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Reposted by Christopher Knittel

MIT Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Research @mitceepr.bsky.social · 16/06/2026

A new commentary by @knittelmit.bsky.social focuses primarily on retail tariff design in the United States, and explains why that tariff structure is becoming increasingly inefficient, regressive, and outdated. Check it out at the link below: ceepr.link/4emt2oM

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Christopher Knittel @knittelmit.bsky.social · 20/02/2026

Wait…..US companies are saying that they deserve a refund now that the tariffs were deemed unconstitutional……but……but…..I thought CHINA paid the tariffs!!!!???? Now we will get to learn lots of people actually understand economics.

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Christopher Knittel @knittelmit.bsky.social · 16/01/2026

I am excited that my energy economics and policy class is part of a really cool MicroMasters program in Data, Economics, and Design of Policy (DEDP). Learn more here: www.povertyactionlab.org/page/dedp-mi... Enroll now!

povertyactionlab.org

DEDP MicroMasters Program

J-PAL and MIT Open Learning created the MicroMasters program in Data, Economics, and Design of Policy (DEDP) to equip learners with the knowledge and skills to generate and use data in program evaluat...

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Christopher Knittel @knittelmit.bsky.social · 19/12/2025

I was worried @kclausing.bsky.social and @cwolfram.bsky.social found another coauthor! Don’t scare me like that.

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Christopher Knittel @knittelmit.bsky.social · 04/12/2025

CPC is looking to partner with policymakers, researchers, and funders who want to use MIT tools to evaluate climate and energy policy. We’re also building support for more researcher capacity. Let’s collaborate.

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Christopher Knittel @knittelmit.bsky.social · 04/12/2025

CPC’s model lets in-house researchers work with MIT faculty to answer real policy questions. This is where Juan shines—his modeling work began with a Senate collaboration and ultimately shaped this Nature Energy paper.

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Christopher Knittel @knittelmit.bsky.social · 04/12/2025

The MIT Climate Policy Center was built on a simple idea: the tools MIT develops should help policymakers make better decisions. Many high-value analyses don’t happen because academia lacks incentives. CPC changes that.

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Christopher Knittel @knittelmit.bsky.social · 04/12/2025

This work began as a collaboration with Senator Hickenlooper’s office on the Big Wires Act and was the first major project of the new @mitclimatepolicy.bsky.social . It’s a great example of how policy questions can guide research that is rigorous, timely, and directly useful for decision-makers.

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Christopher Knittel @knittelmit.bsky.social · 04/12/2025

Policymakers, analysts, researchers: This work clarifies how federal/state transmission policy can cut costs and emissions—or create unintended reliability issues. Happy to connect with those working on these questions. #EnergyTransition #ClimatePolicy

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Christopher Knittel @knittelmit.bsky.social · 04/12/2025

Huge shout-out to my postdoc, #JuanSenga. This paper would not exist without his rigor and creativity. The future of energy research is bright.

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Christopher Knittel @knittelmit.bsky.social · 04/12/2025

For academics/modelers: We assess minimum transfer rules, interregional coordination, and policy-driven siting across the U.S. grid using GenX. Full scenarios + regional sensitivity results included.

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Christopher Knittel @knittelmit.bsky.social · 04/12/2025

With huge clean-energy growth coming, especially if we adopt carbon policies, transmission is the bottleneck. Strategic builds can lower system costs, reduce emissions, and improve reliability in extreme events. Smart policy gets all three. #Decarbonization #Infrastructure

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Christopher Knittel @knittelmit.bsky.social · 04/12/2025

We find minimum transfer requirements can cut costs, emissions, and reliability risks—but only if designed well. Poorly structured mandates risk higher costs with little benefit. Details matter for policymakers. #GridReliability #EnergyModeling

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Christopher Knittel @knittelmit.bsky.social · 03/12/2025

Bottom line: -Renewable Portfolio Standards are not driving electricity price increases. -Utility-scale solar/wind tend to lower prices. -Rooftop solar + tariff design matter far more. -Climate resilience & data centers are big, growing drivers.

