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Brendan Pierpont

@brendan.bsky.social
4.9K followers 1.8K following 2K posts

Energy and climate nerd. Electricity @energyinnovation.org. Views are my own.

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Reposted by Brendan Pierpont
Jenny Chase @solarchase.bsky.social · 12h
Time for 2026 updates to my annual “opinions about solar” thread, now with storage. If you like these, you might like edition 2 of my book, Solar Power Finance Without The Jargon. A 30% discount code WSQ0437 is valid on publisher website til end of Nov 2026. www.worldscientific.com/worldscibook...
worldscientific.com
Solar Power Finance Without the Jargon
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Reposted by Brendan Pierpont
Justin Gerdes @justingerdes.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
"In the United States for a 2026 commercial operation date, 4-hour battery storage can be 65% to 75% cheaper than new open-cycle gas turbine gas peakers, a @woodmac.com spokesperson said Oct. 8, 2026." www.utilitydive.com/news/4-hour-... via Robert Walton 🔌💡
utilitydive.com
4-hour storage cheaper than gas peakers across global markets: WoodMac
In North America, data centers are boosting the long-term investment case for energy storage and renewables as gas turbine backlogs and rising fuel volatility drive up peaking costs, according to a Th...
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Brendan Pierpont @brendan.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
Sorry! I updated the data and moved it. bpierpont.github.io/visualizatio...
bpierpont.github.io
U.S. State Electricity Generation Mix
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Reposted by Brendan Pierpont
worm @rfksbrainworm.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
If you ever wondered why visible light is those particular wavelengths, it's because life evolved to see in the narrow range where water is transparent
Diagram of absorption of emf by water. There's a gap right that dips in the 500 nm range
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Brendan Pierpont @brendan.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
This also says just as much about hyperscalers' panic-building data centers as quickly as possible as it does nuclear's long lead time and risk profile as an asset.
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Brendan Pierpont @brendan.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
Nuclear bros spent years talking about how nuclear is the fastest way to scale carbon-free electricity, and yet with massive demand driven by the richest companies in the world, there is little commercial activity. This is a great piece for understanding why: carnegieendowment.org/research/202...
carnegieendowment.org
Beyond the Hype: Assessing Hyperscaler Nuclear Commitments Against U.S. Energy Realities
The coming decade will require technology companies to decide how nuclear fits into their energy strategies—and grapple with the obligations that follow.
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Brendan Pierpont @brendan.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
Grid utilization is a buzzy buzzword, but this paper does an awesome job defining it, showing how you measure grid utilization, and explaining why it matters: www.utilizecoalition.org/defining-gri...
utilizecoalition.org
Defining Grid Utilization | Utilize Coalition
A practical framework for defining, measuring, and applying grid utilization to support better grid decisions and improve affordability.
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Brendan Pierpont @brendan.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
😬
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Brendan Pierpont @brendan.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Ah sorry, link works for me. Alternate link for anyone having trouble: www.linkedin.com/jobs/view/44...
linkedin.com
Energy Innovation Policy and Technology LLC hiring Manager, Electricity in Washington, DC | LinkedIn
Posted 12:00:00 AM. Position SummaryEnergy Innovation is seeking a Manager, Electricity to join the Electricity team…See this and similar jobs on LinkedIn.
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Brendan Pierpont @brendan.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
⚡⚡ Want to help policymakers understand the best ways to meet growing electricity demand, clean up the grid, and lower electricity bills for customers? Do you have deep grid expertise and experience managing research and analysis projects? Join our team! energyinnovation.org/about/career...
energyinnovation.org
Careers
We are committed to creating a diverse environment and are proud to be an equal opportunity employer.
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Brendan Pierpont @brendan.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
cc @advaitarun.bsky.social @sevier.io @grayflood.bsky.social
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Brendan Pierpont @brendan.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
The UK's prime minister is proposing a public option for grid transmission investments, to compete with private players and speed up grid connections: www.bbc.com/news/article...
bbc.com
GB Grid: Andy Burnham says public body will invest in electricity grid
The prime minister said he wants to reduce energy costs in his first conference speech as Labour leader.
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Brendan Pierpont @brendan.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Fascinating estimates of AI model energy usage. There's a lot of interesting data here on how energy use per task has changed over time, how open vs. proprietary models differ, but the most striking is how dominant openAI is of the efficiency frontier. cleerdash.sustainableaigroup.com
Graph of efficiency frontier of energy use per task vs. performance for AI models.
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Reposted by Brendan Pierpont
Carl Zimmer @carlzimmer.com · 27/09/2026
Four days ago, a scientist was surprised by the news that Anthropic discovered new virus genes for making DNA. He says he’s been studying them for years—and feeding his data to Anthropic’s AI as part of his own research. Coincidence? Here’s my story. nyti.ms/3VSWayc
nyti.ms
Did Anthropic’s A.I. Really Make a Scientific Discovery on Its Own? (Gift Article)
An expert at the University of Copenhagen said his team had been sharing its research with the company’s A.I. model, Claude, and that its new finding matched their work.
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Brendan Pierpont @brendan.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
Neat assessment of power procurement strategies for 21 large data centers in development: energytag.org/wp-content/u...
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Reposted by Brendan Pierpont
John Smillie @johnsmillie42.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
Not so fun fact: Since flood insurance is usually separate, the chief climate change related driver of rising homeowners insurance rates in most states is hail damage. www.npr.org/2025/05/23/n...
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Brendan Pierpont @brendan.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
I hope this is not the extent of dems' big ideas on AI safety...
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Brendan Pierpont @brendan.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
😬 www.cnn.com/2026/09/18/p...
cnn.com
Exclusive: US military had close call after using AI for false intelligence report, sources say | CNN Politics
The episode shows the risks of using this new, relatively poorly understood technology in the middle of the Iran war
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Brendan Pierpont @brendan.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
The science history aspects of this are incredible too. Multiple points in time where this could never have happened but somehow it did.
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Reposted by Brendan Pierpont
