iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Matthias Fripp @matthiasfripp.org · 08/08/2026

Google needs to do better with their weather accent graphics. Dangerously high temperatures should not be shown as “fun in the sun.”

Clip from Google weather page for Phoenix, AZ, showing hourly temperatures of 107-111°F and an “Excessive Heat” warning, with a cartoon below of a lizard hanging out under a beach umbrella next to a desert lake.

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Matthias Fripp @matthiasfripp.org · 24/07/2026

Who at Microsoft decided that the default cross reference should be a hyperlink with a complete copy of the caption? Has anyone ever wanted that?! And why, in the 29 years since they introduced this feature, has no one at @microsoft.com realized that normal people just want to insert "see Table 1"?

Screen clip of dialog box showing
Reference type: Table
Insert reference to: Entire caption
[checked box] Insert as hyperlink

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Matthias Fripp @matthiasfripp.org · 17/07/2026

In case you missed it, @brendan.bsky.social, @michelle-solomon.bsky.social and I just published an @energyinnovation.org report showing that the U.S. can save $5 billion per year by meeting load growth with clean power and demand-side flexibility instead of keeping old coal and gas plants running. 🧵

energyinnovation.org

Let The Sun In: Clean Energy Is The Cheapest Way To Meet Rising Demand

Meeting U.S. demand growth with fossil fuels will add $29.7 billion to customer bills per year by 2030, clean energy can do it for less.

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Energy Innovation @energyinnovation.org · 02/07/2026

🔌💡 Clean energy can reliably meet the American economy’s insatiable demand for #electricity, at lower costs than if we primarily rely on aging coal plants and volatile natural gas. thepowerline.substack.com/p/clean-ener... by @brendan.bsky.social

thepowerline.substack.com

Clean Energy is the Cheapest Way to Serve Surging Electricity Demand

We can build a cheap, reliable and lower-risk grid, but we need to start now

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Matthias Fripp @matthiasfripp.org · 20/06/2026

In 2024, U.S. politicians received $150 million of support from fossil fuel interests to block action on climate change. www.opensecrets.org/industries/t... Meanwhile, every year those companies earn $80B+ and climate change does at least $150B of harm to the U.S. nca5.climate.us It’s got to stop!

nca5.climate.us

Fifth National Climate Assessment

The Fifth National Climate Assessment is the US Government’s preeminent report on climate change impacts, risks, and responses. It is a congressionally mandated interagency effort that provides the sc...

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Matthias Fripp @matthiasfripp.org · 05/06/2026

The stats below equal 1 bathtub full of oil (1.2 barrels) per household per week. If people had to lug a couple of 5-gallon buckets of gasoline to their car every time they filled it, or wheel a 42-gallon oil barrel up to the plane for their flight, they might have more perspective.

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David Roberts @volts.wtf · 28/04/2026

"Electrifying industrial heat in India is now cheaper than producing heat from natural gas and oil across all temperatures, and cheaper than coal in three of five temperature bands, representing 55 percent of the country’s industrial heat needs."

energyinnovation.org

Electrifying Industrial Heat in India

Cheap solar prices mean electrifying industrial heat in India is cheaper than producing heat from most fossil fuels, cutting costs and air pollution.

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Matthias Fripp @matthiasfripp.org · 29/03/2026

We can easily build a reliable, low-cost, near-zero-emission power system with the technologies we have today. We don’t need to invent anything new. 🔌💡

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Matthias Fripp @matthiasfripp.org · 23/02/2026

I appreciate this idea, but as the rest of the thread shows, the big problem with excess ROE is not the inflated payments—it’s the dumb investments utilities make to get those payments. Maybe we could cut ROE in half—to market rate—but still pay the other half in incentives, even just a fee per kWh?

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Matthias Fripp @matthiasfripp.org · 13/02/2026

TIL that there are fusion reactor designs that use induction to extract energy directly from plasma expansion. I have been pessimistic about other fusion designs because they still require a steam cycle and conventional generator, making them unlikely to compete with solar panels and batteries.

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Matthias Fripp @matthiasfripp.org · 10/02/2026

This isn’t what the American public want. It isn’t even what the fossil fuel companies want. It’s just a few petulant extremists finally getting their chance to cancel climate protections, even if that means making everyone in the country and the world worse off.

nytimes.com

Trump Allies Near ‘Total Victory’ in Wiping Out U.S. Climate Regulation

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Silvio Marcacci @silviomarcacci.bsky.social · 09/02/2026

What if the government said the best way to fix a failing dam was slapping duct tape on its cracks? That's what the House "Power Plant Reliability Act" would do for America's grid - keep our least reliable generation online instead of fixing the actual problem. www.utilitydive.com/news/congres...

utilitydive.com

Congressional ‘grid reliability’ bill is like duct tape on a cracked dam

Propping up expensive, dirty power plants threatens consumers with higher prices while punting systemic solutions further into the future, write colleagues from Energy Innovation.

