Brendon Slotterback
@bslotterback.bsky.social
Decarbonization. Likes charts. Helping philanthropy and government advance clean energy. PGH🌲 🚲
Today on @volts.wtf: @climatecabineteducation.org's own Saleem Chapman talks with Dave Roberts about the paper Dave calls: "The first time I’ve seen a comprehensive strategy [for protecting consumers from the impacts of data centers] laid out in one place." www.volts.wtf/p/what-shoul...
What should state policymakers do about data centers?
A conversation with Saleem Chapman of Climate Cabinet.
volts.wtf
I’ve crossed the rubicon. I am wearing crocs to the airport
A Steve Bannon operative yelling "Earth First!" at an anti-data center gathering at a moment when Democrats (and even many mainstream enviro groups) are sprinting away from environmental messaging and policy seems ... notable. www.wired.com/story/how-da...
It is very very hard for a sitting president to mess with elections.
Marc Elias@marcelias.bsky.social · 24h agoDOJ is now 0-20 in cases to obtain state voter files. Here is the list: Arizona California Colorado Connecticut Illinois Kentucky Maine Maryland Massachusetts Michigan New Hampshire New Jersey New Mexico New York Oregon Pennsylvania Rhode Island Virginia West Virginia Wisconsin
A state-based system to regulate the electricity grid. Interesting 🤔
Jeff St John@jeffstjohn.bsky.social · 4h agoPJM's new plan to curb rising costs from data centers being built in its 13-state territory? Basically, to force states and utilities to set up regimes for data centers to either secure their own power supplies, or get cut off during grid emergencies: www.canarymedia.com/articles/dat... #energysky
The Trump Administration broke the law when it froze $20 billion for the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, intended to finance clean energy projects. www.reuters.com/business/ene...
Trump's EPA was wrong to terminate billions in climate grants, US appeals court rules
A federal appeals court on Tuesday said the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency cannot claw back about $20 billion of clean energy grants from several nonprofit groups, handing a defeat to the Trump...
reuters.com
File this in the huge list of things that have been known for 100+ years that some tech bro thinks he just discovered. Inertial power plants sometimes can’t ramp as fast as loads sometimes want. One of many reasons we have a grid. arxiv.org/abs/2605.01173
Limiting the Impact of AI Data Centers on Fatigue Life of Thermal Turbine Generators in the Grid: A Frequency-Domain Approach
A framework is established that assesses the impact of variations in artificial intelligence (AI) data center (DC) loads on the fatigue damage of steam/gas turbines of the synchronous generators (SGs)...
arxiv.org
Finally got around to reading @climatecabineteducation.org's "Taming Data Center Turmoil" report that came out last month. This is one of, if not the, clearest and most practical guides to state and local policymaking around data center energy use.
Taming Data Center Turmoil - Climate Cabinet Education
A new data center decision making approach for policymakers to protect consumers, the economy, and the climate.
climatecabineteducation.org
Seems insane that we're just gonna punch the accelerator on this
Zeke Hausfather@zekehausfather.com · 3d agoI'm not sure folks have realized just how crazy the second half of 2026 and 2027 will be for global temperatures – on the back of a record-smashing El Niño event. Here is my latest estimate of where both years will end up compared to global temperatures since 1850.
"Abbott’s letter called for an audit that would require data centers to report to ERCOT and the PUC information about their proposed water use, tax breaks they receive, what cooling technologies they’re using and who owns the projects." www.eenews.net/articles/tex...
Brendon Slotterback@bslotterback.bsky.social · 2w agoIf you believe AI will reshape the economy (I kinda do), it makes sense for a Congress interested in good governance to create an AI Information Agency that requires companies to report on lots of metrics every year and publishes them.
My long-time Germany / nuclear take is simply that they should be free to phase out nuclear whenever they like but coal and gas should've been first, and getting the order wrong has meant a very significant amount of harm from prolonged fossil fuel use ember-energy.org/data/electri...
I love this story. A lot of locals worked very hard to manage this community's transition from hosting the state's largest coal plant.
