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John Smillie

@johnsmillie42.bsky.social
5.5K followers 975 following 18K posts

Husband, father, dog owner, hiker, climate action advocate, amateur energy nerd, heat pump evangelist, audiobook enthusiast. Chalant, yet gruntled.

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John Smillie @johnsmillie42.bsky.social · 7m
If you've got direct sun making a room hot, this stuff works. You can feel the difference just by holding your hand in the light. It also keeps IR from escaping in the winter.
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John Smillie @johnsmillie42.bsky.social · 1h
They're calling it LonelyMaxxing for the elderly.
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James Temple @jtemple.bsky.social · 3h
TR's annual list of the Climate Tech Companies to Watch is up! Read up on Energy Dome, WaveSave, Moment and more.
technologyreview.com
2026 Climate Tech Companies to Watch
Each year, the MIT Technology Review team puts together a list of some of the most promising climate tech companies in the world.
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Dr. Adam Stein @astein.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
Sophisticated statistics can produce extremely precise nonsense when the design fails to identify the causal mechanism.
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John Smillie @johnsmillie42.bsky.social · 17h
As long as they can finance at below 12%, FedEx can justify retiring diesel vans at least 10 years early. If we use 9%, a typical US corp hurdle rate, FedEx can justify retiring them more than 20 years (a full life time) early.
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John Smillie @johnsmillie42.bsky.social · 18h
My only opinion on the current Baseball series is that when Cleveland changed their name to the Guardians, they clearly should have chosen Rocks (or Rocs).
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John Smillie @johnsmillie42.bsky.social · 18h
interestingengineering.com/energy/doe-v... Love a good uprate
interestingengineering.com
Three US nuclear plants get $4.2B upgrades to add 433 MW of power
DOE offers Vistra up to $4.2 billion to upgrade three nuclear plants and add 433 MW of generating capacity.
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David Roberts @volts.wtf · 22h
Finally got a pod about agrivoltaics on the schedule. Looking forward to that one.
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Andy Craig @andycraig.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
The Constitution allows it. South Korea has proven it works. If you want to make impeachment viable—and so much else is pointless if you don't—then it can be done by a simple majority adopting a simple rules change: vote on the verdict by secret ballot.
theunpopulist.net
A Democratic Senate Should Adopt Secret Impeachment Ballots on a Priority Basis
Such a change, requiring no constitutional amendment, would free senators to vote their judgment instead of their fears
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John Smillie @johnsmillie42.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
The more solar opposition (I promise I will re-broaden my topics soon) you listen to the harder it becomes to deny that much of it is based on a non-rational presupposition that "Solar is bad", and the rest of the rhetoric is backfill to support that notion. 1/5
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Tom Carter @thcarter123.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
I read a lot of papers on infectious disease, vaccines, etc. Lifelong interest and my beat for a few years as a reporter. I did not know this. Vaccinated kids are far more and better protected from all diseases - even years later. www.washingtonpost.com/wellness/202...
washingtonpost.com
Column | Measles can erase up to 73 percent of your immune system’s memory
“Immune amnesia” is a little-known — and potentially devastating — consequence of measles.
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John Smillie @johnsmillie42.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
cowboystatedaily.com/2026/10/04/c... Retired wind turbine blades as public art/durable snow fencing
cowboystatedaily.com
Artist Chris Navarro Unveils Snow Fence He Created Out Of Wind Turbine Blades
Celebrated Wyoming artist Chris Navarro unveiled his long-awaited snow fence project on Saturday that he created out of discarded wind turbine blades. If…
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John Smillie @johnsmillie42.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
Slowly filling with rage as I think about how none of the people who blocked another solar farm last week are going to say a damn word about the asthma factory reopening by my kid's school.
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John Smillie @johnsmillie42.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
Hey @tkovach.bsky.social, any air pollution math you can do to help me put this in context for the people who might care about a 16.3MW gas plant going in 0.5 miles upwind from 366 K-1 students? ecm.idem.in.gov/cs/idcplg?Id...
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William B. Fuckley @opinionhaver.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
It would likely solve a non-trivial number of problems with the kid of person who opts to run for Congress to pay them $500k in exchange for stricter financial disclosure and be a rounding error in the federal budget. We’ll never do it because of THOSE FATCAT POLITICIANS!!!!, a bipartisan brain-worm
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John Smillie @johnsmillie42.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
A demonstration of why that paper that linked nuclear power plant proximity to cancer was so bad.
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Julia M. Rohrer @dingdingpeng.the100.ci · 04/10/2026
“It is especially telling that no matter what landmark we applied to the methodology, we have yet to get a negative result. There is, in fact, a real chance that you simply cannot get a negative result from this method.” 😭😭😭
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Julia M. Rohrer @dingdingpeng.the100.ci · 04/10/2026
This is very good. “Over 2.2 million cancer deaths can be attributed to Costco; that’s more than 20% of all cancer deaths between 2000 and 2018.”
Ridiculous things you can “prove” caused cancer mortality

