More on Google's "Project Cannoli" data center. *1.6 GW of new solar capacity *400 MW of storage *300 MW of additional clean energy #EnergySky In Michigan, Google is funding 2 GW of clean power — and demand response  www.latitudemedia.com/news/in-mich...

"One cannot be pessimistic about [NYC ethnic politics]. This is the native home of hope. When it fully learns that cooperation, not rugged individualism, is the quality that most characterizes and preserves it, then … it has a chance to create a society to match its [parades].” —Wallace Stegner

The "Project Cannoli" data center's owner is Google, which reached a deal with Michigan utility DTE. bridgemi.com/michigan-env...

No one has done St. Paddy’s Day as well. Imagine.

Fossil fuel company owners see that they can't compete with clean energy They need public power to force Americans to choke down their high prices & pollution They gave Trump's campaign $1B as he promised to protect their profit Now he's using public $ to do it bsky.app/profile/deva...

This is insane.

13/ Today's environmental movement largely understands the crisis as rooted in political economy, not population. But Ehrlich's instinct didn't disappear. It resurfaces in eco-fascism, green anti-immigration politics, the persistent urge to blame the poor. Commoner's work isn't done.

1/ Paul Ehrlich died this week at 93. The takes split into hagiography and dismissal. But the interesting question isn't whether he got it right, he didn't, it's why he got it wrong, and who was asking the right questions instead 🧵

it's time to tap the sign again -- understanding the origins + history of classical antisemitism tropes means that you can be clear on what legitimate critiques of a state you might want to critique might be & what might be promulgating 2000 year-old scapegoating conspiracy theories

Senseless and shameful. "Cuba's national electric grid collapsed on Monday, ‌the country's grid operator said, leaving around 10 million people without power amid a U.S.-imposed oil blockade that has crippled the island's already obsolete generation system." www.reuters.com/business/ene...

Senseless and shameful. "Cuba's national electric grid collapsed on Monday, ‌the country's grid operator said, leaving around 10 million people without power amid a U.S.-imposed oil blockade that has crippled the island's already obsolete generation system." www.reuters.com/business/ene...

Great Lakes Energy says Northern Michigan storm caused widespread damage to its electric infrastructure www.mlive.com/weather/2026...

While Alabama considers changing from electing to appointing its public service commissioners, Michigan legislators are proposing switching from appointed to elected commissioners. IPU Director @eriknordman.bsky.social offered some insights to the Spartan Newsroom on the proposed change.

Wouldn’t it be nice to buy solar panels at Walmart in the morning and plug them in on your deck in the afternoon, setting yourself up to produce clean energy that will lower your electricity bill? That’s about to be a reality in Virginia.

Today, America’s foreign policy establishment has morphed from a set of staid bureaucracies into a royal family, such as the Tudors or Hapsburgs. Foreign policy is molded in the hands of the court clique — a small, exclusive network. www.nytimes.com/2026/01/26/o...

US oil companies stand to receive a windfall of more than $60bn this year if crude prices maintain the levels they have hit since the start of the Iran war. as.ft.com/r/21e4cec8-6...

The person who figured out you can churn butter while running is from Oregon. Of course this is a PNW thing. I’m just disappointed it’s not someone from Salt Spring Island because that would be perfect.

BFD: Revolution Wind is delivering power! If Rev Wind has the same capacity factor as South Fork Wind did in its first year (46.5%), it will generate 2.74 TWh of electricity annually, equivalent to 34% of power use in the state of #RhodeIsland! /1 #offshorewind revolution-wind.com/news/2026/03...

Last night was a big night for offshore wind: Vineyard Wind finished construction and Revolution Wind began sending power to the grid @wbur.org #energysky www.wbur.org/news/2026/03...

The latest White House thinking on the Strait of Hormuz.

New floating wind turbine design passes key milestone. cleantechnica.com/2026/03/13/t... #wind #offshorewind #floatingwind #energy #renewableenergy #innovation #startups #spain #us #windindustry #trumpepstein #iranwar #oilprices #renewables #windenergy #windpower #greenenergy #sustainable

Though it may surprise East Coasters, the story of this winter was not record cold but record heat

SCOOP: Alabama might be the first state to ever ban new solar farms. Why? People are upset about a gigantic solar project that would power a Meta data center. Turns out when you tie solar to data centers, it can quickly become less popular!

