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Tom MacDonald

@tscmacdonald.bsky.social
457 followers 550 following 657 posts

Energy & decarbonisation by way of physical chemistry and spin stuff. Sometimes folk music and dance.

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Tom MacDonald @tscmacdonald.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
It feels hard to overstate how the macroeconomic contours of my lifetime have been shaped by steadily falling interest rates - but no more!
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Tom MacDonald @tscmacdonald.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
This has been huge - Australian BESS returns have gone from exceptional to almost nothing in a few years. Now, the big question is if the same squeeze will be enough to push out some coal...
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Jenny Chase @solarchase.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Reading about Australia power markets: "Average power prices fell between 40% and 65% across the National Electricity Market (NEM) year on year in 2Q 2026, driven by higher renewable output and increased battery discharge during evening peak demand periods." Paywall, www.bnef.com/insights/40165
bnef.com
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Eugene Vinitsky 🍒 @eugenevinitsky.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
If you view AI as filling in the convex hull of knowledge, this is great in the short term but bad in the long term if there's no one left to expand the hull after
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Tom MacDonald @tscmacdonald.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
I've gradually been coming to a view that there are two meaningful decarb policies: sinking green capital and stranding fossil capital. Anything else can (and will) be repealed or overturned, but built infrastructure stays built and closed infrastructure stays closed. www.afr.com/policy/energ...
afr.com
Coalition unveils plan to dismantle Labor’s net zero agenda
The federal opposition says it will drive a bulldozer through Labor’s climate agenda and force regulators to prioritise affordability and reliability.
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Andrew B. Watkins @windjunky.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
New Intergenerational Report from the Australian government thinks disaster funding will just be a nice smooth requirement into the future with only a small difference between "paris aligned" [code for 1.5C, which we know will be exceeded already] and "more than 3C" which would be catastropic. !WTF!
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Tom MacDonald @tscmacdonald.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
This is absolutely true from having spent some time reading in rat circles, and also very funny from having done a PhD focused on nanoscale molecular motion and how incredibly hard it is to make anything happen with any degree of control.
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Tom MacDonald @tscmacdonald.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
Copyright as an institution was already a square peg hammered into a round hole as internet sharing exploded in the early 2000s, and I just can't see how itcsurvives into the era of vectorising everything. Time to put it to bed. If we want artists to earn a living, then we should say and do that.
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Tom MacDonald @tscmacdonald.bsky.social · 12/09/2026
A slightly woo thought I've been having this week: concepts like "having good software" (or even "GDP growth") don't just mean good tech exists; it also needs to be adopted widely to displace the old. AI helps build the new stuff, but that same lower barrier to entry may slow collective adoption?
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Tom MacDonald @tscmacdonald.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
I'd love to see a serious attempt at understanding what a geopolitically destabilised world means for decarb. The risks seem highest in fossil markets, but will briefly lift interest rates which disproportionately hurt. renewables. What wins, or rather loses less?
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ae @aelkus.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
Donald Trump and the Ukranian special forces are the most radical environmental militants
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H I Sutton @covertshores.bsky.social · 30/08/2026
Not to turn slight avgeek on you, but giant flying boats were soooo cool
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Tom MacDonald @tscmacdonald.bsky.social · 28/08/2026
Opening with an argument that Britain's energy privatisation drove i) a slowing of capital (re)investment, leading to ii) falling productivity and increasing prices as the market reorganised around a higher cost of private capital (go build that low capex/high opex gas!)
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Tom MacDonald @tscmacdonald.bsky.social · 28/08/2026
Really excited for @arthurdowning.bsky.social's new book on the political-economic history of electricity in Britain: industrial development, municipal supply, nationalisation and privatisation, from pioneering growth to today's crises. I've been reading Arthur's work for a while - well worth a look
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Tom MacDonald @tscmacdonald.bsky.social · 28/08/2026
Wishful thinking as policy. - It's not obvious that this is actually true, especially with gas reservation policies pushing down local pipeline gas prices. - Hyperscalers aren't *that* sensitive to power cost. Building gas wins on speed to power, but once built expect little urgency to replace it.
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Tom MacDonald @tscmacdonald.bsky.social · 26/08/2026
www.abc.net.au/news/2026-08... Looks like Albo's spiked Bowen's modest efforts to ensure data centre energy supply comes from new renewables rather than existing fossil generation. A principled commitment to not making the minimally adequate an enemy of abject retreat, I suppose...
abc.net.au
Albanese's rare concession in the energy wars is revealing
As is so often the case in Australia, the politics came down to a fight over energy.
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Tom MacDonald @tscmacdonald.bsky.social · 25/08/2026
Great, great piece today on the challenges of building new wind generation in Australia: www.abc.net.au/news/2026-08... Key pics to me are below. Costs have ~doubled while the market value of wind energy has fallen. Lots of heavy-handed public support needed to push past this barrier, I think.
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Dylan McConnell @dylanjmcconnell.bsky.social · 24/08/2026
.. I certainly knew we were not on track for ISP projections (and the 82% RE target for 2030) - but have to say was rather shocked by how much behind the eight ball we really are 😬🥲 (based on the latest generator information data from AEMO)
Figure that compares existing RE projects (and project pipeline) to the 2030 ISP projections  (which are aligned with 82% RE target).

