How can you be left advocate of public power, w/ major emphasis on carbon emissions, and stay totally silent about nuclear power? A major source of clean energy that our largest public power utilities are developing, incl. interest from coops. Is it pressure from funders or what?

In 2023 the developers of 86 wind & solar projects in New York warned their projects were endangered by supply chain problems cutting into profitability. Each had won subsidies in annual state auction 2016 to 2021. What happened? Ratepayers covered for many. www.publicpowerreview.org/p/when-new-y...

NEW: I digitized a decade's worth (1929-1940) of the Chattanooga newspaper LABOR WORLD, a weekly paper by the local AFL, in order to unearth some New Deal public power history. And I used Claude Code to help me do it. Here's the process details for others to learn from. Links 👇

Massachusetts's Electric Power Division is hiring for an energy analyst. Ratemaking + electrification + reliability. Super cool job! www.mass.gov/alerts/the-e...

Request for public power historians, esp in TVA area: Can anyone recommend any articles, dissertations, etc that shines light on the Public Power League of Chattanooga that formed in the 1930s? Please RT to signal boost. 🙏

See my debunking of many arguments Romm makes in his new paper against new nuclear in New York, a paper full of misrepresentative citations to research literature and a glaring, shameful misfire on one major argument. Of course Green NGO ppl eat it up tho. www.publicpowerreview.org/p/debunking-...

Debunking the Latest Antinuclear Claims From New York's Environmental Left

New York environmental left groups like Public Power NY and Third Act are touting a new paper that calls New York's plans for new nuclear plants an "anti-affordability fiasco." Here's my rebuttal.

publicpowerreview.org

It’s small in get grand scheme but I worry the data center back lash will turn into a broader one against any investment into the electrical grid unless there are major changes in how we fund the system and compensate IOUs.

See my debunking of many arguments Romm makes in his new paper against new nuclear in New York, a paper full of misrepresentative citations to research literature and a glaring, shameful misfire on one major argument. Of course Green NGO ppl eat it up tho. www.publicpowerreview.org/p/debunking-...

Debunking the Latest Antinuclear Claims From New York's Environmental Left

New York environmental left groups like Public Power NY and Third Act are touting a new paper that calls New York's plans for new nuclear plants an "anti-affordability fiasco." Here's my rebuttal.

publicpowerreview.org

It was really fun to go on Vivek Chibber's "Confronting Capitalism" podcast to talk about socialism and abundance. Listen up! podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/a...

Abundance Needs Socialism

Podcast Episode · Confronting Capitalism with Vivek Chibber · 01/07/2026 · 46m

podcasts.apple.com

The climate left when conservatives trot out an academic who argues anthropogenic climate change isn't happening: "he's an outlier whose work is highly disputed!" When they trot out this guy to argue gas worse than coal: "it's science and you're a fossil fuels shill to disagree"

Decided to post something on substack for the 1st time (partially b/c of dissatisfaction with this place & the other place, it must be said). My first post is a response to @simonpirani.bsky.social's critiques of my work with @fredstaffordcs.bsky.social on electricity politics (link in next post).

Now online today, a feature from our latest print issue: Bob Leighninger, author of my fav New Deal infrastructure book, on the administrative and political importance of bureaucratic efficiency in the era of public works. Subscribe to read! $20 digital, $40 btfl print. damagemag.com/2025/12/15/h...

I’ll just add the NYPA lost fewer of their projects to tax credit cuts than most developers which should say something.

Stephen Jacob Smith@stephenjacobsmith.com · 9mo ago

It feels very unfair to compare Cuomo-era climate plans with Hochul-era climate reality, while ignoring that the Cuomo-era reality was that 2 gigawatts of clean power came *off* the grid in one fell swoop at Indian Point – more than twice the solar/wind we have in total today!

My case for Kathy Hochul as the champion of public power today: www.publicpowerreview.org/p/new-york-g...

My case for Kathy Hochul as the champion of public power today: www.publicpowerreview.org/p/new-york-g...