George Pearkes @peark.es · 18/09/2026
Absolutely wild summary of how EUV lithography works.
youtube.com
The Closest Thing We Have to Alien Technology
YouTube video by Veritasium
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Reposted by Brendan Pierpont
Emily Atkin @emorwee.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
A few weekends ago I went to Miami and attended 9 open houses in extremely high-risk flood areas to see what agents are telling prospective buyers about them. Here is my journey
heated.world
The open houses at the edge of disaster
What are buyers being told about climate risk in Miami? I posed as one to find out.
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Brendan Pierpont @brendan.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
New analysis from Evolved Energy Research highlights the potential impact of data center demand on natural gas prices and bills, as well as wholesale electricity prices: www.evolved.energy/posts/the-co...
evolved.energy
The Costs You Can't Bill: Data Centers and the Price of Load Growth
A data center pays for what it can be billed for. Its largest costs — higher gas bills, electricity bills, and equipment prices for everyone else — belong to no one.
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Brendan Pierpont @brendan.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
Ooof, another data center trip? This one appears to be in AEP's zone.
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Brendan Pierpont @brendan.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
Totally agree. And if your moat as a company is having the biggest models and most compute, you’re begging for someone to undercut you by focusing on efficiency.
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Reposted by Brendan Pierpont
Joshua Basseches @joshuabasseches.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
"Electricity ratepayers cover both the liability utilities face after a fire as well as the cost of all of that risk reduction ... Between 2019 and 2024, utility regulators authorized the state’s three private electric companies to recover $40 billion in wildfire-related costs from its ratepayers."
heatmap.news
3 Ideas to Rein in Costs From California’s Wildfires
A new paper from Energy Innovation and GridLab lays out some options for Governor Gavin Newsom — or whoever comes next.
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Brendan Pierpont @brendan.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
Ha, oh that's cheeky.
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Brendan Pierpont @brendan.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
A a new model that makes complex decisions just as well as frontier LLMs for an order of magnitude lower cost just goes to show how little we know about the trajectory of AI energy use.
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Reposted by Brendan Pierpont
victoria scott @victoriascott.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
This isn’t funny. Commodities traders only do this when they’re in extreme distress
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Brendan Pierpont @brendan.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
PJM market design nerds - this is a a great analysis of what's wrong with PJM's resource adequacy construct and options to improve it. auroraer.com/resources/au...
auroraer.com
Pathways for PJM Resource Adequacy Market Evolution​
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Reposted by Brendan Pierpont
👻 David Weiskopf believes in spooks 👻 @dave.bzky.team · 16/09/2026
You guys have no idea how incredible this new tool is. If you care about real-deal policy, you gotta check it out.
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Brendan Pierpont @brendan.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
CATF's new report highlights state-led planning to advance clean energy in restructured markets. www.utilitydive.com/news/state-l...
utilitydive.com
State-led planning could advance clean energy in deregulated markets: report
States should step in with new long-term planning processes to bolster nuclear, offshore wind and other technologies that face major barriers, according to the Clean Air Task Force.
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Reposted by Brendan Pierpont
Alejandra Caraballo @esqueer.net · 15/09/2026
People really have no idea how bad it's about to get.
Screenshot of an X post by Rory Johnston (@Rory_Johnston) titled "ALL-TIME HIGH DIESEL CRACK."
​The post text reads:
"The US diesel crack spread (i.e., refining margin) is now sitting above $111/bbl (vs Brent), the highest level on record. The industrial workhorse fuel is currently trading at roughly $220/bbl, more than double the price of prompt crude futures."
​Below the text is a Bloomberg terminal line chart showing the US diesel crack spread spiking sharply vertically in September 2026 to reach an all-time peak of 111.13, alongside a historical comparison panel dating back to 2001. The post is timestamped 10:49 AM · Sep 15, 2026.A Bloomberg chart titled "Million-Dollar Freight: Tanker earnings exceed $1 million a day on benchmark" tracking daily tanker earnings from 2009 through 2026 (source: Baltic Exchange).
​The line graph illustrates historically modest daily freight earnings mostly below $200,000/day, with occasional spikes around 2019–2020, before showing an unprecedented vertical surge throughout 2026 that blows past prior records to cross the $1,000,000/day threshold, marked with a red circle at the apex.
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Brendan Pierpont @brendan.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
😂
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Brendan Pierpont @brendan.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
👋 @gwagner.com
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Brendan Pierpont @brendan.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
New podcast mini series from Quartz on AI's impact on energy. Take a listen. qz.com/ai-data-cent...
qz.com
AI data centers devour U.S. electric grid based on guesswork
The race to build artificial general intelligence has turned electricity into the most contested resource in tech
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Reposted by Brendan Pierpont
Joshua Basseches @joshuabasseches.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
Nice toolkit and bill tracker on state-level data center regulation, from Climate XChange: climate-xchange.org/resources-fo...
climate-xchange.org
Greenhouse Gas Emissions ǀ State Policy Toolkits for Data Center Regulation - Climate XChange
Resources for enacting state regulations that effectively mitigate the impacts of data centers on climate and local communities.
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Reposted by Brendan Pierpont
advait @advaitarun.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
NEW CPE REPORT on the urgency of building an interregional transmission macrogrid! @cthelala.bsky.social and I argue that only the federal government can get it built; no other actor on the grid is capable of doing so! Really, this is a paper about the theory of transmission as an asset class:
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Brendan Pierpont @brendan.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
“Large load demand is exposing long-standing problems with the grid that policymakers cannot ignore if they seek to advance the electrification of the entire economy.“ Sums up the whole problem in a nutshell.
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Brendan Pierpont @brendan.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
Want to understand why long distance transmission isn’t getting built in the US and what we can do about it? Read this new report from the team at @publicenterprise.bsky.social
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Brendan Pierpont @brendan.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
I will say Claude has really upped its electric grid poetry game recently.
Interconnection Queue

