Tony Dutzik

29% of people trading in a car owe more on it than it’s worth.

That which is unsustainable won’t be sustained.

Overbudget by design: Supersizing highways puts public dollars at risk State DOTs regularly choose “supersized” highway expansion projects when smaller, simpler projects could achieve the lion’s share of the benefits. Why?

ICYMI: A version of my recent remarks to the Oregon Joint Committee on Transportation Oversight on the risks of overbuilding highway infrastructure. frontiergroup.org/articles/ove...

Big news in NJ. I hope Mass., OR/WA and other states proposing expensive super-sized bridge and highway replacements take note. www.nj.com/news/2026/03...

ICE vehicles are a mature technology. EVs and batteries are not. Perhaps Ford or GM crack the code, but nothing in the last 30 years provides any confidence that that is a likely outcome.

Automakers’ Dilemma: Invest in New Tech or Stick to Gas Cars?

Can we acknowledge that this is no longer a "dilemma." The decision has been made. With the rug pulled on the domestic EV market, there's little chance for U.S. legacy automakers to scale, innovate and learn-by-doing. And dealers will continue to be an albatross. www.nytimes.com/2026/03/03/b...

Carbon dioxide overload, detected in human blood, suggests a potentially toxic atmosphere within 50 years - Air Quality, Atmosphere & Health Air Quality, Atmosphere & Health - Anthropogenic activities are increasing the amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere. There is mounting experimental evidence that lifetime exposure...

You are what you breathe. link.springer.com/article/10.1...

@nrdc.org completed this excellent analysis of how power plant emissions increased in 2025, paying special attention to coal-fired power plants to sought 2-year exemptions from pollution rules.

I decided to recreate and look a bit further into the data.

One of the biggest blindspots of Abundance-types - evident in debates around data centers as well - is the assumption that "we'll be greeted as liberators" when the topic is massive, potentially disruptive industrial development in exurban/rural areas. Sometimes yes, but not always ...

The possibility that some folks would (a) recognize a project, (b) attribute it to Biden, and (c) *view that neutrally or negatively* is just not contemplated. I don't *know* that that was the case with IRA-driven investments, but to not admit it as a possibility is a failure of imagination.

Wild implicit assumption here that a) recognizing a clean energy project in your community, and b) attributing reponsibility to it for specific politicians automatically translates into more support for clean energy. www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Saving energy, money and lives: How energy efficiency has changed America's homes Discover how energy efficiency saves energy, money and lives today.

Despite this success - and growing strain on the grid - efficiency efforts are under widespread attack. Join me and a panel of experts at 3 p.m. ET today as we unveil our new website and share insights on how you can save energy at home. environmentamerica.org/center/event...

Saving energy, money and lives: How energy efficiency has improved America’s homes America’s homes have changed a great deal over the last few decades. But one change we don’t think about often is actually one of the most important: the efficiency with which our appliances, furnaces...

New from us at @frontiergroup.bsky.social:

Energy efficiency has slowly, quietly transformed American homes: saving energy, saving money and cutting air pollution. Our new data viz shows the impact of efficiency in every room of your home. frontiergroup.org/resources/ho...

It is hard to overstate how much the misdiagnosis of NEPA as the central problem in clean energy development has set back momentum for actual solutions. A coalition-killing distraction.

More interregional transmission could save consumers billions: study However, East Coast generators would see reduced revenue, giving them an incentive to oppose new transmission lines, researchers said.

This explains the solid, powerful opposition of southeast incumbent utilities to reform that allows for more interregional transmission. Rolling back NEPA is a distraction - this is the problem. www.utilitydive.com/news/interre...

Yup.

We need a better conversation about AI than we’ve had, for sure, but in the short run at least clean energy advocacy should get as far away from the blast radius of public opposition to data centers as possible.

And in a year when renewable generation grew sharply. More clean energy is good. It’s not enough to slow climate change.

New forecast from EPRI: data centers will consume 9% to 17% of U.S. electricity by 2030, up from 4% to 5% today. This is a 60% increase from last year's projection. Under existing policies, "incremental [power] supply is dominated by natural gas." powering-intelligence.epri.com

problematic, for sure, but the amount of diesel used for cabin heating would have to be significantly lower than for diesel-hybrid vehicle operation except under the most extreme conditions, no? (I’m sure it’s non-trivial - owning an EV has taught me that much.)

Swell. Can we at least electrify the one specific bus that runs past my house then?

Past the inflection point: electric now clearly dominates the city… Proving heavy vehicles can electrify fast across Europe

>1/2 of new buses in Europe are BEBs. Climates not dissimilar to ours. www.transportenvironment.org/articles/pas...

I hear you on the challenges/limitations of electrification. And on commuter rail likely being a higher priority. But it’s 2026 and poor emission performance in densely populated neighborhoods of our city should be unacceptable.

I’m seeing the plume I witnessed from the 201 bus heading down Adams St this morning … and the ones I periodically (though not always) get blasted in my face as I follow them on the same route.

And yet, the buses in my Boston neighborhood continue to belch out soot when accelerating from a stop.

New year-end electricity data from EIA shows that, despite record-breaking production from solar, net generation from fossil fuels in the U.S. was the highest since 2019 on growth in production from coal-fired power plants.

Successfully demonstrating this would be a tiny silver lining in the data center fiasco. Makes it much more difficult to argue that a renewables-heavy grid can’t work or that the transition needs to wait for some x-factor “breakthrough.”

Stop saying "the clean energy revolution is inevitable" A little rant on a pet peeve.

I maintain one of the most toxic attitudes in climate is the idea that the future is inevitable or unchangeable, but too few realise this applies to stuff like "the energy transition is inevitable"

V good @emorwee.bsky.social post here from a few months back ->>>>>

I have heard over and over that wind power happens at night, so it complements solar production. I pulled up the CAISO 2025 data and sure enough, hourly output is 50% higher at night than in the day. (annual totals, may differ by season)

JD Power: "Overall satisfaction among current battery electric vehicle owners is at its highest level since the study’s inception in 2021. Notably, nearly all owners of new BEVs (96%) say they would consider purchasing or leasing another BEV for their next vehicle." www.jdpower.com/business/pre...

Perhaps. Though under current leadership, wouldn't that be a disaster? If a federal authority is constrained by what's tolerable to the southeastern vertically integrated IOUs, I'm not sure that's a solution to anything.

POLITICO Pro: Utilities lobbying to kill Manchin permitting bill The companies object to provisions that would expand the federal government's role in approving interstate power lines while limiting the authority of states, according to a person familiar with the e...

It remains totally underappreciated that it was vertically integrated utilities - not enviros - who drove the stake through the heart of "permitting reform" in the last two Congresses. (Mercifully, it turns out, but still.) subscriber.politicopro.com/article/2022...