iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Dan Schroeder @dvschroeder.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

Yeah but their definition of useful energy is unintelligible.

Screen capture from page 29 of the IEA "Electrification" special report (September 2026): "Useful energy refers to the energy available for end-users to satisfy their need for energy services such as heating, cooling, lighting and mobility. Ultimately, it is these energy services that improve consumer welfare."

Dan Schroeder @dvschroeder.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

The Fervo news release adds some clarity to their capacity accounting. 33 MW is the net winter capacity of each Phase I unit, as reported to EIA. The latest EIA list still doesn't include any Phase II units, despite their being "under construction, with an expected COD in 2028".

Excerpt from the Fervo news release under the heading "Cape Station Details": "Cape Station Phase I is an approximately 100 MW installation comprising three 33-megawatt GeoBlocks, the first of which has achieved First Power and is expected to reach its contractual commercial operations date (COD) by October 1, 2026. Fervo will continue ramping up the first GeoBlock as it brings the full well system online while commissioning the remaining two GeoBlocks, which are expected to reach contractual COD by January 1, 2027. The next phase, an additional 400 MW, is already under construction, with an expected COD in 2028. Fully contracted offtake at Cape Station sits at approximately 900 MW, enough to power the equivalent of nearly 1 million U.S. homes annually."

Screen capture from EIA Form 860M spreadsheet data for August 2026, downloaded from https://www.eia.gov/electricity/data/eia860m/ and sorted to place the three planned Cape Generating Station geothermal units in consecutive rows. The table shows that each unit will in Beaver County, Utah, and under the LDWP balancing authority, with nameplate capacity 43 MW, net summer capacity 30 MW, and net winter capacity 33 MW. The planned operation dates are October 2026 for the first unit and January 2027 for the other two. The status is listed as "construction complete" for the first two units and "under construction" for the third.

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Dan Schroeder @dvschroeder.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

Looks to me like Oregon's electricity consumption was pretty flat from ~1997 through ~2018. I should think their marginal electricity source would be gas, which they could have reduced quite a bit without the data center growth. But I don't know the details, nor do I follow Oregon politics.

Chart from https://usenergydata.org/electricity-demand/ showing annual electricity consumption in Oregon from 1990 through 2024. From the late 1990s through 2018, consumption remained pretty flat, fluctuating between a low of 45.2 TWh and a high of 50.3 TWh. Starting in 2019, consumption increased every year, reaching 59.7 TWh in 2024.

Map from https://physics.weber.edu/schroeder/energy/PowerPlantsMap.html showing power plants in the states of Oregon and Washington (and some of Idaho), represented as dots sized by net generation in 2024, each colored by its principal energy source. Hydropower dominates, but there are significant amounts of gas generation throughout the region, plus significant wind, one nuclear plant, and one medium-sized coal plant (which shut down at the end of 2025 but will, according to plan, be replaced with more gas).

Chart from https://bpierpont.github.io/state-generation/ showing trailing 12-month electricity generation in Oregon, broken down by energy source, from January 2002 through March 2026. Hydropower dominates, though with significant fluctuations over the years. Gas generation has grown over this time period and has exceeded 30% of the total in recent years. Wind has also grown and is now about 15%, while solar has reached about 5%. Coal once provided about 9% of the electricity generated in Oregon, but was phased out by 2021.

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Dan Schroeder @dvschroeder.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

Yikes. Full nameplate capacity? Maybe momentarily, but they haven't gotten close over any of the full calendar months for which they've reported data.

Screen capture from https://www.volts.wtf/p/is-there-way-more-conventional-geothermal, with Zanskar's Carl Hoiland speaking: "An example of this is actually the work we did in New Mexico, where we acquired really a failing geothermal field called the Lightning Dock Geothermal Field, and it had been underproducing for years, had run into economic challenges, and we were able to acquire it because our models were looking at the same datasets that everybody else was looking at, but were coming to a very different conclusion about how much power potential it had. And when we came within a year of acquiring it and drilled into a deeper resource on the site, just that first well that we drilled was enough to bring the plant back to its full nameplate capacity, make it profitable as a facility, but it also proved out a much larger potential that could be as much as 10 to 40 times more than the initial industry estimates were for that site. And we've been finding that applies across many other fields as well."

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Dan Schroeder @dvschroeder.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

Plenty of competing influences in my case, but you can sure tell which regions *haven't* contributed. (Sorry, Dad, your North Dakota background has apparently been washed out.)