Everything causes cancer. Sounds cliché; maybe those California warning tags were right all along. But thanks to the methodology created by Alwadi et al., we can now prove that anything and everything causes cancer. Oh, sorry, that is too strong of an assertion. To use the authors’ words, since they have claimed their papers don’t prove causality, we can create an association between any physical landmark and cancer and, from that association, figure out how much cancer is attributable to that thing. Which is totally not the same as saying “that thing causes cancer.”

For instance, living near a private four-year university is associated with a 15-fold increase in cancer mortality when compared
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John Smillie @johnsmillie42.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
amp.scmp.com/news/china/s... This smells like bullshit, largely because of how revolutionary it would be if it wasn't bullshit.
amp.scmp.com
Crop outputs grew up to 100% in China’s big agricultural experiment: scientists
Peking University scientist says solar-activated mineral water improves photosynthetic efficiency across major crops.
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John Smillie @johnsmillie42.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
Huge deal for Harbinger, whom you may have heard of. heatmap.news/podcast/shif...
heatmap.news
It’s Easiest to Electrify This Type of Truck
Rob and Jesse talk with John Henry Harris, the cofounder and CEO of Harbinger Motors.
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Felix Hamer • electricfelix @electricfelix.eurosky.social · 03/10/2026
“FedEx believes $300M electric truck spend will save them $800M in diesel” #alwaysbecharging ⚡️⚡️⚡️ electrek.co/2026/10/03/f...
electrek.co
FedEx believes $300M electric truck spend will save them $800M in diesel
In a record-setting commercial truck deal, international shipping giant FedEx has placed an order for 2,000 all-electric box trucks from...
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John Smillie @johnsmillie42.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
Nominative determinism! (no relation) smilliedental.com
smilliedental.com
Dentist in Port Orange, FL | Smillie Dental
Find exceptional dental care in Port Orange & Ormond Beach with Smillie Dental, your trusted Volusia County dentist. Achieve a healthy smile - book now!
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John Smillie @johnsmillie42.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
Don't put that on me
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Citizens' Climate Lobby @cclusa.org · 02/10/2026
✅ We're in on permitting reform! "We’re proud to endorse the Bipartisan American Affordability and Jobs Act, and we’re excited to mobilize our grassroots volunteers in full support," said CCL’s Executive Director Ricky Bradley. citizensclimatelobby.org/blog/policy/...
citizensclimatelobby.org
CCL endorses Bipartisan American Affordability and Jobs Act
Citizens' Climate Lobby is excited to mobilize our grassroots volunteers in full support of this bipartisan permitting reform package.
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John Smillie @johnsmillie42.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
I hear you hail from an ominous place known as The Dead Zone. "Different John Smith."
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John Smillie @johnsmillie42.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
"Wouldn't it be great if your dog could talk?" No. She knows too much. I'd have to kill her.
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John Smillie @johnsmillie42.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
IU ERI rubbing it in - congrats on the bad decision
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John Smillie @johnsmillie42.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
This particular innovation falls under the popular category of "We realized using a big box of heat is super inefficient so we switched to electricity/pressue/sound waves/microwaves/electron beams/lasers to actually accomplish the thing precisely".
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John Smillie @johnsmillie42.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
Included in this subsidy is Indiana suspending the gasoline tax yet again through "early November" (let me guess the first Wednesday in November).
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John Smillie @johnsmillie42.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
Thinking about the guy at the county meeting who said solar panels were only 40% efficient. If only, my man, if only.
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John Smillie @johnsmillie42.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
Enhanced Geothermal is on the grid. 30% efficient tandem PV is on the market. Passively cooled sodium BESS is on the grid. 1/3 of heavy duty trucks sold in China are electric. We're gonna win.
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John Smillie @johnsmillie42.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
Oh, damn, aneutronic fusion with hydrogen+boron. The same kind the company Trump Media bought (TAE) was trying for interestingengineering.com/energy/chine...
interestingengineering.com
China reaches 100 million hydrogen-boron fusion reactions per second
China's EXL-50U tokamak has achieved hydrogen-boron fusion and produced more than 100 million reactions every second.
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Starfire’s Deranged Neocon Foreign Policy Podcast @irhottakes.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
This is good but still presents an implementation challenge because Throw polling at 60% is misleading when Take polls at 5%.
A dog asks his human to throw his ball without taking the ball from him.
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John Smillie @johnsmillie42.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
13.64/watt - need to shave a third off of that if you want to be a real player.
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Chirag Lala @cthelala.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
