"The Kennedy Center is yet another piece of Washington that Mr. Trump is making over in his own image." Ticket sales down 50%, unqualified party loyalists handed top jobs, horrible staff morale, massive staff departures. Please, no more "Trump makeovers."

Yes, it's possible for state policymakers to take meaningful action on climate and address key fiscal needs. The WA model will become even more important for other states to consider if/when the Trump economic blunders create a state fiscal crisis.

We Energies proposes to add 3 GWs of new capacity to power data centers in WI, including two new gas plants with 1.4 GWs of capacity. A new bill in the legislature tries to head this off.

@joeroganhq.bsky.social is spreading climate denial and disinformation. Let’s help get him on board saving a livable climate — spread this widely. Send it to people who listen to him. #climate

@energyinnovation.org reports are always a must-read, and this one in particular. "Clean energy and innovative tactics like “energy parks” can satisfy data center electricity demand without resorting to a rush to build new gas or keep old coal online." Also, focus on the interconnection process.

Important threads from @kevinjkircher.com and @ketanjoshi.co on whether we avoid big climate & affordability impacts of data centers if we simply run with the tech industry's demand flexibility proposals. Both provide good reasons to be skeptical.

The data center industry says "people would be more supportive if they simply knew more about companies’ ongoing sustainability efforts." So, concerns about pollution and water consumption are apparently solvable with ... "education."

Turns out that the “Felony Footlong" from Subway was not even a misdemeanor. DC jurors strike a blow for free speech and acquit Sean Dunn.

Hold your wallets, everyone, OpenAI is talking about taxpayer backing so it can continue its data center building craze without having to show profitability. www.wsj.com/video/openai...

Fabius: In Paris ten years ago nobody talked about #AI. But data centres in the coming years will represent energy consumption almost the size of the EU's.

The US continues to set global records with its LNG exports. Considering that we are now also the global leader in developing gas-fired power plants and are working to undercut other nations' work on the clean energy transition, terms like "pariah petrostate" come to mind.

Maybe with their new trifecta, Dems could stop Dominion from spending ratepayer money this way? "Dominion wants to use natural gas to meet growing data center demand. The utility has heavily funded the campaigns of Scott, Senate leadership ... numerous other Democratic legislative candidates."

For the love of god can we build housing instead?

Happy Beaver supermoon to all those who celebrate! See you outside for moonrise!

Khan's appointment sends a message to the tech industry, whose most powerful players have already been critical of Mamdani, a Democratic socialist.

GA PSC commissioner-elect Johnson: “This victory [is] for the single mother choosing between groceries and her power bill, the senior trying to keep the lights on, and the young voter who showed up believing that their voice matters,”

The winners in last night's VA and NJ gubernatorial races both focused on affordable electricity and the importance of renewable energy in driving down costs. @chuckmccutcheon.bsky.social

Urgewald: 2025 is the year the US overtook China as the world's largest developer of gas-fired power plants, with 125 GWs of planned new capacity, up 120% from 2024. Roughly 37% of the capacity proposed in the last 2 years is linked to data centers and AI infrastructure.

GA voters turned out big for affordable electricity, electing two Commissioners ready to confront the PSC's cozy relationship with big-spending GA Power.

Politicians should probably get on Bluesky to get better in touch with the American electorate.

ERCOT considering a proposal to allow data centers to voluntarily choose to be flexible participants on the grid (i.e., w possible curtailments) in exchange for earlier interconnection.

I think one antidote to pundit scolding would be talking a lot more about methane. I just heard another big-name energy transition podcast that hosted an expert who said gas reduces emissions. No correction. It's no longer 2019! We know this isn't true.

Big win for transit, transit-oriented development & the climate.

Sustainable investing success story? "Electricity demand tied to AI is on track to quadruple within a decade, and though renewables will play a huge role in powering that development, fossil fuels will also be a big part of the mix, pumping up emissions in the process."

How should state & local pensions respond to the GenAI / data center boom, arguably the largest private infrastructure project in world history? In @forbes.com, I argue they have a fiduciary duty to assess & mitigate systemic risks arising from data center contributions to rising GHG emissions.

An "under-the-radar bright spot" for home electrification in the wake of the Big Ugly Bill's rollbacks: installers of geothermal heat pumps and thermal energy storage systems are capturing remaining tax incentives and passing on the savings to households.

"The analysis shows bills are spiking largely because of a host of add-ons for natural-gas fuel and other expenses."

As we debate building a new generation of fossil fuel infrastructure for data centers and LNG exports, it's helpful to understand how the last generation's infrastructure is faring. Answer: the fossil fuel industry (and now the fed gov't) has left it behind to poison our communities.

