Absolutely, it's brilliant and available NOW on our channel! 🎉 Many kudos to @ben-durham.bsky.social! youtu.be/YtcBrDulXSM

Why did the hydrants run dry? The short answer: Because we don’t engineer municipal water systems to battle forest fires.

For the longer answer, check out Charles Marohn’s Substack. It’s one more place you can discuss and learn more about how our places are built. substack.com/@charlesmaro...

To continue my book reviews, I recently finished Stephanie Cooke’s In Mortal Hands: A Cautionary History of the Nuclear Age. It had much less about the nuclear energy industry — much more about weapons — than I had hoped (my fault for not looking closer), but was well researched and engaging.

Pakistan's distributed solar boom with Jenny Chase Podcast Episode · DER Task Force · 09/30/2024 · 1h 10m

This is super belated by now, but if you somehow missed Jenny @solarchase.bsky.social on @DER_Task_Force, and especially if you missed what’s happening in Pakistan, you should get on this. podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/d...
Jenny Chase + DER Task Force = bliss.

It has been a minute, but I’m crawling back out from underneath my rock. In my defense, I’ve been busy — I moved, started a new job, got the kid into a new school, plus general life stuff.

This is one of the most confusing (and seemingly destructive) moves from a super confusing CEO. I genuinely don’t understand what the future of Tesla can be at this point.

Tesla Is Not the Next Ford. It’s the Next Con Ed. Elon Musk’s EV empire is crumbling.

I had had this article flagged to read for a while, and finally pulled it out when I saw that Elon had just fired the entire Tesla charging division.

www.theatlantic.com/technology/a...

BREAKING: Heat pump sales in 14 European countries fell by around 5% overall in 2023 compared to 2022.
 
➡️ Why did this happen?
➡️ What is the outlook?
➡️ How can policy revert this trend?

A 🧵

Fervo Energy Raises $244 Million to Accelerate Deployment of Next-Generation Geothermal - Fervo Energy Fervo Energy, the leader in next-generation geothermal development, today announced that it has raised $244 million in new funding led by Devon Energy, a pioneer in shale oil and gas.

Some exciting @fervoenergy news.

We’ve raised a new $244m funding round from leading investors to accelerate development of next-generation geothermal. Demand for 24/7 carbon free energy has never been more urgent, and we’re ready to meet the challenge.
fervoenergy.com/fervo-energy...

This TIME article, with its description of asset backed securities and the (extreme) costs of financing in US rooftop solar really shook me. I really wonder if anyone has clarity into the extent to which those US soft costs aren’t just marketing.

time.com/6565415/roof...

I’ve just started Electric Capacity Markets by Todd Aagaard and Andrew Klein and already I feel like it’s going to serve up some spicy hot takes. If anyone has read it, or just has thoughts about capacity markets in the US, I’m all ears! 🔌💡

Smart tech could help fix the biggest barrier to building clean energy A new report finds that "grid-enhancing technologies” can help gigawatts of solar and wind leapfrog the clean energy logjam — and save a ton of money.

A new report shows how grid-enhancing technologies could clear the way for gigawatts’ worth of clean energy projects to connect to the 84,000-mile transmission network linking states from Illinois to Virginia and deliver billions of dollars of savings in the process. bit.ly/3wthAWc

The entire saga of First Energy seems like it must go down as one of the darkest chapters of corporate malfeasance in American history. And yet, far too people know about it. This video is a great quick explainer for what’s still happening in WV, and for a deeper dive, try the Power Grab podcast.

JUST PUBLISHED: Independent study number 56 on hydrogen for heating concludes:

"Direct hydrogen heating is not competitive even under favorable technology conditions."

🧵

ht to @volts.wtf for the recommendation. Truly worth a read for anyone interested in thinking deeply about how we might want to run utilities in the future.

Just finished Katherine Blunt’s California Burning; highly recommend. She does an excellent job of avoiding easy answers and grappling with the many challenges that face PG&E, while also highlighting some of the infuriating and heartbreaking failures that got us here. 💡🔌

Another month, another $2.4 billion in clean-energy manufacturing investments, which will create 2100 jobs across IL, MS, MO, & TN.

Again: *this is just January*.

Thanks, Biden!

Why State Land Use Reform Should Be a Priority Climate Lever for America - RMI RMI analysis shows enacting state-level land use reform to encourage compact development can reduce annual US pollution by 70 million tons of carbon dioxide equivalent in 2033.

“Addressing America’s chronic housing shortage intelligently — by building more housing where people most need it — can deliver similar climate impact as the country’s most aspirational transportation decarbonization policy.” 🔌💡

The Problems With Carbon Offsets Are Even Bigger Than You Might Think They're often based on trees. And trees can burn down.

Really nice essay on forests offsets and disturbance risks from Grayson Badgley, with some updates to the bad buffer pool numbers in California's multi-billion-dollar forests offsets program.

Good news from @timlatimer.bsky.social on enhanced geothermal:

It's not widely appreciated outside of energy world how transformative the shale revolution was in US (though based on @jessejenkins.bsky.social @robinsonmeyer.bsky.social podcast they get it!)

Now let's throw at zero carbon base load.

Dallas city council will be hearing from the public tomorrow at 9am about lowering their minimum lot size citywide from 5,000sqft -> 1,500sqft!

We need people to sign up and speak in support of this much needed change! 👇https://t.co/60eDzLnfjK

Yeah, I tried Mastodon out, but I could never get into it. I’m new here, but it seems to have more of the old energy twitter vibe.

Interesting US residential solar article including quotes from my colleague Pol Lezcano.

US numbers here are wild. $500/month household bill for electricity?! Spending $62k on a residential solar system (which doesn't work) in 2019?! The US is just a different world.

time.com/6565415/roof...

MISO presenting today on how they did during Winter Storm Heather. Wind helped save the day (again). Gas was the biggest failure (again). cdn.misoenergy.org/20240125%20R...

So which investor will be the first to thank the US government for helping avoid an investment in a stranded asset of an LNG terminal? Or would no one ever admit it out loud?

The Chevron Doctrine: what it is and why it matters that the Supreme Court might kill it In the early 1980s, NRDC's David Doniger argued a fateful case before the Supreme Court, one that established the Chevron Doctrine, perhaps the most cited civil law case in US history. Now he's there ...

Worth listening to this episode of @volts.wtf which contains an excellent discussion allegedly about environmental legislation but which touches on good governance, how you actually run a country, and how you make a country ungovernable.

I also literally laughed out loud. Even got a chuckle out of my husband — who very much does not share my enthusiasm for energy topics — when he asked what was so funny and I read him some bits.

I love stupid-simple technologies. And if renewable electricity gets cheap enough, then stupid-simple is going to win. 🔌💡

LNG export capacity is already set to DOUBLE, even with a pause in approvals.

European gas demand is dropping.

Exported LNG is worse for the climate than coal.

www.canarymedia.com/articles/liq... 🔌💡