iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

asa watten @asawatten.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

I can't believe the president proposed a $270/MT carbon tax and dividend last night. Ambitious!

asa watten @asawatten.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

Second verse same as the first. "[...] we describe how the 2018 analysis has fundamental flaws and inconsistences, is at odds with basic economic theory and empirical studies, is misleading, and does not improve estimates [...] in the 2016 analysis." www.science.org/doi/abs/10.1...

science.org

Flawed analyses of U.S. auto fuel economy standards

A 2018 analysis discarded at least $112 billion in benefits

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asa watten @asawatten.bsky.social · 28/07/2026

I live in NOLA now and the sky does some stuff.

Lightning within a cloud in the distance. Tropical storm Bertha.

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Sammy Roth @sammyroth.bsky.social · 23/07/2026

Insane new research. Scientists gave asthma patients free electric stoves to replace their gas stoves, then checked to see if symptoms improved. Not only did symptoms improve, ditching gas was *better than medicine.* Details in today's newsletter: www.climatecoloredgoggles.com/p/electric-s...

climatecoloredgoggles.com

Researchers used electric stoves to treat asthma. It worked.

The latest evidence that gas is bad for your health.

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asa watten @asawatten.bsky.social · 11/07/2026

though these scams demonstrate a real need for much better personal cooling tech

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asa watten @asawatten.bsky.social · 11/07/2026

Great coverage of our working paper. 2 things I wish made it in the story: 1. Strong reasons to think that scaling up the grid reduces prices long run—excellent news for electrification. 2. The big risk with data centers is uncertainty—what if they don’t stick around to pay for all the new stuff.

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asa watten @asawatten.bsky.social · 11/07/2026

… ope I dropped in on your commute.

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John Bistline @bistline.bsky.social · 23/06/2026

To estimate whether data centers raise electricity bills, you need to solve a classic econometric problem: data centers pick low-price locations, which makes them look good. Our solution involves Dwight Eisenhower. New working paper with @asawatten.bsky.social and Geoff Blanford 🧵

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asa watten @asawatten.bsky.social · 19/06/2026

🚨New preprint with @bistline.bsky.social and Geoff Blanford where we estimate the *causal* effect of data centers on avg residential electricity prices. DCs probably didn't increase your elc bill in the past. They certainly did not on average. Implications and caveats...🧵 arxiv.org/pdf/2606.19777

arxiv.org

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asa watten @asawatten.bsky.social · 20/05/2026

And solar in the US employs roughly 6 Broadways or 80 coal industries

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asa watten @asawatten.bsky.social · 15/05/2026

lots to be constern'd about with AI, but i can't help thinking much of the labor consternation stems from the engineering tendency to model problems as min cost given fixed output vs the econ tendency max output given fixed input for more nuance see: substack.com/home/post/p-...

substack.com

You are not a horse

AI and the future of labor demand

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asa watten @asawatten.bsky.social · 13/05/2026

It is shocking (intended) to think what's going on here is that the world has other options besides oil, unlike in 1973. And that's why the price shock is 1/3 while the supply shock is 3x. Looking forward to your papers in 2029 :p

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asa watten @asawatten.bsky.social · 08/05/2026

Average residential electricity rates compared to inflation. While prices for goods are surely downstream of energy costs, it is notable that inflation spiked first and rates followed. Gray are individual states, black is US average, blue is CPI.

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asa watten @asawatten.bsky.social · 07/05/2026

A decade of average residential retail prices.

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asa watten @asawatten.bsky.social · 07/05/2026

A decade of average monthly residential electricity prices ($/kWh). A figure that defies a simple story.

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asa watten @asawatten.bsky.social · 29/04/2026

Truly fascinating. While BLM keeps wind permitting on ice, they’re giving a green light to geothermal on public lands. Is this the beginning of a new ideological split split? www.blm.gov/press-releas...

blm.gov

BLM takes steps to accelerate geothermal energy development | Bureau of Land Management

The Bureau of Land Management has approved a categorical exclusion to make it easier and faster to explore for geothermal energy on public lands.

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asa watten @asawatten.bsky.social · 26/04/2026

Some version of this point has been made for at least 20 years. And I guess economists still need to make it! The biofuel/renewables hokey pokey.