IPU's Grid School 1: Engineering, Economics, and Modeling Fundamentals is in the books! Many thanks to all our attendees and our expert instructors including Nat Zorach, AICP, MBA, Rabab Haider, Omid Beik, Seth Blumsack, Mohammed Ben-Idris, Yansong Pei, & Rob Homer. www.canr.msu.edu/ipu/programs/

So, we are going to regulate your company like a utility, right?

"The new enclosures"

'Hannah Arendt wrote in The Origins of Totalitarianism that “a mixture of gullibility and cynicism is prevalent in all ranks of totalitarian movements... the whole hierarchical structure of totalitarian movements... could be described in terms of a varying mixture of gullibility and cynicism.”'

thebaffler.com/latest/gimme.... Super review of a great book

DNR director: Consumers hydro deal ‘a recipe for us to manage’ dams #EnergySky 🔌💡 www.mlive.com/environment/...

Corpus Christi was already low on water when it invited water-guzzling fossil-fuel industries to take whatever it had left. It’s a familiar example of exactly how not to prepare for a hotter world Gift link to my column for @opinion.bloomberg.com www.bloomberg.com/opinion/arti...

"In the past several months, Nevin sought to prohibit fluoride in the drinking water, made it easier to opt out of children’s vaccines, removed health care services from school clinics and pushed a county ordinance that declared solar farms a possible 'threat to public health.'"

As an IR professor, it's depressing that this is outperforming all others as the best theory of US foreign policy

There's a new hot bird in town! And it's the first time NYC has ever seen a trumpeter swan, in recorded history (after it came back from the brink of extinction). In the last week, it's been spotted frequently hanging out with one of our mute swans 👀 hellgatenyc.com/behold-nycs-...

There's been a lot of talk of data centers in Michigan, but it is nothing compared to many other states. We are way down this list at #36.

Learn about Michigan's salamanders in our new Extension article! Mighty, moist, and mysterious: Meet Michigan's salamanders (Learn what the "eft" is up with the Eastern newt!) www.canr.msu.edu/news/mighty-...

“'Michigan is actually going to be one of the leading states for new solar over the next couple of years,' he said, with more than 3,600 new megawatts in the pipeline and scheduled to come online by 2028. That total 'is the largest of any state in MISO.'” #EnergySky🔌💡 www.wkar.org/wkar-news/20...

It would be one history‘s great plot twists if Trump has now managed to alert the entire world to why they should transition away from single-use fossils to renewables as quickly as any possible - even while having dismissed global warming. And Hormuz isn‘t even Asia‘s biggest risk.

Intersecting crises - water, oil, climate, governance - as Corpus Christi faces dwindling water supplies. #EnergySky 🔌💡 #WaterSky

In Environmental and Resource Economics for March: nations incur losses if they tackle climate change in a non-cooperative and self-interested manner. Thomas Eichner & Rüdiger Pethig revisit scope for global cooperation when countries are not completely self-interested. #EAERE

Chicago goes batshit over our Piping Plovers: @chicagopiping.bsky.social

Interrupting your doom scroll to say THE FIRST PIPING PLOVER OF THE SEASON HAS ARRIVED IN MAINE

Trump asked tech leaders to sign a unenforceable pledge to protect ratepayers from data center power costs. Is it a genuine promise — or just “PR help”?

The Stench of Honolulu by Jack Handy. Completely absurd humor from the writer of SNL's "Deep Thoughts" and Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer.

Must read and if I may add not calling out manifest law breaches has many unintended consequences.

""for the companies well-positioned to make the most of suddenly rising natural gas prices, “it’s a gold rush,” Williams-Derry said. “I’ve often described the oil and gas industry’s financial strategy as ‘pray for war,’” he said. “That is how they make money.”" insideclimatenews.org/news/0503202...

Infra requires lots of cash and long time horizons. But we're in what seems like a suboptimal equilibrium where we have rlly cool pilots with no cash run by people with shorter time horizons, and the US infra planning ecosystem (really, the lack thereof) has no incentive or mandate to scale them up.

Corporate innovation, as best as I can tell, only happens when federal policy or extreme competition forces the quick depreciation of your existing capital stock and forces you to compete on quality. Hard to engineer this.

I am slowly working on a thesis for why the US is dogshit at scaling up cleantech and, frankly, I think it's going to make nobody happy??