New report from @jmooreotto.bsky.social on using RRIF and TIFIA to provide a stable source of capital funding for rail electrification and automation projects! Shifting off discretionary grants is one step towards helping agencies build long-term capacity. publicenterprise.org/report/the-t...

The Transit Infrastructure Lottery

Read the full report here. Executive summary Federal transportation investment in the United States suffers from both a quantity problem and a quality problem. The quantity problem is much-d...

publicenterprise.org

Fantastic piece from Jane Flegal on why the risk of overbuilding long distance HVDC is one we should embrace, not run from. A more robust federal planning and finance role can also help take the impact off ratepayers. clcouncil.org/publications...

SB 1097 would have given CEQA exemptions for transmission buildouts and it didn’t even make it out of first house. This state talks a big game about climate transition but can’t even stomach modest reforms to accommodate green energy growth.

Chirag Lala@cthelala.bsky.social · 2w ago

This load growth is perfectly compatible with rapid increases in the share of clean power consumption on the grid. But you have to make it easier to build and interconnect. Trying to restrain the load growth on climate grounds is a public admission of failure. www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

This load growth is perfectly compatible with rapid increases in the share of clean power consumption on the grid. But you have to make it easier to build and interconnect. Trying to restrain the load growth on climate grounds is a public admission of failure. www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

Data Centers on Track to Suck Up a Fifth of US Power Use by 2035

Data centers in the US will account for about 20% of the nation’s electricity consumption in 2035, up from 5.9% today, according to BloombergNEF.

bloomberg.com

Among a lot of climate activists, there seems to be a basic frustration that an AI boom is happening at all. Which is unfortunate because the policies needed for rapid decarbonization haven’t changed and would allow us to facilitate more economic activity in other sectors.

Someone has to articulate how “phasing out fossil fuels” without first building sufficient clean energy, storage, and transmission capacity is at all feasible. If you don’t sequence things properly, they’re no climate solution at all.

It would be the height of folly for Democrats to view changes to NEPA and NHPA as concessions in a permitting negotiation. We should embrace changes. A future Dem administration’s transmission buildout will thank us for it.

Fun decarb thoughts this week: Saying clean electricity will be free sets up the decarb coalition for failure. More stable pricing? Cheaper? Quite possibly if we build a proper grid and deploy the federal government. But cost allocation and volumetric pricing remain significant.

My colleague @jmooreotto.bsky.social is in @ifp.bsky.social’s Transit Cost Playbook. He argues for replacing discretionary grant financing for transit projects with federal loans! The current regime shreds state planning capacity due to intermittent and capricious funding. ifp.org/loans-can-st...

Loans Can Stabilize Transit Funding | IFP

Consistent and predictable funding builds state capacity

ifp.org

Random thought. If the U.S. gets healthcare right (ie universal + standardized benefits, admin savings, public investment in care provisioning, etc) It’s not clear we get dramatic reductions in the share of health expenditure as a % of GDP. And that’s probably fine.

I just received the terribly distressing news that Gordon Wood was hit by a car and killed yesterday. We were together with other Founding era scholars at the 2nd Judicial Circuit conference last week at Lake George, and he was as usual in fine fettle and as always enjoyable to talk to.

This post says it more clearly. bsky.app/profile/cthe...

Chirag Lala@cthelala.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Issue is there's no reason to think material throughput cuts require a commitment to reducing aggregate output or consumption as measured in monetary values. That's a reification of GDP that even the most parodied economist would blush at. bsky.app/profile/cthe...

Right. Seeing a reduction in GDP as equivalent to a reduction in physical throughputs or climate impact, is the same kind of mistake as seeing an increase in GDP as equivalent to an increase in happiness or welfare.

Chirag Lala@cthelala.bsky.social · 2mo ago

A drop in emissions-, resource-, land-use, particulate-, or other kinds of intensity of output. All of which require investment, which mechanically boosts GDP. Ditto redistribution due to multipliers.

A drop in emissions-, resource-, land-use, particulate-, or other kinds of intensity of output. All of which require investment, which mechanically boosts GDP. Ditto redistribution due to multipliers.

Brendan Jones@brendanjones.eurosky.social · 2mo ago

We’re way over local and planetary ecological boundaries. Our land use and other impacts must reduce to get back within those boundaries, which will inevitably mean some reduction in throughout. What would you call that reduction, if not degrowth?