The bipartisan permitting bill would be the most significant reform to grid governance in decades! I published an analysis of the bill where I discuss the new federal frameworks for planning, cost allocation, and permitting. Ditto public finance! publicenterprise.org/the-bipartis...
publicenterprise.org
The bipartisan permitting bill gets transmission right
The transmission and grid provisions in BAAJA are ambitious, going beyond the provisions of 2024’s EPRA bill. Most importantly, BAAJA gives FERC more statutory cover to take aggressive actions on grid...
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John Smillie @johnsmillie42.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
Back on my Ethanol soapbox - Even under some generous assumptions, electrifying just 3.6% of the current gasoline-powered fleet would free up enough land to power EVs replacing the entire gasoline fleet with solar.
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John Smillie @johnsmillie42.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
1.5C doesn't sound like much, but the line between "glacier grows" and "glacier shrinks" is razor thin and charged with positive feedback loops.
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Dr. Samantha Hancox-Li @sjshancoxli.liberalcurrents.com · 01/10/2026
i also just have to say that pointing at a falling down barn while bragging about how fewer people are coming to america is about the perfect encapsulation of how MAGA believes in making america smaller and weaker
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John Smillie @johnsmillie42.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
Getting a laugh react to "I live here. I would like us to have nice things and do good things," is about as pure NIMBY ethos as you get.
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John Smillie @johnsmillie42.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
If you enjoy lies, cherry picking, and completely avoiding climate and air pollution being, you know, things, hop in. (Rob does call him out more than a few times).
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John Smillie @johnsmillie42.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
From a children's book published in 1985 on solar energy. Four thousand watts! Huge!
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Nolan Hicks @ndhapple.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
*27.9%*
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Zeke Hausfather @zekehausfather.com · 30/09/2026
Confused by all the debate about the new permitting reform bill? Here is a quick cheat-sheet of the most important provisions, and their likely impact on emissions:
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Citizens' Climate Lobby @cclusa.org · 30/09/2026
Thanks to Sens. @whitehouse.senate.gov, @heinrich.senate.gov, Capito, Lee, and all their staff for their sustained work on this important bill. CCL's Government Affairs & Research teams are digging into the bill text and modeling now. Our full statement: citizensclimatelobby.org/blog/policy/...
citizensclimatelobby.org
CCL welcomes introduction of bipartisan permitting package
After years of permitting reform advocacy, CCL is encouraged to see today's release of the Bipartisan American Affordability and Jobs Act.
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John Smillie @johnsmillie42.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Hell yeah, another stab at permitting reform with apparently the best language on transmission yet.
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John Smillie @johnsmillie42.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Every once in a while I check in on innovations that interest me to see if they are, you know, doing okay. Superwood! They are shipping product, but mostly as a premium cladding. They don't have approval yet to replace structural elements. www.autonocion.com/us/wood-stro... buuut (1/2)
autonocion.com
A US company just started shipping a wood it boils, crushes and packs until it's 50% stronger than steel and six times lighter — and the one signature that would let it hold up a building instead of j...
Every building you have ever walked into was held up by some mix of steel and concrete. That has been the deal for about a century, ever since steel framing
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John Smillie @johnsmillie42.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Clinch River got a permit from the NRC, so TVA will be building a small modular nuclear reactor - the BWRX-300. There is also a project in Canada working on building BWRX-300s. www.nrc.gov/about-nrc/ne... www.gevernova.com/nuclear/carb...
nrc.gov
NRC Approves Construction of Nation’s First Small Modular Reactor | Nuclear Regulatory Commission
NRC Approves Construction of Nation’s First Small Modular ReactorTVA’s Clinch River Project Receives Construction Permit After 14-Month NRC Review
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John Smillie @johnsmillie42.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
The psychic damage from your county blocking a solar project isn't so much about losing. 1/3
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John Smillie @johnsmillie42.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
"Susan Collins" texted me asking for money, so I asked "her" how the bribery scandal was going.
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John Smillie @johnsmillie42.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
news.mit.edu/2026/pressur... In 2024, they finally formulated a unified equation for tarot aerodynamics - no more fudge factors. This group is building on that work by testing model wind turbines in pressurized wind tunnels, unlocking more secrets of turbine optimization.
news.mit.edu
Pressurized experiments could help wind farms generate more power
By pressurizing wind tunnels, researchers were able to simulate field conditions at wind farms, helping to validate predictive models and identify ways to get more power from existing wind farms.
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