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mattb505.bsky.social
Regulator at the California PUC. Posts are my own.
6 posts 119 followers 371 following
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Posts 21 Comments 10

The measles outbreak in Texas is reminding me of the public letter Roald Dahl wrote about losing his daughter to measles in 1962, just before the vaccine was publicly available.

submitted 9 days ago • 410 comments

The termination of 850 Indian Health Service physicians, nurses, and dentists will have a grave impact on access to care for millions of Native Americans. Upholding our treaty obligations is not optional.

submitted 10 days ago • 835 comments

I saw this but didn't the IRA define greenhouse gases as air pollutants? Didn't Congress do this specifically to short circuit this kind of hackery? Someone smarter please explain

submitted 34 days ago • 1 comment

Here we go again. Another round of very strong & locally damaging offshore winds is imminent across SoCal. Due to now record-dry vegetation, this will result in another "extremely critical" wildfire risk period, esp. across parts of LA & Ventura counties Mon-Tue. #CAwx #CAfire

submitted 36 days ago • 6 comments

I'm half convinced there's a Tim Powers novel of this.

submitted 55 days ago • 5 comments

The Triassic is my favourite geological period. Such a carnival riot of diversity, and a defiant raspberry to the preceding Permian catastrophe.

submitted 64 days ago • 1 comment

Here is a hopefully useful chart for those who think China's electricity demand growth is driven by data centers (part of IT services), EV charging, solar manufacturing or EV manufacturing.

submitted 66 days ago • 1 comment

This is not surprising. Our work showed that coal-to-gas transition is unlikely to be replicated in other countries because of (i) high LNG prices, (ii) lack of gas/pipeline infrastructure, and (iii) national security concerns. DoE's analysis reaffirms that conclusion. pubs.acs.org/doi/full/10....

submitted 69 days ago • 2 comments

How could we actually structure a market system that is actually capable of deep decarbonization? Energy only markets are going to get stuck on cannibalization and undervaluing reliability. Vertical utilities tend to be slow and under capitalized...

submitted 479 days ago • 2 comments

That’s Dr Emil to you all!

submitted 85 days ago • 0 comments

My last PhD work is now a preprint! Feedback welcome! How should governments choose climate policies in second-best power markets with incomplete long-term contracting? We see some surprises: wind & solar subsidies can be more cost-effective than CO2 pricing... ceepr.mit.edu/workingpaper... 🔌💡

submitted 145 days ago • 5 comments

Less pollution, more service, quieter trains. Everyone is happy! jalopnik.com/ridership-of...

submitted 86 days ago • 10 comments

Awesome to see Notre Dame repaired and re-opened.

submitted 86 days ago • 0 comments

"precisely because, for the longest time, the online economy seemed to have marginal costs as close to zero as made no odds, it expanded until the constraints became impossible to ignore." backofmind.substack.com/p/just-a-few...

submitted 87 days ago • 0 comments

"It’s more appropriate to think of the lithium-ion battery not as a single invention, but as a steady accumulation of many inventions that were needed to both make a battery practical and to unlock its full potential." This is true of all innovation. www.construction-physics.com/p/how-we-got...

submitted 87 days ago • 7 comments

These two papers, taken together, really cause a rethinking of behavioral economies. Rather than having anomalous risk preferences; it looks like people have complexity aversion to "hard" decisions, especially on valuation, which drives behavioral anomalies. Herbert Simon ftw.

submitted 89 days ago • 24 comments

feedback, damping, oscillation and bank runs. and doughnuts, don't forget the doughnuts open.substack.com/pub/backofmi...

submitted 89 days ago • 1 comment

Georgia has pulled down so much IRA money. The gravitational pull of Rivian plant in that area of the state will be enormous.

submitted 89 days ago • 0 comments

A person on a bicycle is by far the most energy-efficient among animals and machines per distance traveled relative to body weight. The bicycle is magic. www.jstor.org/stable/24923...

submitted 92 days ago • 273 comments

first daft Friday post in a while, it's been all too much egghead stuff recently open.substack.com/pub/backofmi...

submitted 94 days ago • 2 comments

New research out today from my team @rhodiumgroup.bsky.social & MIT CEEPR with our Q3 update to the Clean Investment Monitor: Clean investment is at an all time high in the US, with $71 billion invested in Q3 2024 across manufacturing, energy & industry, and retail segments.

submitted 95 days ago • 2 comments