US map with color contours regions with similar and dissimilar dialects to mine. The strongest similarity (dark red) is in California. It then fades going east and north, but a band of light red stretches eastward across Colorado, Kansas, and Missouri, then northeast to the Lake Michigan area. The strongest differences (dark blue) are in New England, fading down toward Pennsylvania and Virginia. A somewhat weaker blue region is centered in Louisiana, fading westward into Texas and eastward across the southeastern states. A still weaker blue region is centered on North Dakota, fading quickly in its neighboring states.

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Dan Schroeder @dvschroeder.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

Primary energy by the substitution method was (RIP) a useful metric for comparing total energy use (over time or between countries) and for calculating percentages that come from particular sources. I'd be interested to see even one example in which you think the new metric is useful.

Widely shared photo (source unknown) of a sign in New Cuyama, California, with white lettering on a green background, that reads: "NEW CUYAMA / Population 562 / Ft above sea level 2150 / Established 1951 / TOTAL 4663". The sign is attached to a pair of wooden posts above a strip of light brown sunlit grass, in front of two parked vehicles. In the background are a few trees and a clear blue sky.

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Dan Schroeder @dvschroeder.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

As @mliebreich.bsky.social, @janrosenow.bsky.social, and many others have pointed out, this definition of primary energy is worse than useless. Solar, wind, & nuclear all generated about the same amounts of electricity in 2025! Hydro generated 58% more than nuclear! 🔌💡

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Dan Schroeder @dvschroeder.bsky.social · 16/08/2026

Took a few quick photos of a tiny portion of the new SunZia wind farms in central New Mexico when I was there recently. These turbines provide power to southern California via the new SunZia transmission line. The project includes nearly 1000 turbines in total with a total capacity of 3650 MW. 🔌💡

A white wind turbine rises above a field of brown grass dotted with dark green shrubs under a mostly clear blue sky with scattered cumulus clouds. Six more turbines are spread across the background.

Six wind turbines are seen in silhouette at various distances against a bright, partly cloudy sky. The ground below is covered with brown grass, dotted with tree cholla cactus and larger shrubs. The top of a wood-and-wire snow fence is visible across the bottom.

Seven wind turbines are spread across the horizon under a partly cloudy sky. In the foreground are roadways, parking areas, and streetlights, surrounded by a desert landscape of brown ground dotted with dark shrubs. A gas station is visible at the far right.

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Dan Schroeder @dvschroeder.bsky.social · 14/08/2026

They actually kinda did that here.

Exterior photo of the Tracy Hall Science Center at Weber State University in Utah. On the wall in the foreground, the brickwork includes thin rows of darker bricks, spaced farther apart toward the top. The brickwork is also interrupted by a diagonal "fault" along which the pattern is offset, higher on the "foot wall" at right and lower on the "hanging wall" at left, indicating a normal fault of the type that has formed the local basin-and-range topography. Photo from https://www.vcbo.com/projects/wsu-tracy-hall-science-center.

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Dan Schroeder @dvschroeder.bsky.social · 10/08/2026

In the 12-month running totals of the @ember-energy.org monthly world electricity generation data, solar is now solidly in 4th place, pulling ahead of wind and nuclear. The growth of wind is slowing, while coal, gas, and hydro creep upward and nuclear stagnates. 🔌💡

Chart of world electricity generation, 12-month running totals, from January 2020 through June 2026. Nine separate curves show the major electricity sources. Over most of the time shown, the order has been (from highest to lowest) coal, gas, hydro, nuclear, wind, other fossil (mostly oil), bioenergy, and other renewables (mostly geothermal). Solar has increased most rapidly; it was below other fossil during the earliest months, and recently surpassed both wind and nuclear to assume fourth place. Wind has also increased significantly and recently surpassed nuclear to assume fifth place. Most of the other sources have increased only slightly, and other fossil has decreased slightly. Data from the Ember Electricity Data Explorer, https://ember-energy.org/data/electricity-data-explorer/?entity=World&metric=absolute&fuel=total&chart=trend&date=2026-06-01&date_from=2019-01-01&mode=split&temporal_res=monthly

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Dan Schroeder @dvschroeder.bsky.social · 09/08/2026

Google Earth (and Google Maps) now has updated imagery showing that the Martin parabolic trough solar thermal plant in Florida has been completely dismantled. 🔌💡 earth.google.com/web/@27.0528...