Fact 1: both renewable diesel and SAF are $2-$5 per gallon more expensive to produce than their fossil counterparts. Therefore, they need substantial subsidies to be cost competitive, otherwise they will not be produced.

Fact 2: the federal renewable fuel standard (RFS) requires that a minimum quantity of biomass-based diesel fuels be used in the United States each year. SAF counts as biomass-based diesel in the RFS. If the industry produces more biomass-based diesel than required, then the RFS subsidies will disappear. It has no incentive to go above the mandate because of the first fact. Therefore, more SAF means less renewable diesel in aggregate.

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John Bistline @bistline.bsky.social · 11/02/2026

Final EIA-860 is out, and 2025 really did it: 54 GW of new U.S. electric capacity, 96% clean. Solar again carries the offense, and we built more storage in 2025 than the cumulative total through 2023. More and more and more additions... but also record low retirements.

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asa watten @asawatten.bsky.social · 12/01/2026

$7.4M per life may be wrong, but $0 is extra super wronger. Hard to square with Section 812 of the Clean Air Act which requires EPA to conduct scientifically reviewed CBA that includes "overall health, welfare, ecological, and economic benefits".

nytimes.com

E.P.A. to Stop Considering Lives Saved When Setting Rules on Air Pollution

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asa watten @asawatten.bsky.social · 10/12/2025

Mild take: 'Electrons' is simply a popular metaphor and that's fine 🤓 Electricity is profoundly unintuitive for most of us. Like water flowing through pipes is helpful, but wrong.

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John Bistline @bistline.bsky.social · 22/10/2025

New in Nature Climate Change: @asawatten.bsky.social and I show how common marginal emissions methods can miss system effects and substitution. Using hourly, long-run modeling can materially alter emissions benefits, which we show for rooftop solar. Paper + summary 👇

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asa watten @asawatten.bsky.social · 22/10/2025

🚨Oh hey @bistline.bsky.social and I have a short piece in Nature Climate Change out today. It's a response to a great study on global rooftop solar, but it's *really* about the misuse of marginal emissions rates. Something we've been thinking a lot about. #energysky www.nature.com/articles/s41...

nature.com

Emissions reductions of rooftop solar are overstated by approaches that inadequately capture substitution effects - Nature Climate Change

Nature Climate Change - Emissions reductions of rooftop solar are overstated by approaches that inadequately capture substitution effects

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John Bistline @bistline.bsky.social · 20/10/2025

Good news / bad news on U.S. solar in the new LBNL report: • Utility-scale solar >50% of 2024 nameplate additions • But solar's average costs are up ~25% vs. 2022 Record build, rising costs. Two things can be true at once. emp.lbl.gov/utility-scal...

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John Bistline @bistline.bsky.social · 27/05/2025

📢 Just launched: Our REGEN energy systems model is now open source! REGEN is a detailed and flexible energy systems modeling platform designed to explore a wide range of long-term scenarios. Check out the code, data, and documentation at the links below.

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Energy Institute at Haas @ucenergyinstitute.bsky.social · 07/04/2025

New Energy Institute Blog Post: Winners and Losers from Interregional Transmission - by Lucas Davis energyathaas.wordpress.com/2025/04/07/w...

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asa watten @asawatten.bsky.social · 05/04/2025

I’m for some things and against others

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Severin Borenstein @severinborenstein.bsky.social · 01/04/2025

In the Energy Institute blog this week, Meredith Fowlie has an excellent explainer about what the IRA is really likely to cost per ton of GHG reduction based on a new paper from EPRI. energyathaas.wordpress.com/2025/03/31/a... #EnergySky

energyathaas.wordpress.com

Are Clean Electricity Tax Credits a Bad Deal?

Only when you ignore environmental benefits and electricity bill impacts. U.S. electricity demand is on the rise. A data center boom, a possible renaissance in domestic manufacturing, and a push to…

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asa watten @asawatten.bsky.social · 31/03/2025

BTC is a computation treadmill. Jensen's paradox (⬆️efficiency=>⬆️demand) is weak for many things (cars, lights) bc demand is inelastic. Not so for crypto mining! Makes sense. Miners mine until marginal cost=marginal benefit. ⬆️eff=>⬇️mc=>⬆️mining=>⬇️mb. An EPRI brief: www.epri.com/research/pro...