Figure shows the current in service and reasonably prospective projects (i.e. projects that have some degree of progress with respect to planning and contracting) are well behind the ISP projections. 

Wind:
Existing + in commissioning  + commited + anticipated = 21GW, c.f. ~30GW in 2030

Solar:
Existing + in commissioning  + commited + anticipated = 22GW, c.f. ~31GW in 2030
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☀️ Starshine @starshine.bsky.social · 11/08/2026
new type of guy new type of guy
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Tom MacDonald @tscmacdonald.bsky.social · 11/08/2026
Some great charts here. My understanding is that "demand flexibility" for data centres basically begins and ends with behind-the-meter batteries - better than nothing, of course, but the data centres themselves are right up there alongside hospitals for lack-of-interest in voluntarily turning down.
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Tom MacDonald @tscmacdonald.bsky.social · 08/08/2026
Can't say I followed Sussan Ley's political career all that closely, but genuinely enjoyed this piece on her post-politics pivot to Greyhound bus travel writer: www.afr.com//politics/fe...
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Tom MacDonald @tscmacdonald.bsky.social · 07/08/2026
As a Dawkins-reading teen, the conservative argument that there could be no morality without organised religion was clearly ridiculous - today it still *feels* wrong, but at the same time it's really hard to point to actually-existing examples of social morality without a religious foundation.
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Tom MacDonald @tscmacdonald.bsky.social · 01/08/2026
Strongly recommend this one, on the very real challenge of understanding (and pricing!) the economic structures AI may bring into being.
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Dylan McConnell @dylanjmcconnell.bsky.social · 28/07/2026
Amazing: "Queensland dissented from this Communique" .. federation is working well then www.energy.gov.au/energy-and-c...
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Tom MacDonald @tscmacdonald.bsky.social · 22/07/2026
On this: what's happening with online social formation in the AI era? The ones I'm in are either web1.0 diaspora relics or focused on singular niche special interests - how are communities of practice or interest forming today as the thermal noise of open platforms continues to rise?
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Tom MacDonald @tscmacdonald.bsky.social · 21/07/2026
Fully agree with this, and it's thinking that can't come to Australia soon enough. Electricity decarb is our best deal overall but does have costs - it's entirely counterproductive to levy those costs on electricity usage rather than almost anywhere else.
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Jason Wilson @jasonaw.bsky.social · 20/07/2026
The curious thing about discussions of rising antisemitism in the English speaking world is how they are detached from any recognition of the ubiquity of vociferous Islamophobia www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
theguardian.com
Why has Britain’s oldest political magazine become such a rabid cheerleader for Islamophobia? | Nesrine Malik
A report on the Spectator’s coverage of Muslims makes for grim reading. Conservatism is now focused on this minority to the exclusion of everything else, says Guardian columnist Nesrine Malik
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Tom MacDonald @tscmacdonald.bsky.social · 15/07/2026
Enjoyed reading today's release of CSIRO GenCost: lots of good content, and most importantly it has the honesty to state that decarbonising *will* increase power costs somewhat but that those costs are modest and obviously worthwhile. Hopefully AEMO can find the same clarity one day...
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Tom MacDonald @tscmacdonald.bsky.social · 15/07/2026
Broadly agree with Possum here - these principles are good ones, and if we can apply them effectively without cooking the planning process I think the country will benefit. I'm perhaps less confident that the Commonwealth has the power or capability to force it, though. Hopefully I'm wrong!
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jenny tightpants @jtp.bsky.social · 13/07/2026
noticing an increasingly common phenomenon of people online who hate their torment nexus ass propietary software but for some reason refuse to even entertain the idea of learning to use a non-torment alternative.
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Open Electricity @openelectricity.bsky.social · 30/06/2026
Quarterly Battery (discharging) Energy high record for NEM (1,038.8 GWh) — up 32.9% from previous record
Open Electricity
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Tom MacDonald @tscmacdonald.bsky.social · 29/06/2026