Screen capture from Google Earth showing the former site of the Martin solar thermal facility. The site is crossed by north-south linear features (possibly consisting of differing vegetation cover) indicating the former locations of the parabolic troughs, but the mirrors themselves and the mounting racks are gone.

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Dan Schroeder @dvschroeder.bsky.social · 08/08/2026

To their credit, the designers of that five-level flyover interchange included protected pedestrian walkways for the two frontage road bridges over the below-grade freeway lanes. The simpler interchange without the flyovers has no space for pedestrians or bicyclists on those bridges.

Google Street View image looking along a frontage road bridge crossing over a below-grade freeway, with multiple fly-over ramps above. A stoplight is in the foreground. Along the right side of the bridge is a protected pedestrian walkway, covered with a green chain-link canopy.

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Dan Schroeder @dvschroeder.bsky.social · 08/08/2026

I've just returned from a trip to Texas and truly, they have some impressive freeway interchanges. I guess the difference is those frontage roads on both sides of the freeways. So you either use the frontage roads for connections (left) or add level upon level of soaring fly-over ramps (right).

Google Maps oblique view of a freeway crossing in Midland, Texas. Each freeway has two express lanes going each direction, plus a two-lane frontage road on each side. The frontage roads stay at ground level and cross in four places, with stoplights. The central express lanes of one freeway dive below ground level, while those of the other freeway climb above.

Google Maps oblique view of a freeway crossing in San Antonio, Texas. Each freeway has both express lanes, in the middle, and frontage roads on each side for local traffic. The frontage roads stay at ground level and cross in four places, with stoplights. The express lanes of one freeway dive below ground level, while those of the other climb above. There are also eight elevated ramps that allow motorists to connect from one freeway to the other without exiting onto the frontage roads. Some of these ramps cross above others, and above the main freeway lanes, making five levels in total.

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Dan Schroeder @dvschroeder.bsky.social · 08/08/2026

Here's a map (clipped from the EIA 860M page) with Utah's three big new solar farms labeled. These three facilities came online during the last year and add a little over 50% to Utah's total solar generating capacity.

Map excerpt from https://www.eia.gov/electricity/data/eia860m/ showing Utah power plants as dots, sized by capacity (AC capacity for solar), colored by energy source, with solar in yellow, gas in brown, coal in dark gray, hydro in blue, wind in green, and batteries in a dark grayish purple. Utah's three big new solar farms are labeled: Faraday (525 MW) in western Utah County came online in fall 2025 (though it didn't begin reporting generation data to EIA until February 2026); Hornshadow (300 MW, for some reason listed in two parts in EIA data) came online in summer 2025; and Green River (400 MW, with 400 MW battery storage so the purple battery dot covers the yellow solar dot) came online in early summer 2026. Hornshadow and Green River are located in Emery County, near Utah's two largest operating coal-fired power plants. Notice also that the Intermountain Power Project, in west-central Utah to the southwest of Faraday, is now shown as a gas plant because its two larger coal units are no longer operating.

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Dan Schroeder @dvschroeder.bsky.social · 28/07/2026

A milestone for Utah! In May, for the first calendar month ever, solar was our number-one electricity source at 32.9%, surpassing gas (32.2%) and coal (28%). Three big new solar farms have boosted Utah's solar capacity by more than 50% over the last year. 🔌💡

Chart from https://ember-energy.org/data/us-electricity-data-explorer/ showing monthly electricity generation in Utah, broken down by source, from January 2020 through May 2026. Before 2023, coal was the dominant source, followed by gas and then solar. (Other sources, mostly hydro, wind, and geothermal, provide only about 5% of the total.) There are large seasonal fluctuations, but coal has generally trended downward over this time period while solar has risen to exceed both coal and gas for the first time in May 2026. A hand-drawn red circle highlights this most recent data point.

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Dan Schroeder @dvschroeder.bsky.social · 14/07/2026

Of course I also hope that Chris Wright was wrong and that he'll live far beyond the day when solar generation surpasses coal.

Screen capture from https://x.com/atrupar/status/2046612079122043392 of post by Aaron Rupar, sharing video clip of U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright saying "I'm pretty confident coal will lead the world in global electricity production when I die".

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Dan Schroeder @dvschroeder.bsky.social · 14/07/2026

Here's another thing I don't get. Look at the capacity factor on that wind farm near South Point! Yet it has just 14 turbines. Why don't they put in a couple dozen more? Gotta be NIMBYs, right?