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Matthias Fripp @matthiasfripp.org · 02/02/2026

Why is it that Trump can sue the IRS for leaking his tax details but DHS can’t be sued for assaulting or killing regular people?

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Matthias Fripp @matthiasfripp.org · 30/01/2026

Over and over again, federal agents are seizing and deporting people who are following the legal process to immigrate. This isn’t “immigration enforcement”, it’s rounding up any dark-skinned immigrant they can find, canceling the legal process and kicking them out of the country without cause.

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Matthias Fripp @matthiasfripp.org · 09/12/2025

For those looking to deepen your climate and energy skills, my wife @kamalkapadia.bsky.social just launched an awesome new course on Climate Solutions & Strategies. Check it out at skillup.earth! 🔌💡

skillup.earth

Skill Up for Earth

Join a global community of innovators, educators, engineers, and changemakers building real climate solutions — and earn an Oxford certificate along the way.

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Severin Borenstein @severinborenstein.bsky.social · 15/09/2025

In the Energy Institute blog, Meredith Fowlie is out today with an important analysis of California's legislative accomplishments on electricity affordability as the session wrapped up last week. energyathaas.wordpress.com/2025/09/15/r... 💡🔌

energyathaas.wordpress.com

Reining in California’s Runaway Electricity Rates

We’ve led the nation in rate hikes. Now we’re test-driving some affordability fixes. National headlines are warning of an energy affordability crisis, with electricity rates cast as a primary culpr…

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Zeke Hausfather @zekehausfather.com · 09/09/2025

The current administration has claimed renewables are making the grid less reliable. If that were the case, I'd expect states adding the most renewables over the past decade to have the largest increase in outages. However, the opposite seems to be true!

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Matthias Fripp @matthiasfripp.org · 08/09/2025

A clever way to shift loads from times when electricity is scarce and expensive to times when it is abundant and cheap. This can make better use of renewable power at a lower cost than batteries.

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Matthias Fripp @matthiasfripp.org · 22/08/2025

It’s always been weird to me that the people with the biggest phobia about intermittent renewables are often the tech folks. This is a tech problem with a tech solution—well chosen portfolios of wind, solar and batteries, plus a little fossil, bio or hydrogen for the tough days. Trust the math!

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Kyle Meng @kylemeng.com · 22/08/2025

The most important U.S. climate legislation over the next few years is out! ASM Irwin's draft California Assembly Bill 1207 reauthorizes California's ground breaking GHG cap-and-trade (C&T) program. Here are 5 key takeaways from AB 1207 1/

politico.com

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Matthias Fripp @matthiasfripp.org · 21/08/2025

@catalyst.coop Is there a recommended way to ask questions about pudl data? I noticed that interest expenses in `core_ferc1__yearly_balance_sheet_assets_sched110` (ferc_account 427-432) don't seem to make it through to `out_ferc1__yearly_detailed_balance_sheet_assets`. Am I missing something there?

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Brendan Pierpont @brendan.bsky.social · 24/07/2025

New piece: @matthiasfripp.org and I break down the big flaws with DOE's reliability report. The report's alarming claims of reliability risk exclude the majority of new resources expected to come online by 2030. All the demand, without all the supply. www.utilitydive.com/news/doe-gri...

utilitydive.com

Energy Department’s flawed grid study props up expensive, zombie power plants

The most effective way to maintain grid reliability is to let planners plan, markets work and utilities build the resources they’ve already identified as the most affordable path forward.

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Matthias Fripp @matthiasfripp.org · 24/07/2025

My first Utility Dive byline! @brendan.bsky.social and I show that DOE's 7/7 reliability report created a fake supply gap by ignoring most new generation planned by 2030, then only considered filling it with expensive coal plants instead of the cheaper renewables, storage and gas utils have planned.

utilitydive.com

Energy Department’s flawed grid study props up expensive, zombie power plants

The most effective way to maintain grid reliability is to let planners plan, markets work and utilities build the resources they’ve already identified as the most affordable path forward.

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Matthias Fripp @matthiasfripp.org · 15/07/2025

Every czar can have their own Rasputin!

