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Josh Lappen

@jlappen1.bsky.social
12K followers 1.3K following 2.5K posts

energy historian | infrastructure, decarbonization, and landscapes | Angeleno | always on the lookout for a good fun fact coming soon to a disciplinary boundary near you!

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Reposted by Josh Lappen
rom comrade @savasavasava.myatproto.social · 02/10/2026
hey everyone if your uni uses turnitin, ask them about this.
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Josh Lappen @jlappen1.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
In the year I've been working w/ air pollution regulators on data center on-site emissions, I've seen almost no acknowledgement of this trend from energy-side advocates of data center buildout. This isn't just bad actors-it's a corporate playbook and a roadmap to a future of unconstrained emissions.
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Reposted by Josh Lappen
Justin Mikulka @justinmikulka.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
After reading this article, it would be good to read @jlappen1.bsky.social, @gruberte.bsky.social and @jmijin.bsky.social 's work. www.tandfonline.com/eprint/DJ88Z...
tandfonline.com
How to Save the Energy Transition: What Coal Scholars Can See Coming, and What to Do About It
The energy transition requires rapid, coordinated retirement of essentially all fossil fuel infrastructure with careful attention to impacts on workers and affected communities. Experience with the...
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Josh Lappen @jlappen1.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
This is a great primer on how the year ended for CA's surviving slate of clean energy bills. I'll admit that it's a better showing overall than I expected!
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Josh Lappen @jlappen1.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
This is a big deal for building decarbonization! AB 2313 has the potential to both speed up appliance replacement and help shift the incentives that keep gas utilities from coming to the table to confront long-term decline. Congratulations to all the advocates!
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Reposted by Josh Lappen
Danny Cullenward @ghgpolicy.org · 01/10/2026
Can anyone explain to me why a national permitting deal is best negotiated now, mere weeks from an election that is likely to reshape federal power? Let’s stipulate that a deal of some kind is necessary and good; my question is what about the situation makes now more desirable than, say, Q1 2027?
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Reposted by Josh Lappen
Sammy Roth @sammyroth.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Less than 12 hours now. No word on most of the big clean energy legislation. Newsom currently chatting with the Sacramento press corps.
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Josh Lappen @jlappen1.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Honored to have won this year's John Reps Prize from the Society of American City and Regional Planning Historians for my work on how electrification shaped greater Los Angeles! I'm likewise honored to be in such excellent company! Take a look at the full set of winners: sacrph.org/awards/past2...
sacrph.org
2026 Awards
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Reposted by Josh Lappen
Chris Nelder @chrisnelder.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Very smart thinking here from the mid-transitionistas!
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Reposted by Josh Lappen
Kevin J. Kircher @kevinjkircher.com · 29/09/2026
Hiding value judgments and ideology behind a veneer of sciency-looking graphs and statistics is almost the defining feature of energy system modeling as it exists today. I much prefer papers that use simple, auditable models, clearly state their assumptions, and honestly characterize uncertainties.
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Reposted by Josh Lappen
Roger Aines @rogeraines.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
It is stunningly valuable to observe what has happened, and what the results of actions turn out to be. Even more the results of inaction. Good job Josh, Emily, and Mijin.
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Josh Lappen @jlappen1.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Maybe our most important research output from this project. imo should be required of every journal article.
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Reposted by Josh Lappen
Danny Cullenward @ghgpolicy.org · 29/09/2026
As Jess says, the authority of standards-producers is a function of their acceptance by users. Having an almost monastic, oral culture and a partnership with ISO (which writes standards via anonymous committees) helps users maintain control. By design, opacity reduces accountability to outsiders.
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Reposted by Josh Lappen
J. Mijin Cha @jmijin.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
We have been through transitions before- we should learn from them! psyched to be on this with @jlappen1.bsky.social and @gruberte.bsky.social
tandfonline.com
How to Save the Energy Transition: What Coal Scholars Can See Coming, and What to Do About It
The energy transition requires rapid, coordinated retirement of essentially all fossil fuel infrastructure with careful attention to impacts on workers and affected communities. Experience with the...
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Josh Lappen @jlappen1.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
This one's a cri de coeur from @gruberte.bsky.social, @jmijin.bsky.social, and I: The coal sector's decline has created strong empirical evidence about how energy transitions play out, but most decarb scholarship and policymaking ignore it. That has to change. www.tandfonline.com/eprint/DJ88Z...
tandfonline.com
How to Save the Energy Transition: What Coal Scholars Can See Coming, and What to Do About It
The energy transition requires rapid, coordinated retirement of essentially all fossil fuel infrastructure with careful attention to impacts on workers and affected communities. Experience with the...
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Reposted by Josh Lappen
Antonia Juhasz @antoniajuhasz.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
At Climate & Energy conference @volts.wtf criticizes the climate movement for becoming an "everything movement," citing the inclusion of "environmental justice" and "labor." If those of us online could ask questions, I'd ask David to expand on how EJ and labor are "other" to the climate crisis?
