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Eric Hittinger

@elephanteating.bsky.social
1.8K followers 663 following 605 posts

Inaugural Director of RIT's School of Public Affairs, WILL International Chair at Univ. of Lille, & Past President of the US Association for Energy Economics. Batteries, renewables, electricity markets, and emissions. Sometimes I bike across the continent.

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Eric Hittinger @elephanteating.bsky.social · 1h
Extremely niche Upstate NY thing: in Parks and Rec S2E11, they go to "Jurrasic Fork" and in the background you can see a bottle of Dinosaur BBQ sauce in the background.
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Eric Hittinger @elephanteating.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Are there places that routinely post EV charging cost? China? Some parts of Europe?
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Eric Hittinger @elephanteating.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Fueling stations that have fast charging should post the cost per kwh, like they do for gasoline. (I also propose that this is a good signal of EVs becoming mainstream)
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Eric Hittinger @elephanteating.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Anyway, I long for the day when vaccines are not political and I can post my pro-vaccine rants that are broadly ignored. (aka, I liked it before it was cool)
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Eric Hittinger @elephanteating.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
Here's my conspiracy theory: a decent chunk of anti-vax people are actually just nervous about needles and wouldn't be anti-vax if vaccines were generally available in the form of a mist (or whatever).
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Eric Hittinger @elephanteating.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
What is the appropriate number of water bottles for a family of four?
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Eric Hittinger @elephanteating.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
Smash that "Add to steam wishlist" button
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Eric Hittinger @elephanteating.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
Preparing a presentation and ready to relate to the youths
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Eric Hittinger @elephanteating.bsky.social · 12/09/2026
Did I just catch a character on The Pitt refer to an MRI machine as "the donut of truth"?
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Eric Hittinger @elephanteating.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
If you are a university student at any level, I want to stress how important it is to take advantage of the events and organizations absolutely to you. You'll never again have such a rich intellectual community just outside your door!
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Eric Hittinger @elephanteating.bsky.social · 29/08/2026
Extremely mundane civic actions are now a form of resistance. (Note: I live in this town) www.wxxinews.org/local-news/2...
wxxinews.org
On both sides of Lake Ontario, there are Brightons. Now they're officially friends
The town of Brighton and the municipality of Brighton in Ontario, Canada, are entering into a "twinning" agreement.
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Reconnect Rochester Cycling @roccycling.bsky.social · 29/08/2026
Three weeks out from the final George Eastman Bike Tour! The casually paced ride visits former homes of Eastman along with institutions that he founded. Only 7 miles. Tour includes a collectibler pin & a pass to visit the museum anytime. www.eastman.org/george-eastm...
eastman.org
George Eastman Bike Tours | George Eastman Museum
Explore Rochester in a new way. A nod to George Eastman’s own love of cycling, the George Eastman Bike Tour takes you to ten different locations related to the life and work of this pioneer of popular...
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Eric Hittinger @elephanteating.bsky.social · 28/08/2026
Is that safe to swim in? (I know that the Germans have water testing for publicly accessible areas, so this one probably is safe. But in general, "swimming hole" is low on my list of uses for old coal mines)
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Eric Hittinger @elephanteating.bsky.social · 28/08/2026
I was briefly worried that reality was collapsing based on the Subject line...
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Eric Hittinger @elephanteating.bsky.social · 26/08/2026
Everyone, please check on your warm-hearted 80-yr-olds
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Eric Hittinger @elephanteating.bsky.social · 26/08/2026
Just logging in to say: I really hope that there isn't a third... www.nytimes.com/2026/08/26/m...
nytimes.com
Tim Curry, Star of ‘Rocky Horror Picture Show,’ Dies at 80
The actor’s gift for garish eccentricity was indelibly appropriate for the outlandish, cross-dressing mad scientist Frank-N-Furter.
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Eric Hittinger @elephanteating.bsky.social · 21/08/2026
Kid2 (7) upon our train pulling into Paris: "People here don't know if I'm famous or not. This is a place of wonders."
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Eric Hittinger @elephanteating.bsky.social · 21/08/2026
I consider it an accomplishment, as it combines a) getting married at an inadvisably young age and b) yet it works...
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Eric Hittinger @elephanteating.bsky.social · 21/08/2026
This is cultural appropriation and I won't stand for it.
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Eric Hittinger @elephanteating.bsky.social · 21/08/2026
As of today, I've been married for more of my life than I was not-married. So this is now a "wife guy" account...
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Eric Hittinger @elephanteating.bsky.social · 19/08/2026
At Futoroscope (French theme park) and they have a whole electricity building sponsored by EDF
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Rory Johnston @roryjohnston.bsky.social · 18/08/2026
“Compute is the new oil”
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Eric Hittinger @elephanteating.bsky.social · 15/08/2026
Heat pumps are perhaps magic, and no one can prove that they aren't.
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Len @len.bsky.social · 15/08/2026
We honestly don't witness very many situations in 2026 where the good guys don't just win, but they windmill dunk on evil and make it very funny at the same time.
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Eric Hittinger @elephanteating.bsky.social · 12/08/2026
Anyway, we we taking about how long until the moon drifts far enough from earth such that a full eclipse is no longer possible. (Seems to be about 0 5B yrs from now)
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Eric Hittinger @elephanteating.bsky.social · 12/08/2026
Kid1 said that the earth is 4.5B yrs old and kid2 (7 yrs) mis-heard it as "4.5 yrs old" and responded "That can't be right - earth has to be at least 7 yrs old, bc I've been around that long" I approve of the hard scientific reasoning.
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Eric Hittinger @elephanteating.bsky.social · 12/08/2026
$20 says that the eclipse does not cause any power outages.
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Eric Hittinger @elephanteating.bsky.social · 12/08/2026
Eclipse viewing with 1000 of my closest friends in Burgos. Exited to actually see it this time!
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Eric Hittinger @elephanteating.bsky.social · 10/08/2026
New modeling element to add to your transmission expansion model just dropped www.theguardian.com/environment/...
theguardian.com
Harry Potter fans force relocation of £430m undersea cable to avoid Dobby’s ‘grave’
Power cable linking UK and Ireland now passes near Bronze Age human burial remains instead of fictional grave on Welsh beach
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Eric Hittinger @elephanteating.bsky.social · 01/08/2026
I've lost count - what stage of the apocalypse is this? share.google/uo88oqkNS8kh...
share.google
Sunken Nazi warships resurface as water levels drop
Scuttled German WW2 warships have reemerged from the Danube in drought-hit Europe.
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Eric Hittinger @elephanteating.bsky.social · 30/07/2026
I'm going to keep saying this until someone believes me: The basic problem with LLM state of mind is basically this: if you tell them not to think about a giraffe, they won't.
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Eric Hittinger @elephanteating.bsky.social · 29/07/2026
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The Old Hack @the-old-hack.bsky.social · 25/07/2026
@bretdevereaux.bsky.social
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Eric Hittinger @elephanteating.bsky.social · 25/07/2026
So, I guess it is a pretty big flex for me to have lettuce on my (french) kebab....
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Jonathan Koomey @jgkoomey.bsky.social · 16/06/2026
I really liked Jeff's thread, but as one of the early originators of the carbon footprint concept, I want to address this misconception because I've heard it often.
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PBF Comics @pbfcomics.bsky.social · 20/07/2026
“What a beautiful universe, hon" says a telescope as gazes upon an aurora borealis. “It really is”, responds the telescope's partner, who it turns out is not a telescope, but a microscope. Hands full of algae, she wades waist deep in a disgusting swamp, amazed by the heavenly microscopic life all around them.
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Commercial Solar Guy @commercialsolarguy.com · 21/07/2026
"Britain's batteries were magnificent that evening"
Graph showing batteries charging and discharging across the day along wth this text:

