Emily Grubert

ah fair enough without the decarb constraint.

are you in MISO? we're PJM up here and i'm actually curious what that looks like differentially -- given the massive data center entry

I went on NPR this weekend to talk about Trump's suggestion that tech companies build their own power plants to power AI data centers. I had just published a 12,000 word report on the topic, so it was hard to distill everything into a 4 minute segment. The "bring your own capacity" (BYOC) idea that Trump mentioned in his State of the Union speech isn't a new one. It's been discussed at virtually every utility commission over the last year. In the broadest terms, BYOC is good policy. The US hasn't been expanding its power grid for the last 10-20 years because electricity demand has been flat. Now data centers are changing the equation triggering huge demand increases. The question is who should pay for the new transmission lines and power generation capacity. Virtually everyone—including many tech companies—agree data centers should foot the bill, not everyday utility bill payers. But electricity policy is complex. There's a federal regulator (FERC), 50 different state regulators, and grid operators that span multiple states. One version of this policy that's become popular is to force data centers off the grid entirely. The idea is tempting, if anything for its simplicity. But it would have some negative consequences. Consider OpenAI's Stargate project in New Mexico. The 2 GW data center will run on its own "microgrid" powered by inefficient gas turbines. That means it will be powered by 100% fossil fuels, which results in far more pollution than a power grid, which can make use of nuclear, hydro, solar, wind, etc. This Stargate project will emit 14 million tons of CO2 per year, according to permit documents we found at Cleanview for our latest report. To put that number in perspective: New Mexico has spent 20 years decarbonizing its economy and in that time has cut emissions by 14 million tons. So in this case "build your own power plant" means wiping out 20 years of climate progress—in a location with more land and solar potential than nearly anywh…

Hhhoollly moly. 14 MTCO2-e for OpenAI's fossil-fuelled Stargate data centre

As @michael-thomas.bsky.social says: "wiping out 20 years of climate progress—in a location with more land and solar potential than nearly anywhere on Earth"

!!!!

www.linkedin.com/posts/michae...

this is such a hard message. I feel like I want to do a little more work on "but it prevents us from cutting your ngas and gasoline bills by a lot, even if it makes power a little more expensive with all the new poles and wires"

checking in from $18 to drive my car 900 miles last month...

Knowing who to be mad at is part of the work. Always.

a four-panel stick-figure cartoon panel one: three standing figures. from left to right, a guy wearing a necktie looking at his phone, an angry MAGA guy yelling FUCK YOUR FUCKIN POST FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU, and a rando just standing there like an NPC. panel two: the guy looking at his phone shows MAGA guy his hand, causing MAGA to vanish. the word Block hangs in the air where fuckface once was. a green-bordered in-game message appears, reading "+2 Mental Health." now the rando is suddenly interested. panel three: as our man continues doom-scrolling, a sly grin on his face, the rando on the right puts on a punch-me face and snarls: "Typical lefty, blocking everyone who disagrees with-" panel four phone guy shows the hand to punch-me face, causing the rando to vanish. the word Block hangs in the air where that dickhead was. a green-bordered in-game message appears again, reading "+2 Mental Health."

There's something deeply obscene and broken about the fact that Donald Trump and Pete Hegseth are bombing elementary schools in an illegal war of aggression, and there's still a sense among the opposition that it has to be explained in terms of gas prices in order to get American voters to care.

I know Rich knows this but omg. I cannot believe we're still having to have this conversation, roughly 15 years after the entire life cycle assessment community lost its mind about the fact that biofuels often are worse than what they replace -- and not just on climate.

thank you!

The Resilient Energy Economies Initiative Announces Six Research Grants to Support Fossil Fuel–Dependent Communities The projects will use a variety of methods to explore timely issues in fossil-dependent regions across the country.

Amidst real tragedies, I'm so glad to have been able to send some folks good news this week -- announcing $450k in funding for 6 projects researching transition in fossil fuel host communities through the Resilient Energy Economies Initiative. I'm so excited about this work to make transition better

I need this so bad

a t-shirt that shows a line worker and says NATIONALIZE in maroon text

it's a really good t-shirt

ya -- important aspect for sure

BUT WHERE WOULD WE PUT THE STREETCARS

A streetcar rail and street paving bricks are visible alongside a bus lane on asphalt street in two potholes

some good streetcar rail action in the potholes today

Thank you! I'm kind of obsessed with the idea that that last producer might be the low volume, expensive marginal cost one (because low volume becomes more important than cost) -- but we're trying to get some meat on this in very concrete settings

Thank you!

I dont want to use my one precious life to talk to the ai in my air fryer

The fate of fossil fuel systems in the "mid-transition" I talk with Emily Grubert about the hidden dangers of letting the free market manage the decline of our legacy energy infrastructure.

thanks to @volts.wtf for having me on to talk about coordinating and planning fossil phase out to build a better and actually decarbonized world. there‘s a lot we can do if we imagine a people-centered, service oriented future — and a LOT we miss if we don’t.

It must change because the real-world is ripe for fossil fuel industries to exploit a very real fear Americans have - based on our past history! - about societal abandonment. They talked about many good cases of this. Fossil fuel companies exploit this fear, and have limitless resources to do so.

Most of the direction for climate has come from modelers who, on average, are not dealing in the real world where forecasts of prices and flows of physical goods meet the actual physical systems carrying them meet the real world and real people who live around those systems. This should change.

danny it is your fault I am the way I am

You are far, far too kind 🙏

No shit tho I actually was just thinking a few days ago I could use your advice on something (spoiler: generating equipment inventories from satellite images) — will bug you at some point if you’re down?

Minimum viable scale lol

(No but really)

(Some folks think if this happens it might never come back)

(Lake Mead too)

FOR EXAMPLE

see also: basically no one treats state law as law

I think also sometimes too much physical science! Not that we don’t need any but I think we overcommit on “can we estimate cloud cover scenarios in 2050” vs “do we think it would be useful to have a risk factor for someone blowing up a pipeline“ sometimes

IMO it’s a decision support tool that needs to be informed by science but a lot of what’s out there is maybe informed primarily by the wrong disciplines of science to be useful for what it’s used for

Omg this has been my rant about capacity expansion papers since ca. 2019, yes

Episode 27: Managing the Decline of Fossil Fuels with Emily Grubert and Joshua Lappen Podcast Episode · The Rift · 02/15/2026 · 55m

the recording of today's episode of THE RIFT is now online, in which @gruberte.bsky.social and @jlappen1.bsky.social deliver a fascinating conversation on their new paper, what getting off of fossil fuels actually entails, and the hard work of energy transition: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/e...

In any case I’d rather see the prioritization done separately from making individuals opt in to incentives, especially bc poorer people respond more to incentives and are likely taking higher risks. But understand you might view my view of regulatory solutions as a form of DSM!