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Matthias Fripp @matthiasfripp.org · 14/07/2025

5th grade nuclear weapons drills (hide under your desk). 10-year-olds biking to the mall to try the new video games. Schedule a phone call to schedule a time/place to meet up. Mail a check and a catalog order slip, then wait a few weeks for something to come in the mail. Or call and get it COD.

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Sara Baldwin-Griffin @sarabaldwin.bsky.social · 11/06/2025

The One Big Beautiful Bill Act is actually One Big Expensive Bill that, if passed as is, will do major damage to the U.S. economy, harm workers and families, and put the U.S. in the backseat when it comes to global competitiveness. The team at @energyinnovation.org modeled it, here's what we found:

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Energy Innovation @energyinnovation.org · 19/05/2025

🔌💡 Our @silviomarcacci.bsky.social's recent piece analyzes how the #energy provisions of the “One Big Beautiful Bill” would cost our #economy years of growth with 830,000 lost jobs, $1.1 trillion less GDP, and 50 percent higher power prices 👇 www.forbes.com/sites/energy... #energysky #greensky

forbes.com

$1 Trillion In Economic Damage From U.S. House’s Reconciliation Bill

Energy provisions of the “One Big Beautiful Bill” would cost our economy years of growth with 830,000 lost jobs, $1.1 trillion less GDP, and 50% higher power prices.

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Matthias Fripp @matthiasfripp.org · 15/05/2025

Hey #EnergySky, are there any good explanations of why voltage would rise after the first generation trip in Spain as ENTSO-E reported? Best I can think of would be that loads were light, so transmission lines were producing reactive power which was being consumed by those generators to hold V down.

entsoe.eu

ENTSO-E expert panel initiates the investigation into the causes of Iberian blackout

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Matthias Fripp @matthiasfripp.org · 04/04/2025

If the U.S. blocks imports from all the other countries and then all the other countries block imports from the U.S., umm, where does that leave us? Something like Iran and Cuba? Great, we just imposed sanctions on ourselves.

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Matthias Fripp @matthiasfripp.org · 04/04/2025

Journalists, please stop calling them “reciprocal tariffs” without quotation marks. That is taking the administration’s propaganda as fact. The formula does not consider existing tariffs in the other countries at all.

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Matthias Fripp @matthiasfripp.org · 03/04/2025

Coming next in the U.S.: lots of black market phones, computers, jewelry, etc.

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Matthias Fripp @matthiasfripp.org · 03/04/2025

FYI: Difficulty siting new transmission lines is not an important barrier to new, cheap, clean power. Long-distance lines are nice to have but *not essential for integrating renewables*. The real barrier is interconnection permission, due to slow technical review and unpredictable connection costs.

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Sara Baldwin-Griffin @sarabaldwin.bsky.social · 27/02/2025

Outdated views on grid reliability and slow-moving institutions pose a far greater threat to a resilient grid than any single technology. We should stay focused on building a diversified electric grid capable of responding to a rapidly changing world. www.latitudemedia.com/news/a-diver...

latitudemedia.com

A diversified, clean electric grid is the solution for growing energy demand

How policymakers at the federal, state, and local levels should think about clean energy’s role in grid reliability.

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Michelle Solomon @michelle-solomon.bsky.social · 19/02/2025

@sarabaldwin.bsky.social and I cover the basics of grid reliability and how clean energy can contribute to a reliable grid in a new report, which comes with a handy summary of key takeaways and policy recommendations. check it out here!

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Matthias Fripp @matthiasfripp.org · 04/02/2025

If we are really willing to accept high prices to boost manufacturing, we should weaken the dollar rather than raising tariffs. Tariffs just get matched with other tariffs, launching a trade war that hurts everyone. But a weak dollar slows imports *and* boosts exports.

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Matthias Fripp @matthiasfripp.org · 04/02/2025

The U.S. is moving into a leading position in solar panel manufacturing. We are now installing the equivalent of 27 Hoover Dams a year—and doing it all with U.S.-made panels. The U.S. is the third largest solar manufacturer in the world, with great jobs for 263,000 people. seia.org/news/united-...

seia.org

United States Surpasses 50 GW of Solar Module Manufacturing Capacity

Historic milestone marks progress towards SEIA’s goal to achieve 50 GW of domestic manufacturing across the solar supply chain by 2030

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Matthias Fripp @matthiasfripp.org · 03/02/2025