NEW: I learned a lot talking to Alex Karp's biographer, Michael Steinberger. Namely, that Palantir has ambitions to become what IBM used to be for the U.S. government: its de facto operating system. www.inc.com/sam-blum/ale...

General Motors lays off 3,300 workers, thanks to the Big Ugly Bill's termination of the EV tax credit. [gift link] www.wsj.com/business/aut...

Before we unleash a new generation of gas-fired power plants to satisfy the voracious appetites of data centers, perhaps state regulators could ask the tech industry what responsibility it will take for the poisoning of water supplies near drilling sites.

Yes, despite all of the attempts to put roadblocks in front of us, we can still have nice things. It helps a lot when your state understands policy incentives.

I believe ProPublica over Kristi Noem

Bill Gates hasn’t made sense on Climate since he teamed up with Bjorn Lomberg in 2009. This is just a restating of Bjorn’s book from this year about how we have a finite amount of money and we shouldn’t use it for climate. What they get wrong is that climate solutions are now fully profitable.

CA is breaking new ground on climate risk management. Under the Long-Term Solvency Regulation, insurers are required to document climate risks and opportunities projected for 2030, 2040 & 2050 that could affect underwriting, investments, or operations. With "stress tests" of climate scenarios.

In Dare County NC, more and more houses are falling into the ocean. The county spends millions on beach renourishment and doesn't talk about climate change. That would “get off message," says the county manager. "So many people have so many different points of view.”

@matt-levine.bsky.social on how Big Tech finances data centers: "If you can convince your ratings agencies & accountants that it’s not debt & you convince the debt investors that it is debt, then you can raise cheap debt financing without it counting against your pristine credit profile."

@energykillian.bsky.social on the @volts.wtf podcast on the importance of the GHG Protocol's Scope 2 reporting reforms underway: Big Tech is "following the [GHG Protocol] rules and they're reporting zero emissions. That objectively is absurd."

Senate Republicans are bringing in Big Tech witnesses today to berate them for alleged censorship. Will anyone from the industry say they have an obligation to limit disinformation / Nazi propaganda/ manipulation of elections? Or will they embrace the bogus 1st Amendment narratives?

The Trump regime has been caught red-handed putting out falsified videos to glorify its campaign to terrorize immigrants in US cities. Some of these videos capture bigger audiences on social media than mainstream news reports. Will the social media companies now remove this disinformation?

The 1st case against a Canadian pension fund for inadequate attention to climate risk & the 1st worldwide seeking to enforce the fiduciary duty of impartiality, which requires treating fairly "young contributors who will retire after 2050 when climate-related financial risks will be even greater.”

The Indiana regulator has approved utility NIPSCO's plan to send all data center business to its subsidiary GenCo. CAC's Olsen: cost-shifting to ratepayers is "hidden in opaque process." Clean Grid Alliance's Piontek: the deal exempts GenCo from rate regulation & insulates it from competition.

Great insights here. Good move by the @rooseveltinstitute.org to pull this group of ex-officials together for shared accountability and learning, with no one hiding behind the cloak of anonymity.

As we head into Tesla's annual meeting, a new study shows Musk's activism has badly harmed shareholders. Tesla's Oct 2022 - April 2025 sales would have been 67-83% higher, equivalent to 1-1.26M more vehicles, if he hadn't participated in the authoritarian takeover. #TeslaTakedown

"Climate reporters at these outlets [Bloomberg, The Economist, the Financial Times, the New York Times, Politico, Reuters, and The Washington Post], who requested anonymity to avoid professional repercussions, described the practice as “gross,” “undermining,” and “dangerous”."

All of the factors that create bubbles are here with AI. As Brian says, the core of the problem is the "storytelling" of the tech companies. You'd think that after the 2008 crash, institutional investors would have learned to ask tougher questions. But the quarterly earnings mindset continues.

Meanwhile, dissemination of AI "deepfake" videos is accelerating. What happened to the promises made 4 years ago by the tech industry that it would ensure that all videos include details about how and when they were made or manipulated? "Progress is still all but invisible."

This should be the Surgeon General's warning that pops up every time you open ChatGPT. Also, "things written down" on the internet are often correct, but increasingly less correct every day.

“This is not just about building warehouses full of computers,” said Davante Lewis. “The real health risks come from the utilities rushing to build more gas plants and delaying renewable energy commitments,” locking communities into “decades of pollution and higher bills.”

Heartily agree with this proposal to "reverse the private-by-design loophole that allows companies to remain private even as they raise huge sums of capital from hundreds of shareholders. If you access the public’s savings at scale, you should meet the public’s disclosure standards."