Rob Carlson

Now everyone is singing a “let’s go victory!” sort of thing in Afar or Ahmaric that I can’t understand, which is icing on the cake.

I’m not the biggest American football fan, and I am watching the #Superbowl in a neighborhood Ethiopian restaurant in Seattle.

All the immigrants, 1st, 2nd and 3rd gen fans in the place are wearing #Seahawks kit and are going nuts. Best FU to the orange turd I can think of.

“So on solar, we are seeing no change, if anything, an acceleration, and we’re trying to pull projects forward as fast as possible. On wind, onshore wind, there has been some slowdown in permitting from the federal government, but projects are still getting done.”
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Battery prices plunge 60 pct in two years, changing face of grid and the nature of contracts Battery storage major says costs have fallen 60 pct in two years, helping redefine the grid and customer needs, and along with solar is cheapest and easiest to build.

CEO of Brookfield Renewable Partners says there is “no slowdown” in the deployment of solar and battery storage in the US. "We are seeing an acceleration. And this is driven by solar...it is quick to deploy, it’s cheap, it’s the lowest cost form of production."
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reneweconomy.com.au/battery-pric...

The GOP’s new Voter Suppression bill, the so-called “SAVE Act,” would disenfranchise many of the 69 million women who took their husbands’ last names, as explained in my summary.

It proposes *no penalties* for erroneous voter purges but potential *prison time* for erroneous registrations. WTF?! 1/

Related:

#CAISO now regularly exports electricity during daylight hours. Net electricity imports have fallen ~60% over the last 5 years. h/t @gridstatus.io
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blog.gridstatus.io/caiso-solar-...

"VCs like to envision the future in a science fiction-y way."

Um, *this* VC likes to envision the future in a science-y way.

Imagining, and investing in, fiction-y things is a great way to lose money.

(Not that science-y things can't lose money. Ahem.)

US Companies Announced Most Job Cuts for Any January Since 2009 US companies announced the largest number of job cuts for any January since the depths of the Great Recession in 2009, according to data from outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas Inc.

So much winning.

US Companies Announced Most Job Cuts for Any January Since 2009
www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

On 1 February 2026, batteries in CAISO never reached zero discharge rate while the sun was down, displacing gas and imports in California and supplying renewable electricity all night long.
#energysky
www.caiso.com/todays-outlo...

Musk Predicts SpaceX Will Launch More AI Compute Per Year Than the Cumulative Total on Earth - Slashdot Elon Musk told podcast host Dwarkesh Patel and Stripe co-founder John Collison that space will become the most economically compelling location for AI data centers in less than 36 months, a prediction...

Here he is predicting "SpaceX will launch and operate more AI compute annually than the cumulative total on Earth [requiring] 10K Starship launches per year... possibly 30K."

10K/yr is ~30/day; >1/hr. Even with 2 launch sites, this seems logistically optimistic.
science.slashdot.org/story/26/02/...

Fuller story from @economist.com
www.economist.com/business/202...

Musk Predicts SpaceX Will Launch More AI Compute Per Year Than the Cumulative Total on Earth - Slashdot Elon Musk told podcast host Dwarkesh Patel and Stripe co-founder John Collison that space will become the most economically compelling location for AI data centers in less than 36 months, a prediction...

Here he is predicting "SpaceX will launch and operate more AI compute annually than the cumulative total on Earth [requiring] 10K Starship launches per year... possibly 30K."

10K/yr is ~30/day; >1/hr. Even with 2 launch sites, this seems logistically optimistic.
science.slashdot.org/story/26/02/...

A chance to learn from the best in the business.

That‘s the spirit.

So much this.
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More thoughtful reporting on data centers in space.

But there is a physics problem that all these companies have to solve (next posts).

It would make way more sense to build data centers on Luna b/c then you can use the moon as a heat sink.

(H/t @eaterofsun.bsky.social)
bsky.app/profile/lore...

Or you could go the other way, and for a fixed size of radiator on orbit you could improve processor efficiency by plugging in new 20ft TEUs (based on image above).

But now your thermal budget limits your competitiveness.

Again, seems better to go straight to Luna (or another large heat sink).

The size of a data center in earth orbit with N processors scales roughly as N^(1/3), but the size (and thus mass) of the radiator scales as N (maybe faster).

As you double N, the radiator becomes an increasingly difficult (i.e. expensive) launch and operational problem compared to the processors.

Good thread.

My first thought about the merger rumors was that he had realized that at least one of the companies was not economically viable, while simultaneously its survival was necessary for his story, his ego, and maintaining his loans against equity in Tesla.

bsky.app/profile/robc...

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Winter Olympics Faces New Climate Reality Unpredictable conditions are limiting where it’s physically and financially possible to host the Winter Olympics.

What happens when the Winter Olympics can't rely on winter?

For one, all the cities that staged the Winter Games since 1950 have heated up in the years since by an average of 2.7C.

Read the full story w @hayleywarren.bsky.social via @bloomberg.com for FREE

www.bloomberg.com/graphics/202...

Tempting.

@ember-energy.org ???

So, #energysky peeps: is there a CAISO version of this plot? CAISO must have equivalent (or better) data. Presumably it would show that 1) wholesale prices in CA peak in the shoulder hours when they burn gas and import electricity, and 2) batteries are lowering prices?
@mzjacobson.bsky.social?

Chapter 2: Early signs of the impact of batteries.

Excellent. Very well done.

"Batteries started to compete with gas power in 2025"

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So, #energysky peeps: is there a CAISO version of this plot? CAISO must have equivalent (or better) data. Presumably it would show that 1) wholesale prices in CA peak in the shoulder hours when they burn gas and import electricity, and 2) batteries are lowering prices?
@mzjacobson.bsky.social?

On 1 February 2026, batteries in CAISO never reached zero discharge rate while the sun was down, displacing gas and imports in California and supplying renewable electricity all night long.
#energysky
www.caiso.com/todays-outlo...

‘BESS installations across EU Member States 45% year-on-year growth…12 years of growth…23% growth in 2024…first year in which utility-scale BESS installations outpaced distributed residential battery adoption…15 GWh utility scale deployed, 55% of capacity’

www.energy-storage.news/european-uni...

So many batteries coming to India…