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Dan Schroeder @dvschroeder.bsky.social · 14/07/2026

Here's the big picture of Hawaii's current utility-scale generation. (JS, you probably already have this image in your head, but it may be helpful to others.) Brown=oil, yellow=solar, dark blue=hydro, light blue=wind. Just remember this omits rooftop solar. Source: physics.weber.edu/schroeder/en...

Map of the Hawaiian islands with a dot/circle for each utility-scale power plant, sized according to its net generation in 2024. The map is dominated by brown dots representing oil-fired plants, with a scattering of other colors for solar, hydro, wind, and biomass. The largest dots are in Oahu, reflecting its high population.

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Dan Schroeder @dvschroeder.bsky.social · 14/07/2026

Here's the latest EIA 860M list of planned utility-scale generation facilities in HI. 171 MW PV, 161 MW batteries, 139 MW biomass. No wind, no geothermal. Of course this is just what's been reported to EIA.

Screen capture of a spreadsheet table listing planned utility-scale electrical generation facilities in Hawaii, sorted by county.

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Dan Schroeder @dvschroeder.bsky.social · 12/07/2026

Meanwhile there's this. Utah doesn't have many good wind sites but we could still do better.

Chart from https://ember-energy.org/data/us-electricity-data-explorer/ comparing monthly electricity generation from wind in Utah and Indiana, from 2008 through March 2026. Although it shows strong seasonal fluctuations, the curve for Indiana is is far above that for Utah and has risen more in recent years, now averaging about 13 times higher than Utah's.

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Dan Schroeder @dvschroeder.bsky.social · 11/07/2026

For those keeping score, EIA's latest data (released in late June) show that US solar electricity generation exceeded coal in the month of April after all, 40.9 TWh to 39.8 TWh. 🔌💡

Chart from EIA's Electricity Data Explorer (link below) showing US monthly electricity generation from coal and solar from January 2007 through April 2026. Both curves show large seasonal fluctuations, but the long-term trends have been steadily downward for coal (dropping by about a factor of 3) and steadily upward for solar (which was negligible in the early years and is plotted only beginning in 2014). The curves cross for the first time at the very last data point, for April 2026. This point is circled and labeled: 40,912 GWh solar, 39,777 GWh coal.

Source URL: https://www.eia.gov/electricity/data/browser/#/topic/0?agg=2,0,1&fuel=vtvv&geo=g&sec=g&linechart=~ELEC.GEN.COW-US-99.M~~~~~ELEC.GEN.TSN-US-99.M&columnchart=ELEC.GEN.ALL-US-99.M~ELEC.GEN.COW-US-99.M~ELEC.GEN.NG-US-99.M~ELEC.GEN.NUC-US-99.M~ELEC.GEN.HYC-US-99.M~ELEC.GEN.WND-US-99.M&map=ELEC.GEN.ALL-US-99.M&freq=M&start=200701&end=202604&ctype=linechart&ltype=pin&rtype=s&pin=&rse=0&maptype=0

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Dan Schroeder @dvschroeder.bsky.social · 07/07/2026

Kahn's 1976 book includes this amazing chart of projected decreases in renewable energy costs. Many of the projections were obviously too optimistic, especially for the short term. But look at that projection for photovoltaics! 🔌💡

Figure 6 from Herman Kahn's 1976 book "The Next 200 Years", captioned "Projected cost ranges for several types of solar energy". The horizontal axis runs from 1985 through 2020, while the vertical axis indicates the "cost ratio" of the given renewable technology to "conventional" energy sources. For each source, a band indicates the range of possible projections. The band for photovoltaics starts highest at 6 to 10 (times "conventional") but drops most steeply, ending at 0.7 to 1.0. The other bands are for solar thermal electricity, process heat, heating/cooling of buildings, ocean thermal electricity, wind, and bio-conversion. These start between 1 and 3 (times "conventional") and drop gradually to the range 0.7 to 2.0, with all but solar thermal electricity at 1.0 or less.

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Dan Schroeder @dvschroeder.bsky.social · 07/07/2026

In Kahn's scenario, both population and GNP per capita follow S-curve trajectories, flattening by the year 2176. It's an obvious but rarely discussed middle ground between the extreme positions of the techno-optimists and the Malthusian pessimists.