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Josh Lappen @jlappen1.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Airport expansion isn't just counterproductive domestic energy policy - increasingly, it's an attempt by the oil industry to prop up future demand!
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Reposted by Josh Lappen
Marci Baranski @ecomarci.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
As a historian with a biology degree, same dynamic in history of science. Seen too many time retired scientists pivot to history of their field without any understanding of historical methods and historiography.
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Josh Lappen @jlappen1.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
Basically half of my BA in Classics was the history and sociology of engineering - and that's not counting the language classes where we primarily translated scientific and engineering texts
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Josh Lappen @jlappen1.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
Speaking as a historian with an engineering degree, I will go to the mat on this one: A FAR greater proportion of historians study engineering than the other way around, and your average historian has a much, much stronger fluency in engineering methods than engineers do historical analysis.
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Josh Lappen @jlappen1.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
The Heathrow Third Runway saga is such a perfect case study in the politics of energy infrastructure and stranded assets. This article does a beautiful job of illustrating the questionable economic claims that support new high-emissions transport infrastructure. www.theguardian.com/environment/...
theguardian.com
Burnham dodges questions on Heathrow third runway as project faces four-year delay
Airport chiefs say 2035 deadline unachievable with 2039 more likely as critics say delay makes case for project ‘even more dubious’
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Josh Lappen @jlappen1.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
belatedly: I think it's a mistake to spend subnational dollars electrifying long-haul trucking routes rather than spending those dollars electrifying short-haul and drayage. Short-haul trips harm communities more, and are harder to mode-shift than long-haul. www.latimes.com/environment/...
latimes.com
Electric heavy-duty trucks will be able to run from Baja to Canada, West Coast leaders pledge
The West Coast is home to one of the busiest freight corridors in the United States, and it's getting cleaner.
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Josh Lappen @jlappen1.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
This is great news, everyone! Bernd das Brot has had a child!
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Josh Lappen @jlappen1.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
Two Friday-night reflections on this thought-provoking op-ed: 1) I don't want to fix airline competition - I want to enable mode shift away from flying 2) These problems are primarily downstream of bank deregulation www.nytimes.com/2026/09/24/o...
nytimes.com
Opinion | Airline Credit Cards Are Messing Up the Whole Industry (Gift Article)
Airline loyalty programs are anticompetitive and hurting consumers.
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Reposted by Josh Lappen
Royce Kurmelovs @roycerk2.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Only quibble here is the headline: the algal bloom was not "mysterious". It was another event exacerbated by climate change driven by burning fossil fuels. Government officials were also aware within the first months that hundreds of thousands of marine animals had been killed in the bloom.
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Josh Lappen @jlappen1.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
www.youtube.com/watch?v=jzWy...
youtube.com
The Droid Factory [1080p]
YouTube video by Voca
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Reposted by Josh Lappen
Danny Cullenward @ghgpolicy.org · 24/09/2026
Want to learn more about the industry proposal to give companies carbon credit for cutting down trees, or why it's being taken seriously as a standard for corporate reporting — despite its scientific flaws? Hear from the scientists themselves at a recent @kleinmanenergy.bsky.social webinar ⤵️
youtube.com
Forest Carbon Accounting in the Greenhouse Gas Protocol
YouTube video by Kleinman Energy
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Josh Lappen @jlappen1.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
One of my favorite books to teach - if you haven't read it, grab a paperback copy when it's out!
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Josh Lappen @jlappen1.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
This will surprise no one, but I love this article: www.bloomberg.com/opinion/arti...
bloomberg.com
Private Jets Have a Free-Rider Problem
If you try to take a free ride on, say, public transit in New York City, you’ll get in trouble with the law. If your mode of transportation is a private jet, on the other hand, there’s a high risk you...
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Reposted by Josh Lappen
Bart⚓️ @bartgonnissen.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
The Facial Expressions of Tethys by artist Julius von Bismarck. A suspended high-sea buoy that moves in real time. Sensors on a twin buoy out in the Atlantic Ocean send live satellite data to motors inside the museum. This makes the indoor buoy copy the exact, real-time movements of the ocean waves.
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Reposted by Josh Lappen
Meade Krosby @meadekrosby.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
Some of the most harrowing stories of climate suffering and injustice I've heard have come from prisons. This is long overdue, and needed well beyond Texas.
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Josh Lappen @jlappen1.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
I'm extremely proud to have been a part of this team, and I'm grateful for the truly dauntless leadership of @costasamaras.com, Melissa Kenney, and @bobkopp.net, who brought us together to put together both a state of the scholarship, and a benchmark for future integrated climate assessments.