Piketty’s a degrowther. Can’t think of a better way to trash progressive aspirations for equality than linking them with a cause so illiberal and economically impoverished.

I’m late to the party on Dan Awrey’s “Beyond Banks.” Just now completing it. Ton of analogies between his proposals and visions for contested (hybrid?) electricity markets + regulation. True of open access competition between payment providers and integrated BHCs, cost allocated network upgrades.

It’s here! @jwmason.bsky.social

Hey, crypto bros! Bitcoin bros in particular! That argument you make about the fiat dollar being based on an odious 50 year-old deal that kept the world hooked on fossil fuels? Consider it debunked. Or put up your dukes! www.ft.com/content/a65e...

Much ado about the 1974 ‘petrodollar’ deal

KSA 🤜 🤛 USA?

ft.com

Cannot wait to read King Dollar!! Suggested by @buddyyakov.bsky.social and @mcopelov.bsky.social.

Paul Blustein@paulblustein.bsky.social · 3mo ago

The dollar’s global dominance is imperiled! The Iran war is threatening to upend a noxious 50-year deal that established the petrodollar system as a linchpin of US power! Do I have your attention now? Good. Because every word of that…

The dollar’s global dominance is imperiled! The Iran war is threatening to upend a noxious 50-year deal that established the petrodollar system as a linchpin of US power! Do I have your attention now? Good. Because every word of that…

@jwmason.bsky.social it’s here!

remember who you are, liberal

Will Stancil@whstancil.bsky.social · 3mo ago

We could have a lot healthier coalition-building if folks realized that liberalism is historically an ideology of unrelenting intolerance of the forces of reaction and conservatism, often to the point of fanaticism - not the ideology of, like, Bill Clinton and Third Way

Now at Operation Market Garden. Alas, what can one even say?

Chirag Lala@cthelala.bsky.social · 4mo ago

Been listening to @alanallport.bsky.social’s “Britain at Bay” and now “Advance Britannia.” Currently at the Dieppe Raid. And the repeated, seemingly limitless incompetence and lack of coordination within the British armed services and with civilian leadership is just stupefying.

Yup! Had this debate on here a while back re volumetric pricing for electricity. Even in a heavily renewable system, you’d want per kWh charges precisely for the incentives they impart. That electricity is a critical service doesn’t change that.

Sharon 🪳🌹@sharonk.bsky.social · 3mo ago

in plain english: while you don't want energy to be so expensive that it makes life unaffordable, you want prices to serve the role of a informal rationing system to prevent over-usage of energy

Good. Distracted driving is deeply antisocial and if new tech helps us prevent it, good.

Federal Surveillance Tech Becomes Mandatory in New Cars by 2027

New car surveillance tech becomes mandatory by 2027, using infrared cameras to monitor driver sobriety and alertness with privacy and cost concerns.

gadgetreview.com

Been listening to @alanallport.bsky.social’s “Britain at Bay” and now “Advance Britannia.” Currently at the Dieppe Raid. And the repeated, seemingly limitless incompetence and lack of coordination within the British armed services and with civilian leadership is just stupefying.

Renewables represent the fastest way to economize fuel costs in the short-run. But VRE generation is most assuredly not free. Will be apparent as we try to overbuild, cost allocate fairly, network localized buildouts, or hedge for reliability. Better we plan knowing this!

Yes! I also don’t recognize the kind of hegemony Tooze has in mind. Absent a green investment push in which it secures captive customers, what public goods is this China offering the global system? And what coercive capabilities does it receive in turn? Most importantly…for what strategic purpose?

Yakov Feygin@buddyyakov.bsky.social · 4mo ago

@adamtooze.bsky.social has a list of five things China should do to gain hegemony. I agree with all of them and ideally would add a pledge to not use force against Taiwan. The problem is I’m not sure China wants to be a hegemon.

@adamtooze.bsky.social has a list of five things China should do to gain hegemony. I agree with all of them and ideally would add a pledge to not use force against Taiwan. The problem is I’m not sure China wants to be a hegemon.

very proud of newly minted PhD @cthelala.bsky.social who successfully defended his thesis this afternoon! Chirag is a brilliant strategic thinker who is a joy to work with; finishing a thesis is not easy esp. w/ work & life & he made it happen v. sweet of @publicenterprise.bsky.social to show up!