal after being hit with a $660m damages ruling. The case raises urgent concerns about SLAPP lawsuits being used to silence climate defenders.

Maine's rates are a sharp example of the thesis that once fuel price volatility drives up electricity rates, they don't really come back down again.