Literally me on holiday the other week:
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The Great Pumpkin Papers 🎃🎃🎃 @professormusgrave.bsky.social · 29/06/2026
Huh
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Tom MacDonald @tscmacdonald.bsky.social · 27/06/2026
"this drone flies fast and autonomously scouts a large area to, uhhhhh, locate and assist hikers" - as seen on many student projects, turns out it's not quite *always* disingenuous bullshit
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Tom MacDonald @tscmacdonald.bsky.social · 24/06/2026
Aus energy Christmas! AEMO's 2026 ISP releases today, our national energy plan for the future. Important to remember: • This is a plan, not a prediction. It won't happen without the right incentives. • Govt policy wishes are input constraints, regardless of likelihood www.aemo.com.au/-/media/file...
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Tom MacDonald @tscmacdonald.bsky.social · 22/06/2026
Great piece here from Os, making a strong argument that public fears of multiculturalism are effectively a misdiagnosis of the root causes behind a broader collapse of societal institutions and participatory democracy.
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Tom MacDonald @tscmacdonald.bsky.social · 19/06/2026
High-culture Viennese fashion
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Tom MacDonald @tscmacdonald.bsky.social · 15/06/2026
Really interesting argument here that the US's climate nihilism follows a shift in capital's political influence from finance to tech. That's a uniquely US-specific phenomenon, and goes some way to explaining why the UK or Australia don't seem to be following the US's path.
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JW Mason @jwmason.bsky.social · 15/06/2026
Because the thing is, you can't have normal democratic politics except without climate policy. A major push to decarbonize is where any rational, minimally accountable government is going to land in the 21st century. If that's not where you want to end up, then you need a different kind of politics.
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JW Mason @jwmason.bsky.social · 15/06/2026
An idea I've been playing with for a while is that one of the core elements of the political economy of Trumpism is that a critical mass of the US capitalist class decided that decarbonization was not worth the costs to them.
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Tom MacDonald @tscmacdonald.bsky.social · 15/06/2026
Really cool story, and something I expect to see more of as we move deeper into green ecological engineering. Two questions come to mind: • PV needs semi-regular cleaning. How tricky does that become? • What do near-ground temps look like? Plant matter has got to have a higher albedo than PV…
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Tom MacDonald @tscmacdonald.bsky.social · 15/06/2026
I'm in Slovenia for a few days of walking, and staying next to a small church with a remarkably extended 7am wakeup bellringing session. Works for me! But from the 1.7 star rating on google, seems not everyone's a fan
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Tom MacDonald @tscmacdonald.bsky.social · 02/06/2026
This will change with the next round of coal retirements, but it's still a big deal: in two years the Australian battery fleet has gone from barely relevant to shaping more energy than our peaking gas. Gas has now effectively been marginalised into an irregular seasonal peaking role.
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The Pub-Liking Universal Friend @johnb78.bsky.social · 01/06/2026
I think one of the important points about the budget is that the right-wing papers are losing their minds, but all the polling shows that nobody who wasn't already a nailed-on Lib cares and the reason the Labor vote has fallen slightly is because inflation is back and interest rates are up
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Tom MacDonald @tscmacdonald.bsky.social · 27/05/2026
What a world where ABC Arts is publishing articles grounded in vintage 4chan posts: www.abc.net.au/news/2026-05...
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Seva @seva.bsky.social · 19/05/2026
the "Thucydides Trap" shows how bad history can succeed if it serves a purpose
hegemon.substack.com
China's Favorite American Idea
the
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Joe Hardy @joe.hardy.id.au · 15/05/2026
I was interviewed in the SMH today alongside some other legends about gig guides
smh.com.au
Think there’s nothing on in Sydney? These Sydneysiders will change your mind
Community-led gig guides are booming in popularity, so the Herald went to three gigs with guide operators to see why they’re a growing new front.
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