Excited to be speaking as part of the plenary on nuclear energy at the 42nd USAEE/IAEE North American Conference, Nov 16-19 in Fort Worth. Hope to see you there!

🧵 (1/7) With @knittelmit.bsky.social and @cwolfram.bsky.social, happy to announce our new paper on “Who Bears the Burden of Climate Inaction?”, just posted for BPEA @brookings.edu. We find large climate cost impacts that vary by both geography and income. www.brookings.edu/articles/who...

NEW TOOL: a one-stop, searchable home for 250+ state energy and climate policies, targets, and incentives. Perfect for planners, policy-makers, and analysts. apps.epri.com/energy-polic...

Nominative determinism is undefeated. First Al Gore, next Al Roker runs climate model emulators.

Batteries are amazing.

Festivus came early this year, and I've got a few data visualization grievances to air...

Cool new AER paper uses data from Clean Air Act offset markets to assess the efficiency of air pollution regulation. The analysis finds that marginal benefits of abatement exceed mean offset prices more than ten-fold, across most regions and pollutants.

Giving a talk on energy modeling in Hollywood. “All models are wrong, but some are useful” hits different with locals.

Great new analysis that shows how a climate coalition could reduce emissions 7x more than current policies while raising ~$200B/yr in revenue, mostly from domestic carbon pricing. I was surprised to see that >80% CO2 in the steel, cement, aluminum, fertilizers are already covered by carbon pricing!

California's electricity bills are rising, not because of clean energy, but because of how fixed costs are included in rates. Great post from Meredith Fowlie on the problem and potential policy levers: energyathaas.wordpress.com/2025/09/15/r...

Interesting new AER paper uses the US-Soviet rivalry in space technology to isolate windfall R&D spending. They find a 77% social rate of return to NASA contractor spending, which is similar to the Bloom, et al. (2013) value of 55%. www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=...

Important research, not only for thinking about the environmental benefits of transport electrification, but broader emissions accounting for electric sector interventions like energy storage, data centers, and electrolytic H2. These issues are important as Scope 2 Guidance is being updated.

Incredible map of electric utility service territories, showing the complexity and significant overlap, from Billy Roberts at NREL

Post-publication peer review is an important part of the scientific process. Kudos to Bob for taking the time to carefully unpack this paper.

The most 2025 result: AI prefers AI. In tests across product listings and paper abstracts, LLMs consistently favored AI-generated text over human text.

🚨 New paper 🚨 Our new multi-model study looks at transport decarbonization pathways to meet US net-zero targets. A short 🧵 of key findings…

NEW STUDY: In U.S. net-zero pathways, transport does the heaviest lifting. Cars go electric, while trucks/planes/ships lean on electricity/biofuels/H2/CDR. Next steps: Build chargers, scale clean fuels, and plan for ~530-1,800 TWh of transport electricity by 2050.

Interesting LBNL analysis of the value of transmission. Transmission's value is highly influenced by a small fraction of time: 5% of hours typically capture at least 45% of total value!

Striking difference in trends between electricity transmission and gas pipelines.

Corner solutions revisited

Another Friday surprise for offshore wind: $679 million in federal funding just got pulled.

In 2005, Katrina's 3-day track forecast was off by ~150 miles. Today, 3-day errors average closer to 60 miles. Forecast skill improves. The stakes keep rising.

Tomorrow marks 20 years since Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans. ‪Brian McNoldy (@bmcnoldy.bsky.social‬) has a great visualization showing how much forecasts have improved over two decades: Purple = actual track forecast cone from 2005, and green = hypothetical forecast in 2025.

I’m seeing a lot of this lately.

Strong foundations. Long-term commitment. Weathering storms together. Love is resilient. Our energy systems can be, too.

Taylor/Travis as Figure 6.10 (existing and potential solar and wind locations)

We made it through break-up rumors, the Super Bowl, and now an engagement. What didn’t make it? The National Climate Assessment website.

Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce as figures in the new U.S. National Climate Assessment report, a thread

When is offshore wind most valuable? Our Nature Energy article from 2023 suggested higher offshore wind under conditions with higher electricity demand and local constraints on land-based wind, transmission, etc. Sounds familiar...

One wrinkle with the Revolution Wind stop-work order: foreign heavy-lift vessels for turbine/substation installs can cost hundreds of thousands per day. When they sit idle at staging points (like Canada), costs skyrocket. Why so complicated? 👉 The Jones Act.

Key context for the Revolution Wind project (which would produce electricity for roughly 350k homes in Connecticut and Rhode Island): CT and RI currently have among the highest household energy prices and “energy wallet” spending in the country.

Late Friday surprise: The Interior Department halted work for the Revolution Wind offshore wind project, which was nearly complete and set to bring ~700 MW of capacity next year. www.nytimes.com/2025/08/22/c...

Cool paper on Sweden's carbon tax and VAT reform, which suggests increases in low-carbon patents in the transport sector. Using synthetic control estimates, the authors find that carbon pricing, not general fuel price changes, drives the innovation response.

How have residential electricity prices changed over time? Many states have tracked inflation in recent decades, even states in the midwest with extensive wind deployment.

Which factors influence support for climate policy? Interesting new AER study of 40k people in 20 countries suggest that support depends on: 1. Effectiveness in reducing GHG emissions and air pollution; 2. Impact on household finances; 3. Concern for low-income households

Striking figure on U.S. coal consumption from OnLocation based on EIA data and scenarios.

Watts in your wallet? New analysis of the Energy Wallet—a metric that captures direct household expenditures on electricity and other energy—unpacks which states have the highest household energy costs. In 2024, it was Maine, New Hampshire, Alaska, Vermont, and Connecticut.

The Energy Wallet—household direct expenditures on electricity and other fuels—is a key measure for energy affordability. New EPRI analysis breaks down the Energy Wallet at a state level and shows how EVs and other changes could reduce household energy costs.

Why are California's electricity prices so high? Why are they higher in some parts of California than others? Check out this terrific new paper by @madalsa.bsky.social and colleagues in The Electricity Journal.

Gasoline is the stealth "bill you pay without a bill." In 2024, it was the largest slice of "energy wallet" spending in most states. Electrification can shrink the whole wallet.

22 years ago today: ~50 million people went dark in the largest blackout in North American history. Cause? A software alarm bug and sagging lines into trees. Grid 101 in one sentence.

113 years ago today

New paper from EPRI and Epoch AI: Frontier AI training runs are projected to consume 1-2 gigawatts each by 2028 and exceed 4 GW per run by 2030 (up from ~100-150 MW today)

🆕📢Ahead-of-print in #REEP📢 "Inflation Reduction Act: Origins, Policy Implications, and Research Gaps" by John E. T. Bistline ( @bistline.bsky.social ) and Catherine Wolfram ( @cwolfram.bsky.social ). 🔗 Read it here: buff.ly/FcP7ODD 📈📉 #Econsky

Wow! EIA suggests that electricity demand in Texas could increase by nearly 25% between 2024 and 2026.

Interesting article in Nature suggests China has driven down nuclear power plant costs and kept them stable over two decades, beating the "cost escalation curse" with local supply chains and standardized designs. I wonder how much is transferable to other country contexts.

New PJM capacity prices seem to be following a diplodocus curve

Wild statistic on Enron and renewables

New article that looks at electricity market design in this era of increasing renewables. Some specific applications to Alberta, but hopefully useful more broadly. From David Brown, Derek Olmstead, and me. [Author gift link:] www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

New paper out today in @iopp-environment.bsky.social with @adamsobel.bsky.social illustrating how a value of information (VOI) framework can be useful for evaluating climate information intended for risk management and adaptation decisions: #climaterisk #EconSky iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1...