There's a literature in political economy on bureaucratic rigidity and the pacing problem. Classic work here comes from Anthony Downs, and it's striking how relevant his bureaucracy life cycle model is to electricity regulation. 📉📈 and 🔌💡 knowledgeproblem.substack.com/p/the-rigidi...

The Rigidity Cycle and the Pacing Problem

Anthony Downs on bureaucratic cruft

knowledgeproblem.substack.com

CBO's new long-term budget outlook. It's...not good. Record debt, record deficits, record interest. Debt spiral (interest outpacing GDP growth) begins in 2045. www.crfb.org/papers/analy...

Analysis of CBO’s March 2025 Long-Term Budget Outlook | Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget

Today, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released its March 2025 Long-Term Budget Outlook, which builds off its

crfb.org

Half of all new US EV registrations, 2012–2023, went to the top 10 percent most Democratic counties, from Lucas W. Davis, Jing Li, and Katalin Springel https://www.nber.org/papers/w33591

On this week's Boiling Point podcast, I moderate the Great Rooftop Solar Debate! The leader of CA's solar trade group and a UC Berkeley economist debate solar incentives, and things get intense. My attempts at finding common ground do not work. Listen in: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/t...

The Great Rooftop Solar Debate

Podcast Episode · Boiling Point · 03/27/2025 · 45m

podcasts.apple.com

Growing demand for electricity and the adoption of renewables are transforming the U.S. grid. Join @nationalacademies.org for a webinar series to explore emerging challenges for the future electricity system, with a focus on improving subnational decision-making, innovation, and supply chains.📉📈 🔌💡

Innovation is the key to a clean and prosperous future. 📉📈 and 🔌💡 knowledgeproblem.substack.com/p/innovating...

Innovating Future Power Systems: From Vision to Action

Innovation is the key to a clean and prosperous energy future

knowledgeproblem.substack.com

#EnergySky friends, we are releasing a set of papers today outlining how #SurplusInterconnection can unlock GW of new resources. Surplus is a way to plug wind and solar into existing thermal plants. Check out our papers, along with a cool interactive dashboard, here: www.scarcitytosurplus.com

Power systems are transforming—but outdated regulations are holding back innovation. 📢 Innovating Future Power Systems: From Vision to Action explores how to drive a clean, reliable, and consumer-driven energy future. 🔹 Read the full report: www.aei.org/research-pro...

crazy good and detailed explanation of the transmission problems we face here in the good old U.S.A....

Lynne Kiesling@knowledgeproblem.bsky.social · last yr.

If electricity transmission is so important, why is it so hard to build? 📉📈 and 🔌💡 knowledgeproblem.substack.com/p/regional-t...

If electricity transmission is so important, why is it so hard to build? 📉📈 and 🔌💡 knowledgeproblem.substack.com/p/regional-t...

Regional Transmission Organizations as Market Platforms IV

If electricity transmission is so important, why is it so hard to build?

knowledgeproblem.substack.com

If there is any doubt that tariffs are passed through to consumers, the cost of propane to heat my house just went up by the amount of the tariff

Modern supply chains don't look like trade theory 101! They involve constant border crossings, each now hit by tariffs. Tariffs raise prices, but the more important thing they do is disrupt supply relationships. 1/

What could possibly go wrong, you ask? 😬

George Pearkes@peark.es · 2y ago

*CANADA TO IMPOSE 25% TARIFFS AGAINST C$155B OF US GOODS

The combination of monopoly regulation and RTO governance creates perverse transmission investment incentives. A slight diversion from my RTO series to provide useful background to those new to electricity policy. 📉📈 and 🔌💡 knowledgeproblem.substack.com/p/regional-t...

Regional Transmission Organizations as Market Platforms III

Regulation and perverse transmission incentives

knowledgeproblem.substack.com

Want to see what data center demand has done to power demand forecasts in just 12 months? Check out PJMs forecast for summer and winter peaks in 2025 compared to 2024. The difference between the 2032 forecast this year and last year is almost 40,000 MW. 🔌💡

I'm starting off 2025 by writing a series about RTOs as wholesale market platforms. Part II: institutional path dependence entrenches the governance power of incumbents. 📉📈 and 🔌💡 knowledgeproblem.substack.com/p/regional-t...