Figure 1 from Kahn's book The Next 200 Years, captioned "The Great Transition". The figure shows a schematic S-curve (flat at both ends but rising steeply in the middle), running from 1776 at the left to 1976 in the middle to 2176 at the right. At each of these three points, labels indicate the global population, gross world product (in 1975 dollars), and GNP per capita. The projection for 2176 is 15 billion people and a per-capita GNP of $20,000.

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Dan Schroeder @dvschroeder.bsky.social · 28/06/2026

Ah, the Amshak! Brings back happy memories. Living 40 miles to the north, I didn't follow the local politics that led to this atrocity in the 90s. There are TWO gorgeous historic train stations nearby, yet the redevelopment geniuses pushed the tracks west, stranding them and leaving us with this.

Oblique view (from Google Maps) of the neighborhood just west of downtown Salt Lake City, looking west to where the north-south railroad tracks loop outward to miss the two historic railroad stations and instead pass by the newer transit hub, which includes cheap and ugly building known locally as the Amshak. The two older stations and the transit hub are highlighted, with the rest of the image darkened.

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Dan Schroeder @dvschroeder.bsky.social · 24/06/2026

Coal operates more flexibly that that in my neck o' the woods. Are you sure it couldn't operate more flexibly in India?

Chart from the US EIA (https://www.eia.gov/electricity/gridmonitor/) showing hourly electricity generation by source in the Pacificorp East balancing authority (PACE), for June 17-23, 2026. The main sources are coal, gas, solar, and wind. Coal's contribution fluctuates pretty abruptly in response to the big variations in solar (and wind to a lesser extent), with changes in coal generation by as much as a factor of 3 over about four hours.

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Dan Schroeder @dvschroeder.bsky.social · 22/06/2026

Even at high noon, mid-summer, US solar generation is still far from displacing fossil fuels. Lots of room for growth! 🔌💡

Chart from https://www.eia.gov/electricity/gridmonitor/dashboard/electric_overview/US48/US48 showing hourly electricity generation from June 15-21, 2026, broken down by source, for the 48 contiguous US states. The curve for natural gas is above all of the others at every hour of every day, varying between morning lows and evening highs. Nuclear is steady, at about half the average level of gas. Solar fluctuates the most, but barely exceeds nuclear at mid-day and never comes very close to gas. Coal fluctuates in a similar way to gas, but is almost always a little below nuclear. Wind and hydro are also significant, while many other sources are far lower than any of these.

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Dan Schroeder @dvschroeder.bsky.social · 21/06/2026

Besides threatening the town of Eureka and whatever other damage it may have caused, it looks like the Iron Fire may or may not have made it to Utah's largest solar farm.

Screen capture from https://fire.airnow.gov/#9.08/40.1126/-112.0131, made early on 21 June 2026, showing a map of the Iron Fire and its surroundings, including Utah Lake and Provo to the northeast. I have added labels for the towns of Eureka, Fairfield, and Eagle Mountain, as well as the outline of the Faraday Solar Farm. Although the mapped outline of the fire's extent does not extend to the solar farm, there are "satellite detection" dots covering a wider area that does include the solar farm.

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Dan Schroeder @dvschroeder.bsky.social · 19/06/2026

I love this new map by @ourworldindata.org. Although solar is growing the fastest, as of 2025 it's the largest source of electricity in just 2 countries, Chile and Spain. Who will be next? Pakistan? Hungary? Namibia?

World map with each country colored according to the largest single source of electricity in that country: either coal, oil, gas, nuclear, hydro, solar, wind, or geothermal. Source: https://ourworldindata.org/data-insights/what-is-the-largest-source-of-electricity-in-each-country

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Dan Schroeder @dvschroeder.bsky.social · 18/06/2026

I like your version better though I care more about the lack of context than the arrangement or the colors.

Chart from Ember showing annual electricity generation in Asia, broken down by sources, from 2018 through 2025. Solar and wind have grown over this time to become comparable to gas and hydro, but the most striking feature is that coal generation is still enormous compared to any of the others.

Link to source:
https://ember-energy.org/data/electricity-data-explorer/?entity=Asia&mode=split&date=2025-01-01&date_from=2018-01-01&metric=absolute

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Dan Schroeder @dvschroeder.bsky.social · 17/06/2026

In the recent past there have been sizable discrepancies between gas generation in CAISO and gas generation in California. Both have declined, but for some reason the former has declined a lot more than the latter. Here's a chart of CA 12-month rolling totals through March by @brendan.bsky.social.