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Josh Lappen @jlappen1.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
This is some 1880s shit if I've ever seen it
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Reposted by Josh Lappen
Alex Ip 葉清霖 @alexip718.com · 18/09/2026
This guy who assaulted a sitting member of Congress got 28 years and 10 months less jail time than a Texas resident who transported a box of zines that contained constitutionally protected content opposing ICE reason.com/2026/06/25/t...
reason.com
Texas man gets 30 years in prison for transporting 'anti-government' pamphlets
The case stems from a violent anti-ICE protest, but critics say the government's prosecution threatens First Amendment rights.
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Josh Lappen @jlappen1.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
Today's thought on this ongoing crisis of knowledge: Thank fucking god for libraries. But their funding crunch is getting even deeper - more and more of my libraries are restricting their new acquisitions. This is an ecosystem-wide crisis.
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Reposted by Josh Lappen
Danny Cullenward @ghgpolicy.org · 17/09/2026
The inimitable @mikegrunwald.bsky.social has an exceptionally well written oped on the disastrous proposal from the Greenhouse Gas Protocol to give companies carbon credit for cutting down trees.
nytimes.com
Opinion | The Latest Corporate Climate Ruse (Gift Article)
Making deforestation look climate-friendly will encourage a lot more deforestation.
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Reposted by Josh Lappen
Thomas Lecaque @tlecaque.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
YOU COULD HIRE SO MANY FUCKING TENURE TRACK FACULTY FOR THIS. SON OF A BITCH.
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Josh Lappen @jlappen1.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
This is what we meant when we said that writing coal off as doomed by economics was squandering a crucial chance. www.thenation.com/article/envi...
thenation.com
Biden’s First Climate Actions Are Missing Coal’s Long Tail
Despite setting an extensive initial climate agenda, by not addressing existing leases, the Biden administration risks leaving billions of tons of publicly owned coal for the taking—and burning.
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Josh Lappen @jlappen1.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
In unwavering solidarity with everyone outraged by cuts to NSF earth science funding - and also struggling as always with the disjuncture that surfaces in these moments between support for the sciences and the humanities.
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Reposted by Josh Lappen
Stephen Schwartz @atomicanalyst.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
Tonight in 1980 at Grand Forks AFB, North Dakota, the number five engine on the right wing of a B-52H on ground alert caught fire during a drill. It was loaded with 8 Short-Range Attack Missiles (SRAMs, each armed with a 170-200-kiloton W69 warhead) and 4 B28 bombs (70 kilotons to 1.45 Megatons).
A black and white nightime photograph of the B-52H bomber on fire at Grand Forks Air Force Base, with smoke and flames moving toward the left side of the aircraft.
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Reposted by Josh Lappen
Climate Action California @climactcal.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
REPOST. Doh! Please join us in Venice, CA for an exciting opportunity to meet Ben Allen and other California climate candidates! (Paid for by Climate Action California Political Action Committee FPPC #1471051) RSVP at actionnetwork.org/ev...
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Josh Lappen @jlappen1.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
I've been listening to Drafting the Past for years - it's rare to have an open, field-wide venue for discussing historical methods in such granularity and with such love. You should subscribe!
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Josh Lappen @jlappen1.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
I think the bare-minimum appropriate and sellable penalty for a legislator to run with would be confiscation by the state.
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Josh Lappen @jlappen1.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
1 This is a generic industrial-construction accident, not DC-specific 2 DC industry is building very fast and has an indifferent-at-best record of compliance on env law- a recipe for a higher accident rate 3 DC industry deserves less leeway than others for generic accidents- they can afford to avoid
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Evan Sutton @evansutton.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
Really can't stress what a big deal it is for the president of @opeiu.org to openly call out the building trades for collaboration with the AI billionaires on data centers. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
theguardian.com
Labor unions must unite against AI datacenters | Tyler Turner
Workers should start with a moratorium against building until our livelihoods and communities are protected
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Josh Lappen @jlappen1.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
It blows undergrads' fricking minds when I lecture on the Technocracy Movement. These exact ideas are all recycled from the 1920s, and we've beaten them before.
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Neil Tangri @tangri0.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
India is installing half a million rooftop solar sets *per month*. That's phenomenal. www.ft.com/content/8b70...
ft.com
‘Offensively cheap’: solar power is looking up
Chinese-made panels on rooftops across the world are changing the facts of life for big utilities
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Josh Lappen @jlappen1.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
I think the only way to avoid this spillover at this point is to offer the public a clear path to rejecting data centers while supporting more socially beneficial infrastructure. If clean energy policy world doesn't draw a distinction, then neither will many voters.
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Josh Lappen @jlappen1.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
Do folks who work with rare/out-of-print books have preferred alternatives to Amazon's bookfinder.com? I've been meaning to find an alternative for a while, but recently it feels like the results are favoring Amazon and its subsidiaries, and w prices through the roof I'm finally getting to it...
bookfinder.com
BookFinder.com: New & Used Books, Rare Books, Textbooks
Find nearly any book: new, used, rare and textbooks. Get the best deal by comparing prices from over 100,000 booksellers.
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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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