On one side: the battery fleet. Britain's batteries were magnificent that evening and it's important to say so — a staggered relay of discharges (a second shift of fresh cells arriving at 19:00 sharp, exactly as the first faded), 3.3 GW at peak, two-thirds of all balancing acceptances in the crunch, delivered with near-perfect precision, at prices — around £513/MWh in the crunch — some 30–40% cheaper than the gas bought alongside them.

The fleet's whole day is worth a chart of its own, because no other machine on the grid can draw this shape: discharging into the morning peak, swallowing 1.4 GW of the midday solar surplus, then swinging 4.7 GW within a couple of hours to meet the evening — a fleet of ten thousand containers behaving like one perfectly obedient power station.
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Commercial Solar Guy @commercialsolarguy.com · 21/07/2026
Sun rises everyday
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Stephen Nuñez @socio-steve.bsky.social · 18/07/2026
I get a kick out of the idea that "taco bell scientists" discovered the source of the outbreak and cut off the supply for their own restaurants prior to the CDC or FDA doing anything at all.
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Philip Bump @pbump.com · 18/07/2026
Visualized.
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Michelle DuBarry @dubarrypie.bsky.social · 19/07/2026
I think about Lily every time I see a delivery truck parked in a bike lane. What if we enforced traffic laws before children were killed 💔
Bike lane tickets increased to $250 after the 2022 death of 3-year-old Lily Grace Shambrook, who was killed in a traffic crash while riding on the back of her mother’s bike in Uptown. The bike lane was blocked by a ComEd truck illegally parked in the bike lane, according to police.
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Sarah Taber @sarahtaber.bsky.social · 18/07/2026
A quick word on Taco Bell: That's where we found the suspected lettuce, and it's not bc Taco Bell is gross. It's bc Taco Bell is REALLY GOOD at tracing product! Keeping track of exactly where they got their ingredients, & exactly what restaurants each shipment of ingredients went to!
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Mateusz Fafinski @calthalas.bsky.social · 18/07/2026
Remember, both the Iliad and the Odyssey were originally audiobooks.
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Nicholas Grossman @nicholasgrossman.bsky.social · 18/07/2026
The US built the greatest talent magnet ever, attracting the smart, skilled, and striving. They’d come to study, then stay and build things here, or leave with positive impressions and fruitful connections. Helped make the US wealthy and powerful. Then America chose to throw it away. And for what?
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Eric Hittinger @elephanteating.bsky.social · 16/07/2026
Hula hoop design, production, and distribution
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Eric Hittinger @elephanteating.bsky.social · 15/07/2026
Love The Onion (paying subscriber!), but we are going to fight climate change all the way to the grave and beyond.
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Eric Hittinger @elephanteating.bsky.social · 15/07/2026
Please have this resolved by the time I return to the US in a month or so...
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Eric Hittinger @elephanteating.bsky.social · 15/07/2026
The day after 14 juillet and France loses in the World Cup. Will there be anyone in the office today?
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City Atlas @cityatlas.bsky.social · 14/07/2026
In the US, we should be in midst of a transition of our car fleet to EVs, & we could be because suddenly, affordable tech for cars *better* than ICE vehicles is available. But in US, we can't have it. Great overview, w/suggestions. Via @paulijllo.bsky.social paulinajllo.substack.com/p/the-car-i-...
paulinajllo.substack.com
The Car I Can See but Cannot Buy
Paulina Jaramillo, Ph.D.
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Christopher Barrie @cbarrie.bsky.social · 14/07/2026
🙏 Come work with me 🙏 We're hiring a postdoc. to work on a v cool project using AI to better understand local-level social cohesion...
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