Today on Volts: how can we get data centers hooked up without screwing over the grid or other ratepayers? Two of my favorite thinkers, @astridatkinson.bsky.social & @jessedjenkins.com, lay out a new model whereby data centers bring some of their own generation & utilities offer flexible connection.

For data centers, a little flexibility goes a long way

Why developers are scrambling for off-grid jet engines, and how we could fix our broken grid interconnection process instead.

volts.wtf

This sounds like some serious hearsay. I put no stock in it and would encourage others not to either.

Finally! Bravo.

Miriam Wasser@miriamwasser.bsky.social · 7mo ago

After 10 years of controversy, lawsuits, and even a ballot referendum, the New England Clean Energy Connect is up and running 🔌 With a capacity of 1,200 megawatts, the new line can satisfy 20% of Massachusetts' electricity needs. www.wbur.org/news/2026/01... @wbur.org #energysky

I'm a big fan of the @rff.org Resources Radio podcast - lots of great interviews with researchers talking about their work so the archive is a real gold mine. We ended up discussing this excellent episode with @catiehausman.bsky.social going through her work on electricity transmission.

Power Flows: Understanding the Barriers to Electricity Transmission, with Catherine Hausman

Catherine Hausman discusses the benefits of building new electricity transmission lines, the costs of not building new transmission, and why more transmission is not being built in the United States.

resources.org

Hedging and energy trading is always a tricky topic for students that haven't encountered this stuff before. I found this trio of videos gives some useful insights into oil trading that's pretty accessible and worked well. p1: tinyurl.com/3csz73a8 p2: tinyurl.com/2kwbed2x p3: tinyurl.com/3heytjkx

What is Hedging? | Oil and Commodities Trading

YouTube video by International Business House

youtube.com

Understanding the clean energy transition requires a firm grasp of the fossil fuel markets that still dominate the sector today. @planetmoney.bsky.social has some excellent energy reporting, including this piece on gasoline that features both @severinborenstein.bsky.social and Ryan Kellogg.

Breaking down the price of gasoline : Planet Money

High gas prices have fueled speculation and investigations — is anyone raising prices and keeping prices high for profit? To find out, we break down the price of gas, piece by piece, to show you how w...

npr.org

For a class full of social science students, getting some grounding in how the physics and engineering of the grid interacts with the economics is key. The summer school series that @jessedjenkins.com and @robinsonmeyer.bsky.social put out on their excellent Shift Key podcast was perfect for this.

Shift Key Summer School: What Is a Watt?

Jesse teaches Rob the basics of energy, power, and what it all has to do with the grid.

heatmap.news

Finished teaching a new course on energy markets and the clean energy transition last month. Was a blast and have lots of thoughts for next year. One takeaway is the value of going beyond academic journals/textbooks and incorporating media articles, podcasts, and video. Here's a few we covered... 🧵

This week on SHIFT KEY: Trump wants U.S. drillers to have Venezuela's oil. But what's really keeping them from getting it? And do they even want it? @robinsonmeyer.bsky.social checks in with @roryjohnston.bsky.social on all of the above and more: heatmap.news/podcast/shif...

Why Trump’s Oil Imperialism Might Be a Tough Sell for Actual Oil Companies

Rob talks about the removal of Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro with Commodity Context’s Rory Johnston.

heatmap.news

BREAKING: The White House plans to withdraw the U.S. from the United Nations framework climate treaty, according to reports. Here's @robinsonmeyer.bsky.social with what we know: heatmap.news/sparks/us-wi...

The U.S. Will Exit UN’s Framework Climate Treaty, According to Reports

The move would mark a significant escalation in Trump’s hostility toward climate diplomacy.

heatmap.news

New @wsj.com: "The Fight Over Making Data Centers Power Down to Avoid Blackouts" “T​​he pressures of connecting to the grid at the scale and pace that people are talking about is going to push these solutions,” @jessedjenkins.com said. “There isn’t another option.” www.wsj.com/business/ene...

7 numbers explain why building electrification is taking off in the USA, via @canarymedia.com www.canarymedia.com/articles/car... 🔌💡 #upshift

7 numbers that explain why the future of buildings is all-electric

Key indicators, from the cost of fossil gas to the number of heat pumps sold, signal building decarbonization will march onward in the U.S. despite…

canarymedia.com

Despite headwinds, over 20 new EVs are coming to the US market in 2026, including several more affordable vehicles. Can any thrive without federal tax credits? insideevs.com/news/782572/... 🔌💡 🔌🚗

Over 20 New EVs Are Coming In 2026. These Are The Seven I'm Most Excited About

We’ve been waiting for the next generation of EVs to arrive—cheaper, faster, better. Next year, they’ll finally be here.

insideevs.com

I finally read the op ed. Matt Yglesias is right. (98% right at least, which is an A+ for a NYT op ed). Don't @ me. It's the holidays and I don't have the appetite. But Matty's position is pragmatic, substantively sound, and the only way we have a chance of making progress on climate in this moment.

New preprint up assessing the air quality and health benefits that could have been possible under the Inflation Reduction Act. Huge effort here with Erin Mayfield, Jamil Farbes, @jessedjenkins.com, Ryan Jones, Tracey Holloway, and @jonathanpatz.bsky.social.