It makes sense to shift fixed costs from the per-kWh part of electricity bills to the base charge. But doing it only for solar customers is unfair and misses an important opportunity to encourage electrification. www.solarpowerworldonline.com/2025/01/vote...

solarpowerworldonline.com

Vote Solar and other groups file lawsuit challenging Arizona solar fee

On January 28, the Arizona Center for Law in the Public Interest (ACLPI) and Earthjustice filed an appeal in the Arizona Court of Appeals on behalf of

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Matthias Fripp @matthiasfripp.org · 27/01/2025

The headline on this (paywalled) article misses the main point: "The near-term solution is renewable energy and battery storage, [NextEra CEO John] Ketchum said. 'It is more important than ever to unleash all forms of electric generation starting with renewables, which are ready now.'"

subscriber.politicopro.com

E&E News: NextEra gears up for gas blitz to meet AI power boom

CEO John Ketchum reinforced a utility and tech industry message: The U.S. urgently needs more power on the grid.

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Matthias Fripp @matthiasfripp.org · 21/01/2025

Spooky to see Github Copilot jump in with some fairly specific economic concepts as I write comments in my code. I was calculating willingness to pay for a bundle of power across several hours, and as soon as I wrote "relative wtp" it filled in a mostly correct description from scratch.

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Jeffrey Rissman @jeffrissman.bsky.social · 17/01/2025

Today, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Industrial Technology Innovation Advisory Committee (ITIAC) released our first report containing recommendations on how DOE can accelerate a transition to clean, competitive U.S. #manufacturing. Check it out at: www.energy.gov/sites/defaul...

energy.gov

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Matthias Fripp @matthiasfripp.org · 16/01/2025

I think steel blast furnaces could use a solid oxide fuel cell to convert CO2 back to CO for reuse in the furnace. Somewhat similar to this project, but just recycling CO2, not producing synthetic fuels. Is there any reason this couldn't pencil out on a large scale? www.catalisti.be/en/news/esss...

catalisti.be

ESSSC-project: Request for Industrial Partners | Catalisti

Electrochemical syngas by co-electrolysis of H₂O and CO₂ using versatile SOEC technology for steel making and chemical industry. ESSSC-project: Request for Industrial Partners.

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Matthias Fripp @matthiasfripp.org · 14/01/2025

The problem with trying to catch up on academic reading is that each paper cites 3-4 other interesting-looking papers, which each cite 3-4 more interesting papers….

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Jesse D. Jenkins @jessedjenkins.com · 08/01/2025

Check out that drop in evening gas generation! Storage (+ solar) is crushing the evening peak in California. 🔌💡

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Matthias Fripp @matthiasfripp.org · 04/01/2025

This is an important point. Slow chargers are useless in places where you’ll park occasionally (malls, libraries, etc.). But at work or home, even a 120V outlet can be all you need to make the leap to an EV.

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Matthias Fripp @matthiasfripp.org · 04/01/2025

Awesome induction range uses a battery boost to give full-power cooking from a normal wall outlet—a drop in replacement for a gas stove. Can’t wait till batteries get cheap enough to make this a little more competitive. (120V gas-replacement water heaters are also coming to market.)

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Matthias Fripp @matthiasfripp.org · 22/12/2024

I wish articles like this would point out that carbon dioxide removal only makes sense as a last-5% solution. We should do all the things that are cheaper first (e.g., 95% cleaner power, avoid contrails, decarbonize most steel). Then maybe use CDR for the last bit.🔌💡 www.nytimes.com/2024/12/22/c...

nytimes.com

Removing Carbon From the Sky Could Be the Next Climate Gold Rush (Gift Article)

Investors are betting that they can make a dent in global warming, and healthy profits, with companies that alter the atmosphere.

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Matthias Fripp @matthiasfripp.org · 21/12/2024

Air travel uses a lot of fuel, but the impact is doubled by contrail effects. It will help a lot if they can be avoided and we use sustainable fuels or DAC. (This is one of very few sectors where those may make sense.) Are there feasible policies that could do this?

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Michael Roberts @mikejrob.bsky.social · 21/12/2024

What should policy priorities be for decarbonization? Economists have chanted "carbon pricing" my whole career, and I don't disagree. But there are many market failures that need addressing. A rarely emphasized piece: rate reform. Ideal electricity prices are real-time marginal cost, RTP.

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Matthias Fripp @matthiasfripp.org · 19/12/2024

How does the New York Cap and Invest law relate to the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative? Will New York power plants have to obtain credits from both? Can they use a NYCI credit in RGGI or vice versa? 🔌💡

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