TerraWatts2010@terrawatts2010.bsky.social · 7d agoSherco Solar didn't just replace a coal plant — it hijacked its golden ticket, using the retiring facility's grid connection to skip a transmission queue that currently holds more proposed capacity than every operating power plant in America combined. #energysky www.autonocion.com/us/minnesota...
Energy, not capacity, is actually driving more of the increase in wholesale power prices in PJM. Guess where we get most of our energy from? www.ifo.state.pa.us/download.cfm...
Timely... "Canada’s 2023 wildfire smoke caused a 2.8 percent drop in solar power generation, costing two billion dollars" Follows the @costasamaras.com rule where you know exactly what you get from the title Haven't gotten to do this in a minute: Physical risk 🤝 Transition risk
Canada’s 2023 wildfire smoke caused a 2.8 percent drop in solar power generation, costing two billion dollars - Communications Earth & Environment
Wildfire smoke caused a 6.38 ± 8.86 terawatt hour solar power loss (2.8 percent) and about 1.88-billion-dollar cost, according to an Earth system model comparing simulations with and without wildfire ...
nature.com
"For 5 hrs, solar provided more electricity than nat gas... [between 9 AM - 5 PM]... solar provided > 1/3 of all elec in TX. At times it topped 40% of supply. Solar also helped charge up enough batteries that TX set a record for battery output when the sun set". www.canarymedia.com/articles/sol...
Duh, solar power doesn't work at night — but it excels during the day
Trump’s Department of Energy bashes solar panels for not producing 24/7, but the renewable energy source just got Texas through a heat wave.
canarymedia.com
Just paid $7k/shipping container to move solar panels from Texas to Massachusetts. Last year that cost $3k.
Tom Haddon@tomh-analyst.bsky.social · last wk.There is some absolutely bananas things going on in diesel crack spreads: diesel prices are not budging while crude prices fall. This is US refiners but given they are now integral to European diesel, it tells you diesel inventories are *tight* as export demand is pulling diesel out of the US.
That underground injection sites are observably leaking this much fracking wastewater - visible radioactive liquids laced with heavy metals - raises pretty significant questions about how reliable underground CO2 sequestration could be. CO2 is invisible and odorless. How would we even catch leaks?
In Ohio, Toxic Wastewater Is Bubbling Up Out of the Ground (Gift Article)
The state is a major importer of fracking wastewater, which gets pumped underground but doesn’t always stay there. The city of Marietta is fighting back.
nytimes.com
This is the environment in which green groups are being hectored to support permitting reform in the name of a "level playing field." Can we at least acknowledge that the resulting playing field will not be level as long as Republicans are in charge?
charjaebug@jael.bsky.social · last wk.Big scoop: The solar permitting freeze is so bad a renewables developer — Clearway — asked Trump if they can swap an unpermitted solar farm in Nevada for a data center and gas power plant instead. My latest for @heatmap.news
Fires in France have now burned over 91,000 acres, by far the most of any year since the satellite record started in 2006. Current area burned is about 34x larger than this date in a typical (median) year:
The line between climate hushing and climate denial is getting awfully thin
Narrative violation: multiple models of a high VRE electricity system with tremendous amounts of load growth show we only need about the same amount of firm capacity that we have today.
If there is no accountability imposed for this kind of shit, not just electorally, but for specific people who are supposed to be civil servants, then we have kinda given up on the idea that we have an institution that is government.
tony romm@tonyromm.bsky.social · 2w agoNEW: In a stunning admission, the Trump administration admitted in court documents that it canceled billions in energy grants to states "based solely" on politics -- and whether that state was represented by Democrats and backed Harris in 2024. www.nytimes.com/2026/07/24/b...
“The AI safety people have basically been right”. We’re running about six months ahead of the predictions in the AI 2027 document. open.spotify.com/episode/5kQj...
OpenAI Models Go Rogue + Kimi K3 Freakout + A.I. Superforecasting
Hard Fork · Episode
open.spotify.com
If there is one thing you gotta give Tesla, it’s that there fast charging experience is smoother and more reliable than most others I’ve tried (even in a Kia).