Stacked area chart showing 12-month trailing total of electricity generation in California (not CAISO!) broken down by source, from January 2002 through March 2026. The largest source over most of this time has been natural gas, but solar generation has grown tremendously in recent years and surpassed gas (in the 12-month trailing total) beginning in March 2025. There has been a notable decrease in gas generation over the most recent two years. From March 2024 to March 2026, the 12-month trailing total generation from gas dropped from 93k GWh to 69k GWh, a 26% decline. Chart from https://bpierpont.github.io/state-generation/.

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Dan Schroeder @dvschroeder.bsky.social · 10/06/2026

In TWh, Ember's May estimates for US generation are 43.4 for coal and 45.5 for solar. ember-energy.org/data/electri...

Chart from the Ember Electricity Data Explorer of monthly electricity generation in the United States, broken down by source, from January 2022 through May 2026. Each of the nine curves shows significant seasonal fluctuations, but generally the order from highest to lowest is gas, nuclear, coal, wind, solar, hydro, bioenergy, other fossil (mostly oil), and other renewables (geothermal). The solar curve has been rising, however, often surpassing wind and now, for May 2026, barely surpassing coal (which is always low in the spring). The crossing point of these two curves is circled in red for emphasis.

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Dan Schroeder @dvschroeder.bsky.social · 10/06/2026

The integral in Einstein's paper is precisely that. I've spelled it out in the attached images.

First page of a more detailed derivation of Einstein's divergent integral expressing the ultraviolet catastrophe.

Second page of a more detailed derivation of Einstein's divergent integral expressing the ultraviolet catastrophe.

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Dan Schroeder @dvschroeder.bsky.social · 01/06/2026

Now it's true that TX solar generation is comparable to CA and TX wind is far more than CA. But CA has hydro and geothermal. More importantly, CA uses much less electricity (total or per capita) than TX. Therefore CA emissions from electricity generation are far lower. 4/6

Chart from https://ember-energy.org/data/us-electricity-data-explorer/ of monthly CO2 emissions from fossil-fueled electricity generation in California and Texas, from January 2001 through March 2026. Both states show large seasonal fluctuations, and both show a slight gradual decline over the years. The Texas curve, however, is about four times as high as the California curve, indicating that TX CO2 emissions from electricity generation are about four times as high as CA. (These date do not include electricity imports, which would raise the curve for CA somewhat. On the other hand, CA's population is somewhat higher than that of TX.)

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Dan Schroeder @dvschroeder.bsky.social · 01/06/2026

Of course the claim that TX produces "better climate results" than CA is a flat-out lie—which Fox News did not fact-check. TX still gets 59% of its electricity from fossil fuels, and 11% from coal. CA is now under 30% fossil with essentially no coal. CO2 emissions are much higher in TX.

Stacked area chart of monthly trailing 12-month electricity generation in California by fuel type, from 2002 through early 2026. The chart shows total annual generation rising from 200,000 GWh in the earlier years to about 250 GWh more recently, with enormous growth in solar (much of it "distributed" rather than utility-scale). Fossil generation—almost entirely natural gas—has declined somewhat over this time period and now supplies less than 30% of the total. Source: @brendan.bsky.social, https://bpierpont.github.io/state-generation/

Stacked area chart of monthly trailing 12-month electricity generation in Texas by fuel type, from 2002 through early 2026. The chart shows total annual generation rising from under 400,000 GWh in the earlier years to nearly 600,000 GWh most recently, with enormous growth in wind and, more recently, significant growth in solar. Fossil generation has remained relatively flat over this time, though it has declined as a percentage of the total from nearly 90% to just under 60%, with about half of the coal generation being replaced by gas. Source: @brendan.bsky.social, https://bpierpont.github.io/state-generation/

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Dan Schroeder @dvschroeder.bsky.social · 01/06/2026

I live in a bubble where these kinds of things rarely reach me, but yesterday I happened to catch part of Bill Maher's show, in which he repeated the tired talking point about Texas being ahead of California in renewable energy. Here's a report with the relevant quote & a narrow fact check. 🔌💡 1/6

Two paragraphs from a 30 May 2026 Fox News report (https://www.foxnews.com/media/bill-maher-blasts-californias-education-results-cites-two-surging-red-states) on Bill Maher's recent show, in which he compared California's renewable energy development unfavorably to that of Texas.