There’s a lot of excitement about the growth of next-gen geothermal in the US. But geothermal is *already* competing at price parity in Europe. On this week’s episode of Shift Key, @jessedjenkins.com and I chat with Mark Fitzgerald, the CEO of a geothermal firm that is now powering a German town:

Say ‘Guten Tag!’ to This New Kind of Geothermal Tech

Rob and Jesse catch up with Mark Fitzgerald, CEO of the closed-loop geothermal startup Eavor.

heatmap.news

NEW SHIFT KEY: It's not every day we get to celebrate a successful first-of-its kind climate tech — but that's exactly what @robinsonmeyer.bsky.social and @jessedjenkins.com did this week with Eavor's Mark Fitzgerald. Listen (and rate and subscribe!) here: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/s...

Say ‘Guten Tag!’ to This New Kind of Geothermal Tech

Podcast Episode · Shift Key with Robinson Meyer and Jesse Jenkins · 12/17/2025 · 44m

podcasts.apple.com

Well, we've officially jumped the shark. This is probably the most bonkers real headline I've read in forever. Reads like an Onion satire. But no. This is real. www.wsj.com/business/dea... I want out of this branch of the metaverse...

Trump Media to Merge With Nuclear Fusion Firm in $6 Billion Deal

Shares in the president’s media company jumped premarket after it agreed to a tie-up with TAE Technologies in an all-stock deal.

wsj.com

It's not every day we get to welcome a totally new clean energy technology into commercial operation. Today on Shift Key, we talk with Eavor Technologies CEO Mark Fitzgerald about how the company brought online the first-ever closed-loop geothermal heat & power project this month in Germany! 🔌💡

A single Chinese state-owned company is buying more solar panels and wind turbines to deploy in 2026 than the entire US market is likely to build. www.pv-magazine.com/2025/12/15/c... 🔌💡

Chinese PV Industry Brief: PowerChina launches 31 GW solar procurement

China Power Construction Corp. (PowerChina) has launched a 31 GW solar module tender for 2026 projects, split across n-type tunnel oxide passivated contact (TOPCon), heterojunction (HJT) and back-cont...

pv-magazine.com

US demands EU exempt its gas from methane emissions law until 2035, document shows share.google/cDYT3BTSwXw3... This is why the US should not have canned EPA methane reg, and why most big gas players supported the regs. Lower US methane leaks = more globally competitive product

US demands EU exempt its gas from methane emissions law, document shows

The U.S. has demanded that the European Union exempt its oil and gas from obligations under the bloc's methane emissions law on fuel imports until 2035, a U.S. government document seen by Reuters show...

share.google

Silicon anodes are coming to market! Huge improvement in energy density (400 Wh/kg!) and charge rates (10 min rapid charging) for Li-ion batteries, and an alternative to graphite, which is almost all sourced from China now. This is one area where US could regain leadership in battery tech. 🔗⤵️ 🔌🚗 🔌💡

The US Department of Energy approved an $8.6 million grant that will allow the nation’s first utility-led geothermal heating and cooling network (in MA) to double in size. www.canarymedia.com/articles/uti... 🔌💡

First utility-owned geothermal network to double in size with DOE…

The $8.6 million grant for Eversource’s pioneering project in Framingham, Massachusetts, is a rare win for renewable energy under the Trump administration.

canarymedia.com

New Jersey's legislature is considering clarifying E-bikes as motorized vehicles requiring license, registration and insurance. That is nuts and would deny a huge range of people an ideal and affordable mobility solution. A terrible idea. share.google/HGvRZ77w9SqE... 🔌💡

Critics oppose plan for new e-bike regulations in NJ • New Jersey Monitor

Bike enthusiasts oppose a bill that would do away with the state's three-tier system for classifying electric and motorized bikes.

share.google

How batteries got cheaper and made power grids more reliable www.nytimes.com/2025/12/05/b... #upshift 🔌💡

Once a Gamble in the Desert, Electric Grid Batteries Are Everywhere

nytimes.com

A flexible approach with “bring-your-own-capacity” could connect data centers faster and save hundreds of millions in system supply costs, says a report from Camus, encoord and Princeton | Utility Dive share.google/9HgK3R5h3KYh... 🔌💡

Flexible connections and BYOC could reduce data center burden: report

A flexible approach with “bring-your-own-capacity” could connect data centers faster and save hundreds of millions in system supply costs, says a report from Camus, encoord and Princeton University’s ...

share.google

Closed loop (Eavor) and enhanced geothermal (Fervo) technologies, both of which are now operating commercially, can expand geothermal from a gigawatt-scale resource available in just a few places to a terawatt-scale resource available practically everywhere! #Upshift

Jesse D. Jenkins@jessedjenkins.com · 8mo ago

The WSJ reports on the historic news yesterday that Eavor has begun operations of the first commercial-scale multilateral closed loop geotherm power project in the world! It's not every day that a new power tech has its "world's first" moment. Don't miss this www.wsj.com/articles/a-g... 🔌💡

The WSJ reports on the historic news yesterday that Eavor has begun operations of the first commercial-scale multilateral closed loop geotherm power project in the world! It's not every day that a new power tech has its "world's first" moment. Don't miss this www.wsj.com/articles/a-g... 🔌💡

Exclusive | A Geothermal Company Wants to Use New Technology to Heat an Old German Town

A project in Bavaria is harnessing high temperatures from deep beneath the earth to provide a community with warmth in the winter and to power the local grid in the summer.

wsj.com

DOE doled out $400 million each to Holtec and TVA today to advance deployment of "small" modular reactors through the Advanced Reactor Demonstration Program. 🔌💡

A huge milestone in new energy technology: as of today, Eavor Technologies is producing clean power (and heat) with the first commercial, utility-scale multilateral closed-loop geothermal project in the world! Congratulations to the whole Eavor team. More details via the link below. 🔌 💡