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asa watten @asawatten.bsky.social · 05/03/2025

It's important to cover all the bases

Google Gemini answers: No, if confidence intervals overlap, the difference between the two estimates is not statistically significant. However, it's possible for the difference to be statistically significant even if the confidence intervals overlap.

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Ayana Elizabeth Johnson @ayanaeliza.bsky.social · 24/01/2025

As expected, the Trump team is already deleting climate info from government websites. In anticipation, our team at Urban Ocean Lab created a permanent archive of 100+ key resources and published a permanent archive: www.urbanoceanlab.org/resource-hub 👩🏽‍💻

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Rachel Porter @rachelporter.bsky.social · 24/01/2025

Check out my new working paper with amazing ND grad students Bill Kakenmaster and Ben Francis We show, among other things, that climate attribution among R House candidates depends on district-level climate vulnerability and fossil fuel employment reliance osf.io/preprints/os...

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asa watten @asawatten.bsky.social · 26/12/2024

Waste of paint! Guernica has stopped exactly ZERO wars.

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asa watten @asawatten.bsky.social · 26/12/2024

I like art. It makes me think and feel things. I don't expect single works to have measurable effects on opinions. But! In the case of don't look up it did (in a non-peer-reviewed RCT). Which is cool and leaves more questions..

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Joel Morris @gralefrit.bsky.social · 30/08/2024

I didn’t realise BlueSky has no algorithm (so you see what’s actually there) - and that you can choose your own filters for feeds. This one’s lovely: people you follow but post infrequently, so it boosts quieter, interesting types. I’ve added it to my feeds and it’s great. bsky.app/profile/did:...

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asa watten @asawatten.bsky.social · 09/09/2024

Are low-cost car rental companies just a scam to get folx to buy overpriced insurance? The hours of waiting in line, agents who disappear for 20 min in the middle of checking u out feel designed to wear u down when they threaten financial ruin. And u don't need it if u have almost any credit card.

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Erin Blakemore @erinblakemore.bsky.social · 30/05/2024

Remember when Howard Dean ended his political career by making a weird noise

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asa watten @asawatten.bsky.social · 21/05/2024

If any researchers need an IV for lack of confidence in government, may I suggest: time since jury duty summons..

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Joe DeCarolis @jfdecarolis.bsky.social · 10/04/2024

Today at EIA, we released the Wholesale Electricity Market Portal: www.eia.gov/electricity/... It gathers hourly and sub-hourly electricity production, demand, interchange, and price data from seven U.S. electricity markets. It’s a great example of how we’re making data easier to access. 🔌💡

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asa watten @asawatten.bsky.social · 05/04/2024

Thoughts after attending Yale Generative AI Sociology workshop today: Think researcher degrees of freedom is a problem now? Just you wait.

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asa watten @asawatten.bsky.social · 04/04/2024

New paper at Regional Science and Urban Economics How is rooftop solar capitalized in home prices? www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... Here's a brief 🧵 🔌💡 📈📉

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asa watten @asawatten.bsky.social · 21/03/2024

Look at all those electric trucks in TX!

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Kelly Hereid @kellyhereid.bsky.social · 02/02/2024

I've seen some reporting in Texas on this, but agree it hasn't gotten a lot of air time. In this case, a crypto mine was paid over $30M by ERCOT to turn off, made under $9M in actual mining.

texasmonthly.com

Texas Paid a Bitcoin Miner $31.7 Million to Use Less Electricity

Paying Bitcoin companies to turn off their energy-gobbling computers is apparently our best plan to keep the power on for the rest of us.

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Catalyst Cooperative @catalyst.coop · 23/01/2024

We're working on a grant to support grad students studying energy systems develop open data & software skills. We made a short survey help us understand their needs. If you're a student, we'd love if you'd respond. If you have students, would you share it with them? 🔌💡 forms.gle/eyG9ViWj4DAU...

forms.gle

Technical training to improve open-source energy data access

Since 2016, the Public Utility Data Liberation (PUDL) project has been taking energy data that’s already publicly available, and making it publicly usable, by cleaning, standardizing, and cross-link...

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Seema Jayachandran @seema.bsky.social · 07/12/2023

When home heating prices are lower, fewer people die each winter, particularly in high-poverty communities. That's the punchline of my paper with Janjala Chirakijja and Pinchuan Ong on heating prices and mortality in the US, just published in the Economic Journal. 📉📈 academic.oup.com/ej/advance-a...

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