[begin quote from Fox News]

"Texas has passed California in solar and blows away California when it comes to wind and energy storage," Maher said. "How does a state with no pro-climate policies produce better climate results than a state where here, even though we have so much better bumper stickers on our Priuses?"

Energy Information Administration data cited by Inside Climate News showed Texas produced 58,634 gigawatt-hours from utility-scale solar in 2025, compared with California’s 53,713 gigawatt-hours. The outlet reported Texas passed California in installed utility-scale solar capacity in 2024, though California remained ahead when small-scale solar was included.

[end of quote]

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Dan Schroeder @dvschroeder.bsky.social · 26/05/2026

Einstein's motivation was to solve the ultraviolet catastrophe!

$A brief excerpt from an English translation of Einstein's photoelectric effect paper, https://en.wikisource.org/?curid=59468. The excerpt reads: This condition for dynamic equilibrium not only lacks agreement with experiment, it also eliminates any possibility for equilibrium between matter and aether. The wider the range of frequencies of the resonators is chosen the bigger the radiation energy in the space becomes, and in the limit we obtain: \int_0^\infty \rho_\nu d\nu = \frac{R}{N} \frac{8\pi}{L^3} T \int_0^\infty \nu^2 d\nu = \infty.$

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Dan Schroeder @dvschroeder.bsky.social · 25/05/2026

And in the early months of 2026, according to Ember's data, solar and wind generation have both overtaken nuclear. 🔌💡

Chart of world electricity generation, 12-month running totals, from January 2020 through March 2026, broken down by sources: coal, gas, hydro, nuclear, wind, solar, other fossil (mostly oil), bioenergy, and other renewables (mostly geothermal). Over most of the time period shown, the curves fall in the order just listed, from highest to lowest. But wind generation has been increasing, and solar has been increasing even faster, so that both converged with nuclear at around the start of 2026. The order of these three has now reversed, with solar highest, followed by wind and then nuclear.

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Dan Schroeder @dvschroeder.bsky.social · 23/05/2026

I've read only the Amazon preview—but this is not an author who is writing in good faith. The baseline dates are cherry-picked. In fact US fuelwood consumption dropped threefold between 1910 and 1960, even as the population doubled.

Screen capture of a sentence from More and More and More: An All-Consuming History of Energy, by Jean-Baptiste Fressoz: "But rich countries have also seen their consumption of wood energy increase: the United States burns twice as much as it did in 1960, and Europe three times as much as it did at the beginning of the twentieth century." (I've highlighted the claim about the United States.)

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Dan Schroeder @dvschroeder.bsky.social · 22/05/2026

Here's an attempt to convert that chart from % share to absolute TWh. Also fixed the colors 😉. The quick drop in coal generation between now and 2031 is striking, as is the speed-up in wind generation growth over the next few years. To this amateur those seem like aggressive projections! 🔌💡

Chart of global electricity generation by source, based on BloombergNEF New Energy Outlook 2026, Economic Transition Scenario. I have attempted (perhaps not very accurately) to convert the numbers in the Bloomberg version of the chart from percentage share to absolute terawatt-hours. The chart runs from 2000 through 2050, and shows curves for coal, gas, hydro, nuclear, oil, wind, and solar—in that order from highest to lowest during the early years. The chart shows future projections of dramatic increases in solar and wind, and a dramatic drop in coal, with hydro remaining flat, nuclear rising gradually, and oil dwindling to very low levels. Gas generation is projected to drop slightly until around 2035, then rise through 2050. After 2044 the order shown is (from highest to lowest) solar, wind, gas, hydro, coal, nuclear, oil.

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Dan Schroeder @dvschroeder.bsky.social · 17/05/2026

Anyone know why BNEF uses GW, rather than GWh, as its metric in this article and chart? Seems like GWh would be the more useful measure of both grid impact and money being invested. 🔌💡 about.bnef.com/insights/cle...

Chart from linked BNEF article showing global energy (battery) storage additions by year, from 2020 through 2036 (projections), broken down by market (China, US, etc.). The chart shows extremely rapid growth up to the 2025 value of about 110 GW, then a slow-down over the next couple of years, followed by approximately linear growth to 300 GW by 2036.

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Dan Schroeder @dvschroeder.bsky.social · 14/05/2026

It just seems so obvious from this map that the biggest limit on US wind energy is getting it out of the Great Plains and to the population centers.

