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@patrickbryant.page

Recovering particle physicist, professional clean energy nerd working at the PJM Interconnection.

128 Posts109 Follower113 Folgt
Zeke Hausfather@zekehausfather.com · last wk.

The rise in Niño 3.4 region sea surface temperatures over the past few weeks has been nothing short of astonishing. We are now hotter than any days during the 1997/1998 super El Niño event, and we are still many months from the peak.

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@patrickbryant.page · 2w ago

I was a AAAS Fellow after my postdoc at CMU, it was an incredible experience (before the Trump admin put a stop to nearly all our work at DOE). Highly recommend applying for the congressional fellowship if you are looking for a path out of academia and/or into another field!

Costa Samaras@costasamaras.com · 2w ago

The application for the AAAS Science & Technology Policy Fellowship, which places scientists & engineers into roles in Congress and in the Executive Branch, opened today. This program is essential for building technical policy capacity in the US. If interested, apply: fellowshipapp.aaas.org/app/main

@patrickbryant.page · 2w ago

Fascinating to see all the Chinese EVs around Ireland. BYD taxis everywhere, my girlfriend particularly enjoyed the fact that BYD adopted the backronym “Build Your Dreams.” Bonus EV experience was the double decker bus from downtown Dublin to the airport. That beast of a bus pulled hard! 🔌💡

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Free DC@freedcproject.bsky.social · 3w ago

While we wait for the bill to come up, a bit of Home Rule 101. Under the Home Rule Act that governs DC, when our local legislature the DC Council passes a bill, it goes through a Congressional review period (either 30 or 60 days depending on subject matter).

@patrickbryant.page · 3w ago

Everything humans do with energy is near the thermodynamic limit except computation. The fact that we are O(1,000,000) away from Landauer’s limit means disruptive technology will eventually arrive and the AI bubble will pop. All these AI data centers will become stranded assets.

Thermodynamic Computers Go With the (Energy) Flow | Quanta Magazine

Today’s computers need safeguards against random energy fluctuations. Thermodynamic computers would put those fluctuations to use.

quantamagazine.org

@patrickbryant.page · last yr.

Example: an NVIDIA H100 consumes ~700W to flip ~3e16 bits per second at around 373K. From Landauer's principle this only requires ~1.2e-4W! en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Landaue...

@patrickbryant.page · 2mo ago

And for the renters or budget limited folks out there, GE makes a $500 window heat pump unit! 🔌💡

GE® ENERGY STAR® 8,000 BTU Smart Heat/Cool with Heat Pump Electronic Window Air Conditioner for Medium Rooms up to 350 sq. ft.|^|AWGP08WWF

GE Appliances is your home for the best kitchen appliances, home products, parts and accessories, and support.

geappliances.com

Canary Media Inc.@canarymedia.com · 2mo ago

Summer is officially here — and more Americans than ever are cooling their homes with heat pumps.

@patrickbryant.page · 2mo ago

I’m assuming these batteries’ max continuous power output is ~10kW, so 2000 of them adds ~20MW to the Chicago grid. This would represent a significant fraction of the total battery capacity in PJM! Very cool that they are being used to instantly lower residential costs. The batteries are coming :)

Canary Media Inc.@canarymedia.com · 2mo ago

Startup Base Power is building a home battery network in an overburdened corner of PJM’s grid, aiming to bring low-cost backup power to the region. https://www.canarymedia.com/articles/batteries/base-power-cheap-batteries-pjm

@patrickbryant.page · 2mo ago

Big batteries are finally coming to PJM! Not sure where this $250M number is coming from, but if it is the BESS CAPEX then this thing is ~$1.70/W (very competitive with CTs!) and $420/kWh (still a lot higher than what a similar system would cost in China) 🔌💡

New $250 million battery energy storage system coming to Rockingham County

Elevate renewables is celebrating a $250 million dollar investment, that’s being made into the future of Virginia’s energy.

whsv.com

Brent Toderian@brenttoderian.bsky.social · 3mo ago

“Helsinki hasn’t registered a single traffic-related fatality in the past year…Citing data that shows the risk of pedestrian fatality is cut in half by reducing a car’s speed from 40 to 30km/hr, city officials imposed the lower limit in most of Helsinki’s residential areas and city center in 2021.”

Helsinki just went a full year without a single traffic death

The capital city is Finnish’ed with car-related fatalities.

politico.eu

@patrickbryant.page · 4mo ago

This is so exciting! If the data center power crunch results in scaling power electronics for distributed energy that would be a huge win for the future of the grid. Traditional transformers are truly incredible bits of physics that make our grid work, but they are also inherently inflexible!

katie brigham@kbrigham.bsky.social · 4mo ago

as the world stares down a transformer shortage, incumbents are racing to add capacity. but a wave of startups is also tackling the problem from first principles — either rethinking the manufacturing process and supply chain or overhauling standard transformer designs in favor of solid-state tech

Ketan Joshi@ketanjoshi.co · 4mo ago

Just to crib Jan's great chart here a little bit - here are just a few of the headlines that came out when growth somewhat slowed in 2024 Many, many media outlets do not really know how to handle technological change like this

a bunch of headlines claiming EV sales slowing down in 2024 when really they grew, but slowly trhan the previous year
Jan Rosenow@janrosenow.bsky.social · 4mo ago

12.7 million battery electric vehicles were sold globally in 2025. In 2010, the number was barely 10,000. In China, 1 in 2 new cars sold last year was electric. The transition is happening faster than almost anyone predicted.