Regional Transmission Organizations as Market Platforms II

Why Power Systems Struggle with Change: Perverse Incentives and Outdated Rules

knowledgeproblem.substack.com

New at The Hill from my friend @sabineec.bsky.social thehill.com/opinion/fina...

Day 1 tariffs are bad for everyone — including President Trump

President Trump should not pursue rash Day 1 tariffs after his inauguration is over. The market shock will be severe.

thehill.com

Fueled partly by energy demand for AI, power utilities projected last year that electricity demand would grow FIVE times faster over the next five years compared to forecasts made two years ago. www.ciphernews.com/articles/dat... by @catclifford.bsky.social in Cipher News

Data centers drive up projected electricity growth in the U.S. - Cipher News

In just two years, the growth of data centers — fueled in part by artificial intelligence’s rapid integration into our livelihoods — have dramatically reshaped expectations for future energy consumpti...

ciphernews.com

I'm starting off 2025, a year when I'll write a lot about the role of markets and innovation in enabling our future power systems, by writing a series about RTOs as wholesale market platforms. Part I: economic history. 📉📈 and 🔌💡 knowledgeproblem.substack.com/p/regional-t...

Regional Transmission Organizations as Market Platforms I

What's the origin story of wholesale power markets?

knowledgeproblem.substack.com

In my second post on grid defection: Since 2014, has it become more feasible, and more likely? 📉📈 and 🔌💡 knowledgeproblem.substack.com/p/economics-...

Economics of Grid Defection II

Is it more feasible, and more likely?

knowledgeproblem.substack.com

Long overdue super 🧵on why residential grid-interactive V2X is not (yet) a thing in the US. 1) Interconnection (IX) 2) Rate design 3) Vehicle capabilities & standards adoption #energysky

Carl Lenox@alphaconstant.bsky.social · 2y ago

Interesting fact that popped for me on V2X — in the US there is currently about 10X the battery capacity (GWh) in EVs on the road today, than deployed as stationary batteries (utility, C&I and resi). Also, over the next 10 years, we expect both to increase ~10X.

Elon’s ambitions should not serve as cover for Dems to abdicate responsibility for thinking seriously about government reform, says @pahlkadot.bsky.social "Let’s not pretend that change was going to come from Democrats if they’d only had another term." www.eatingpolicy.com/p/bringing-e...

A decade ago the talk of electricity policy was grid defection. The underlying economic concept: contestability. The first of a four-part series on grid defection's decade. 📉📈 and 🔌💡 knowledgeproblem.substack.com/p/economics-...

Economics of Grid Defection I

Grid defection and contestability

knowledgeproblem.substack.com

A lot of people still don’t realize that dramatic cost reductions in geothermal is something happening *right now*, not theoretically in the future. Here is a look at the cost numbers published by NREL every year for Deep Enhanced Geothermal. A 50% improvement in 2024 with a lot more to come.

The Management Singularity - LLMs aren't going to transform the Fate of Mankind but they will remake how big organizations work. www.programmablemutter.com/p/the-manage...

The Management Singularity

LLMs will transform the world - but quietly

programmablemutter.com

Climate advocates might feel hopeless with Pres-elect Trump returning to the WH. They shouldn’t. I wrote about how to make progress for NYT 1. Focus on innovation and industrial strategy 2. Be pragmatic about fossil fuels 3. Expand the interests that gain from decarbonization

US power demand now projected to grow by 128 GW by 2029! Last year, Grid Strategies broke the news that utilities and system operators had doubled their forecasts for electric demand growth from 2022 – a sudden jump driven by data centers and industrial load, among other factors.🧵 1/4 🔌💡

Brian Arthur’s theory of combinatorial innovation provides a framework for analyzing Brian Potter's history of lithium ion battery technology. 📉📈 and 🔌💡 knowledgeproblem.substack.com/p/recombinan...

Recombinant Modularity and Technological Change

How the lithium ion battery is an emergent technology of other technologies

knowledgeproblem.substack.com