A map of the 48 contiguous states with a blue dot for every wind farm, sized by the wind farm's total electricity generation in 2024. The dots are very strongly clustered in the Great Plains and are sparse or nonexistent in most of the eastern and western states.

Source: https://physics.weber.edu/schroeder/energy/PowerPlantsMap.html?lat=27.76133&lng=-96.67969&zoom=4&yr=2024&dotm=0&dotsz=-0.1&show=256

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Dan Schroeder @dvschroeder.bsky.social · 14/05/2026

Naturally they want to start where they don't have to drill too deep. If they can get costs down, they can then expand into locations where they need to drill deeper. SMU has published maps that give a general idea of how deep you need to go to get to the needed ~200C. www.smu.edu/dedman/acade...

Map of the U.S. (48 contiguous states) showing estimated temperatures at a depth of 5.5 km below ground level. Published by SMU (Blackwell et al., 2011). The map generally shows much higher temperatures in the western states.

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Dan Schroeder @dvschroeder.bsky.social · 12/05/2026

Just noticed that according to the latest estimates from @ember-energy.org, solar electricity generation in the US may have barely surpassed coal generation in the month of April: 38.9 TWh to 38.5. If this estimate holds up it will be a first for a calendar month. Could happen again in May. 🔌💡

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Dan Schroeder @dvschroeder.bsky.social · 05/05/2026

Minor clarification: I don't think the TerraPower Kemmerer reactor is technically on the site of the Naughton coal plant. My understanding is it's a few miles away, on the south side of town rather than west. And I believe the Naughton coal units are being converted to gas, not retired.

Google Maps screen capture showing the southwest side of Kemmerer, Wyoming, with the Naughton Power Plant near the northwest corner of the image and the Kemmerer Unit 1 Natrium Reactor near the south edge of the image, a few miles away.

Screen capture of a portion of Table 8.1 from page 157 of the Pacificorp 2025 IRP Update (https://www.pacificorp.com/energy/integrated-resource-plan.html), stating that "Naughton Units 1 and 2 ceased coal operations on December 31, 2025" and are slated for conversion "from coal to natural gas", with "Natural gas operations ... anticipated to commence in spring of 2026."

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Dan Schroeder @dvschroeder.bsky.social · 05/05/2026

Looks like there's already a 92 kV line along approximately the same route, which more or less parallels highway 78. Of course a 500 kV line would be much bigger. opengridworks.com/power-plants...

Screen capture from OpenGridWorks showing electrical transmission lines in San Diego County, California.

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Dan Schroeder @dvschroeder.bsky.social · 04/05/2026

Excerpt from the original Financial Times story (www.ft.com/content/74d8...):

Since August 2025, developers have faced a mix of setbacks, including not receiving expected communications from DoD, having meetings to discuss the status of their projects cancelled without the opportunity to reschedule, and being informed that the department has stopped processing their applications, according to people with knowledge of the situation.

The affected projects include 35 that had completed negotiations and are awaiting sign-off from the DoD — first reported by Axios in March.

More projects are now facing a shutdown — 30 of which had undergone negotiations, received verbal signoffs and were waiting for written confirmation, about 50 are in the process of negotiations and 50 that previously would probably have been declared risk-free, according to developers and consultants.

The wind farms could generate 30 gigawatts, enough to power 15mn homes.

Letters sent to developers in early April said the agency was reviewing its processes for evaluating energy projects’ impact on national security.

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Dan Schroeder @dvschroeder.bsky.social · 03/05/2026

Here's the absolute version of the chart (gigawatts instead of percentages).

Chart of EU electricity generation vs. time of day, broken down by sources (wind, solar, hydro, biomass, geothermal, nuclear, gas coal, oil, waste) for 2 May 2026.

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Dan Schroeder @dvschroeder.bsky.social · 23/04/2026

Just noticed that in their form EIA-860M filing, Fervo has pushed the start date for their first generating unit from July to October. They've also nudged the anticipated net summer capacity from 28 to 30 MW, and the net winter capacity from 31 to 33 MW. Nameplate capacity remains at 53 MW. 🔌💡

Screen capture showing part of the form EIA-860M data for planned US generating units as of March 2026, highlighting the entry for Fervo Energy's Cape Generation Station (Beaver County, UT), geothermal unit CP1G1. The planned operation month is 10 and the planned operation year is 2026. The nameplate, net summer, and net winter capacities are, respectively, 53 MW, 30 MW, and 33 MW.

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