Somewhere a spreadsheet says five hundred megawatts
and means it in the way a promise means it —
the same five hundred filed in five directions,
each utility believing it is chosen.

The engineers are building for the sum.
Concrete for a load that split like light
through glass, and landed everywhere at once,
and will arrive, at most, in one place only.

Meanwhile the wire that runs behind the school
was rated in a decade with no summers like this.
It carries what it carries. In the study
it is one line on a page of many lines.

The houses do not file. They simply draw,
a hundred watts, a kettle, and a lamp,
and pay the difference between what was planned
and what came true, in twelve installments, monthly.
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Reposted by Brendan Pierpont
PM2.5 Kills ~9 Million People Each Year Worldwide @tkovach.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
“I wish I could tell you that I saw some reason why things would ease, but it’s difficult right now to see that happen."
wsj.com
Oil Executives Say the Great Fuel Crisis Is Here
Trump officials say the oil-market disruption is temporary, but Chevron’s Mike Wirth and others warn global supplies are running low, with no respite in sight.
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Brendan Pierpont @brendan.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
Did she give him the bad news binder today?
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Brendan Pierpont @brendan.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
Nice visualization of US energy system data (mostly EIA data): usenergydata.org
usenergydata.org
Understanding America's energy system
Track and understand the numbers behind US energy — year by year, and state by state.
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Brendan Pierpont @brendan.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
Dave's data center take is very very worth a read. 👇
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Brendan Pierpont @brendan.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
👀
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Brendan Pierpont @brendan.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
Not to be a bummer, but between the rapidly accelerating AI safety risks and rapidly accelerating chokepoints in global energy markets, it's a bit of a troubling Friday.
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Brendan Pierpont @brendan.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
New strait just dropped.
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Brendan Pierpont @brendan.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
What fun would that be.
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Brendan Pierpont @brendan.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
Plus in other sectors, courts have held that liability of regulated industries is fairly limited if their actions were consistent with federal regulation (i.e. federal preemption). So when you're sitting on unbounded liabilities that's probably something you want.
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Josh Lappen @jlappen1.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
This is the Insull strategy of pre-emptive regulation: Calling for your own regulation rather than fighting it allows you to write those regulations to your own advantage.
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