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Christopher Knittel @knittelmit.bsky.social · 03/12/2025

Empirically we show that rooftop PV raises distribution O&M costs, while utility-scale renewables reduce them.

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Christopher Knittel @knittelmit.bsky.social · 03/12/2025

Why does rooftop solar raise average rates? Because customers with PV pay much less toward the fixed cost of running the grid—even though they still rely on it. The gap is recovered through riders and surcharges. Just look at my bill...

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Christopher Knittel @knittelmit.bsky.social · 03/12/2025

Utility-scale solar and wind? Associated with lower retail prices, not higher. Rooftop solar is different and not surprising: the structure of net-metering and cost recovery pushes fixed grid costs onto non-solar customers.

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Christopher Knittel @knittelmit.bsky.social · 03/12/2025

Those raw correlations vanish once we add state & year fixed effects. RPS strength looks correlated with higher prices only because high-price states tend to adopt stronger renewable policies.

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Christopher Knittel @knittelmit.bsky.social · 03/12/2025

Electricity affordability is a major concern. A new paper with grad student Fischer Espiritu Argosino shows renewable policies aren’t driving price increases once you control for confounders. ceepr.mit.edu/workingpaper... #EnergyAffordability #ElectricityPrices #Renewables #PolicyResearch

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Reposted by Christopher Knittel

Kimberly Clausing @kclausing.bsky.social · 20/11/2025

New blog post today on work with @knittelmit.bsky.social and @cwolfram.bsky.social. Climate inaction is *already* a big expense affecting US households costs; the most important mechanism is the impact of climate-related natural disasters on housing costs. legal-planet.org/2025/11/20/c...

legal-planet.org

Climate Inaction is an Affordability Problem - Legal Planet

This post is authored by UCLA Law’s Kimberly A. Clausing along with guest contributors Christopher R. Knittel and Catherine Wolfram. Many of us have seen large increases in our homeowner’s insurance p...

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Reposted by Christopher Knittel

MIT Climate Policy Center @mitclimatepolicy.bsky.social · 21/11/2025

Faculty Director @knittelmit.bsky.social is speaking at the New Deal Leaders 15th Annual Leaders' Conference. Sessions include in-depth policy conversations on key issues, including #housing, #education, #cleanenergy, #AI, + more. buff.ly/sjRJmp8 📅 November 19-21 📍 Washington, DC

buff.ly

15th Annual Leaders Conference – NewDEAL

Washington, DC | November 19-21

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Reposted by Christopher Knittel

MIT Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Research @mitceepr.bsky.social · 30/09/2025

An MIT CEEPR paper by @knittelmit.bsky.social, @gibmetcalf.bsky.social and @shereeinsaraf.bsky.social looks at the impacts from a Gas-to-VMT Tax Shift. Check out the full paper at the link below: ceepr.link/42R44sv

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Reposted by Christopher Knittel

Kimberly Clausing @kclausing.bsky.social · 25/09/2025

🧵 (1/7) With @knittelmit.bsky.social and @cwolfram.bsky.social, happy to announce our new paper on “Who Bears the Burden of Climate Inaction?”, just posted for BPEA @brookings.edu. We find large climate cost impacts that vary by both geography and income. www.brookings.edu/articles/who...

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Christopher Knittel @knittelmit.bsky.social · 19/06/2025

Any #Warsaw recommendations? Food and tourism.

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Christopher Knittel @knittelmit.bsky.social · 05/05/2025

My theory is that he views everything through the lens of zero-sum games. He can get away with that with real-estate transactions for the most part.

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Christopher Knittel @knittelmit.bsky.social · 30/03/2025

Then they came after the naturalized citizens' speech, whose status could still be questioned, and I did not speak out— because I was born here. Then they came after my speech— and there was no one left to speak for me.

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Christopher Knittel @knittelmit.bsky.social · 30/03/2025

Then they came after the green card holders' speech, who had nearly all constitutional protections, and I did not speak out— because I was not a permanent resident.