This guy is incredibly disingenuous

Ketan Joshi@ketanjoshi.co · 10mo ago

This is very precisely the broken headspace of 'carbon offsetting' used by the worst polluters and the most performative capitalist carbon market trading companies. Assume the false dichotomy that you can only have renewable energy paired with more fossil infra, and it all looks lovely

In which I got two Cuomo-endorsing industrial unions to praise Zohran Mamdani on something he said about the state's energy needs, and it's exactly what Governor and NYPA want too. Unfortunately it's also the thing the environmental left he's been close to refuses to budge on!👇

Heatmap News@heatmap.news · 10mo ago

It's election day in New York City. Should he win, writes @fredstaffordcs.bsky.social, frontrunner Zohran Mamdani will have the chance to buck the left's increasingly nonsensical stance against nuclear energy development. Read more in this piece from our Ideas section ⤵️:

It's election day in New York City. Should he win, writes @fredstaffordcs.bsky.social, frontrunner Zohran Mamdani will have the chance to buck the left's increasingly nonsensical stance against nuclear energy development. Read more in this piece from our Ideas section ⤵️:

Zohran Mamdani Should Embrace Nuclear

The New York mayoral frontrunner has an opportunity to shift the left’s increasingly nonsensical position on a critical carbon-free energy source.

heatmap.news

Really good op-ed by @fredstaffordcs.bsky.social on why Zohran Mamdani should embrace nuclear power. heatmap.news/ideas/zohran...

Zohran Mamdani Should Embrace Nuclear

The New York mayoral frontrunner has an opportunity to shift the left’s increasingly nonsensical position on a critical carbon-free energy source.

heatmap.news

I've been profoundly depressed seeing so many leftists either joke about or celebrate the murder of someone for political speech. Glad to see this political clarity from @benburgis.bsky.social and Meagan Day in @jacobinmag.bsky.social. jacobin.com/2025/09/char...

Some thinkers on the left have convinced everyone there's nothing to see here, the ideas expressed in Abundance are just neoliberalism rebranded, etc. They're wrong. Read our review essay to understand what left critics miss, what problems they conspicuously refuse to recognize.

Jacobin@jacobinmag.bsky.social · last yr.

Abundance is the precondition of socialism, but socialism is also the precondition of abundance.

Recommend @matthuber.bsky.social @leighphillips.bsky.social @fredstaffordcs.bsky.social in @jacobinmag.bsky.social as a key intervention on abundance. Both private market interests + an NGO-govt-legal bureaucracy hinder abundance. Class struggle must overcome both to deliver a plentiful future.

A really nice engagement with our Abundance piece (in the context of a stale/toxic debate). "I’ve seen so much online discourse devolve into purity tests, tactical pessimism, and knee-jerk hostility. This piece cuts through that." stephnakhleh.substack.com/p/jacobins-s...

Jacobin's socialist case for abundance

With notes and astonishments from a reader who expected to disagree

stephnakhleh.substack.com

"Those of us... who come from the Left and remain connected to industrial labor — can tell you plainly: it’s both unaccountable markets *and* an unaccountable NGO-academia-legal bureaucratic class that are stalling public progress."

Jacobin@jacobinmag.bsky.social · last yr.

Abundance is the precondition of socialism, but socialism is also the precondition of abundance.

I was confused by the wholesale Left rejection of "Abundance" both bc it's central to the general socialist project & bc the book itself has valuable insights. So here finally is our sympathetic/critical review of the book & its critics (w @leighphillips.bsky.social & @fredstaffordcs.bsky.social).

Jacobin@jacobinmag.bsky.social · last yr.

Abundance is the precondition of socialism, but socialism is also the precondition of abundance.

Abundance is the precondition of socialism, but socialism is also the precondition of abundance.

Abundance for the 99 Percent

Abundance is the precondition of socialism, but socialism is also the precondition of abundance.

jacobin.com

@fredstaffordcs.bsky.social knocks it out of the park with this. The NYPA nuclear announcement should be celebrated as one of the most critical experiments in rebuilding state capacity in the country. The way we win is with big public investment at all scales: jacobin.com/2025/07/hoch...

Atomic Abundance and Its Enemies

Wrangling over the construction of nuclear power in New York State has revealed the priorities of some of the state’s biggest environmental lobbies. For them, creating bureaucratic procedures they can...

jacobin.com

2. Decarbonization as a longterm goal = eventually need to replace the gas (nuclear, geothermal, gas+CCS, hydrogen). That something’s big competitor is precisely the solar/storage/gas combo. Establishing the clean alternative to gas probably requires reshaping market rules favoring solar/gas today.

For more neoliberal center-left Abundance stans: 1. Private independent solar power producers’/asset managers’ interests are not going to be neatly aligned with clean, reliable energy abundance. Be warned.

Part of me has been feeling the time is approaching for a reckoning with the implicit solarmaxxing of both much of the Abundance movement *and* its critics. The next 10 yrs is when these political groups must grapple deeply with the grid and power markets. 🧵

Seaver Wang@wang-seaver.bsky.social · last yr.

Certainly agree there’s ample untapped room in most regions to get to the first ~30% of electricity from solar. Appreciate Brian Potter's big caveats that his analysis didn’t cover transmission/distrib or power markets—indeed 2 key factors. My thoughts:🧵 www.construction-physics.com/p/can-we-aff...