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Christopher Knittel @knittelmit.bsky.social · 30/03/2025

Then they came after the visa holders' speech, who had limited protections under the Constitution, and I did not speak out— because I was not on a visa.

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Christopher Knittel @knittelmit.bsky.social · 30/03/2025

First they came after the undocumented immigrants' speech, who had few constitutional protections, and I did not speak out— because I was not undocumented.

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Christopher Knittel @knittelmit.bsky.social · 21/03/2025

From my awesome co-author Jen Alix-Garcia: thehill.com/opinion/ener...

thehill.com

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Reposted by Christopher Knittel

Claude Boucher @bouchecl.bsky.social · 04/03/2025

The #tradewar is on. Real-time electricity prices doubled few minutes after midnight EST in New England. 🔌💡

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Christopher Knittel @knittelmit.bsky.social · 06/01/2025

Submit your interesting paper to the Spring @nberpubs.bsky.social EEE meetings. The great #PaulinaOliva and @stevecicala.bsky.social ky.social are sure to pick an amazing set of papers. DEADLINE IS IN 9 DAYS!! March 27-28, 2025 conference.nber.org/confsubmit/b...

conference.nber.org

Submission: Environment and Energy Economics Program Meeting, Page 1 of 2 - MyNBERNBER: National Bureau of Economic Research

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Christopher Knittel @knittelmit.bsky.social · 03/12/2024

My amazing post doc, Juan Senga, presenting our work using a revealed preference argument to estimate the non-engineering costs associated with building transmission at the #CEEPR workshop.

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Christopher Knittel @knittelmit.bsky.social · 03/12/2024

Looking forward to our #CEEPR fall workshop in DC. A great lineup of papers and our largest registration ever! 1/3 academics, 1/3 industry, 1/3 policy makers. ceepr.mit.edu/wp-content/u... #energysky

ceepr.mit.edu

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Christopher Knittel @knittelmit.bsky.social · 28/11/2024

Frying a turkey in a log cabin in the middle of a New Hampshire forest? What can go wrong!? At least there isn’t an open flame. Happy #Thanksgiving everyone!

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Christopher Knittel @knittelmit.bsky.social · 26/11/2024

A quick calculation on #Trump's #tariffs. We import ~$900B from Ca and M. 25% tariff. Assume a 75% pass-through (low?), that's a $1,000 tax on the avg US household. We import $430B from China. 10% tariff => $250/HH. Here comes a $1,250/year tax on US households? #TrumpTradeWar

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Christopher Knittel @knittelmit.bsky.social · 25/11/2024

Totally. I’m going to generate one for each of the readings on my syllabus.

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Christopher Knittel @knittelmit.bsky.social · 25/11/2024

Here's the AI generated podcast: notebooklm.google.com/notebook/db4...

notebooklm.google.com

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Christopher Knittel @knittelmit.bsky.social · 25/11/2024

Hey #energysky #econsky #academicsky, If you haven't tried, try #Google's #NotebookLM podcast feature. Just upload a paper and hit go. I plan to use these for my class. It seems to do a decent job at AI generating the podcast.

notebooklm.google.com

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Christopher Knittel @knittelmit.bsky.social · 25/11/2024

My son and I always behave myopically at hotpot. The ride home is always painful.

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Christopher Knittel @knittelmit.bsky.social · 21/11/2024

Implications for Platforms: Simple, evidence-based design tweaks can significantly curb bias without overhauling systems. Also, and totally self-serving, collaboration between platforms and researchers is key to tackling systemic discrimination. Looking forward to your thoughts!

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Christopher Knittel @knittelmit.bsky.social · 21/11/2024

Broader Impacts: Highlighting quality metrics not only reduced bias but also increased pickups in areas with a higher share of African American residents. This suggests that thoughtful design can enhance equity and access.

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Christopher Knittel @knittelmit.bsky.social · 21/11/2024

Unexpected Insights: Showing names upfront didn’t strongly reduce bias. Possible reasons: Drivers might not process names pre-acceptance. Habitual biases tied to name recognition remain strong.

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