Dr. Melissa Lott

Thanks to everyone who reached out to ask about my next professional chapter in response to today’s article

Update: I’m heading west and will be publicly sharing details on my new role just before Halloween
🎃 🤐

www.ft.com/content/b2a3...

Melissa C. Lott, PhD on LinkedIn: ❗❗ 📰 Transitions and Exciting Professional News 📰 ❗❗ The past 5 years… | 51 comments ❗❗ 📰 Transitions and Exciting Professional News 📰 ❗❗ The past 5 years Columbia University have been transformational for me, full of impact and major… | 51 comments on LinkedIn

🚨 Professional News 🚨

Friday marked my last day at Columbia University. The past 5 years have been transformational for me, full of impact & major milestones.

Reflections on the past 5 years + a preview of my next professional chapter 👇

www.linkedin.com/posts/meliss...

Soaring Sales for Heat Pump Water Heaters in 2023. Let the Party Begin! - CleanTechnica Sign up for daily news updates from CleanTechnica on email. Or follow us on Google News! Heat pump water heater sales saw their largest increase ever in 2023, according to the latest data released by ...

Sales of heat pump water heaters surged in 2023 in the USA (hello Inflation Reduction Act??), and gas heaters continue to lose market share
cleantechnica.com/2024/09/24/s...
🔌💡

The Hardest Working $27 Billion in the IRA Inside season 2, episode 7 of Shift Key.

🚨 New SHIFT KEY episode just dropped 🚨

This week, @robinsonmeyer.bsky.social and @jessejenkins.bsky.social bring you a user’s guide to new green banks, with help from the EPA's Jahi Wise and Elemental Impact's Dawn Lippert.

Listen below, or wherever you get your podcasts.

US solar manufacturing capacity has quadrupled thanks to climate law The Inflation Reduction Act has sparked a boom in domestic solar panel manufacturing, though the U.S. still depends on China for certain steps of the supply chain.

"The U.S. solar manufacturing boom could be big enough to allow the country to soon become a net exporter of solar panels for the first time in decades." www.canarymedia.com/articles/sol... via Eric Wesoff

YouTube video by NOVA PBS Official "Chasing Carbon Zero" Extended Interview with Melissa Lott - NOVA | PBS

Just discovered these extended clips from Chasing Carbon Zero on PBS NOVA. Fun memories recording this with Miles O’Brien and the whole NOVA team + our team at Columbia including Natalie Volk and Jen Wu.

#netzero #energytransition

youtu.be/x-oFuAgnzkk?...

US EIA: Combined US sales of hybrid vehicles, plug-in hybrid electric vehicles, and battery electric vehicles increased from 17.8% of total new light-duty vehicle sales in 1Q 2024 to 18.7% in 2Q 2024, according to estimates from Wards Intelligence: www.eia.gov/todayinenerg...

Carrots, sticks or both: State efforts to combat anti-renewables NIMBYs In pursuit of zero-emissions electricity goals and tax windfalls from utility-scale renewables, states are taking a range of approaches to disarm opponents.

Good deep dive into the state of local permitting barriers and what states can do to address them 🔌💡: www.utilitydive.com/news/states-...

Some nice copy here …apparently California now has batteries roughly equivalent to 5 Diablo Canyons (in capacity, not run time…)

New York City Tenants Are Entitled to Heat. What About Air-Conditioning? Landlords have to keep tenants warm in the winter, but can leave them sweating in the summer. A city councilman wants to change that.

“The increasing number of days with above-average temperatures means that the lack of air-conditioning can be a matter of life and death,” said Sheila Foster, a professor at the Columbia Climate School.

www.nytimes.com/2024/07/17/n...

Managing the July 2024 heat wave with our partners in California and the West | California ISO Extreme weather like the extended heat wave California and much of the West have experienced this July can pose a reliability challenge for even the most resilient electric grid. Such prolonged heat e...

California ISO on managing this month's heat wave: "California’s power grid held up against prolonged record temperatures because of new clean energy resources, more battery storage, and enhanced coordination with state government." www.caiso.com/about/news/m... h/t Wes Venteicher

“Human bodies tend to use sleep time to lower temperatures and recover from a brutally hot day; if temperatures don’t drop enough, people sleeping without air conditioning — or, say, people in major cities that didn’t get their power back for a week after a storm — don’t get that chance”

Don’t blame clean energy for rising electric bills A new report links rising U.S. power bills to fossil gas price spikes and utility incentives — not solar, wind, and batteries, as clean energy foes suggest.

The drivers of climbing electricity rates are…

1. spikes in gas prices
2. rising costs to maintain and rebuild grid infrastructure
3. a utility business model that incentivizes big capital investments that customers have to pay off over decades

www.canarymedia.com/articles/uti...

All-new appliances for free? How a new Con Ed program provides them WAKEFIELD, The Bronx (PIX11) — A new program promising brand-new, super-efficient appliances, lower monthly bills, and a smaller carbon footprint has left some utility customers skeptical. Ho…

It can be cheaper for a utility to pay to electrify homes rather than updating gas pipelines that serve those homes. Enjoyed speaking with James Ford at WPIX-New York about why electrification can make a lot of economic sense for utilities like ConEdison

pix11.com/news/local-n...

Well Beyond the U.S., Heat and Climate Extremes Are Hitting Billions People all over the world are facing severe heat, floods and fire, aggravated by the use of fossil fuels. The year isn’t halfway done.

“The damage to human health, agriculture and the global economy is just beginning to be understood.”

www.nytimes.com/2024/06/21/c...

Great (and very interesting) thread by @katharinehayhoe.com 👇

Spoiler: we will talking about what “net zero” and “decarbonization” mean…plus what it will take to solve climate change.

Building Stuff with NOVA Livestream with Dr. Melissa Lott Subscribe to our Twitch channel: https://www.twitch.tv/novabuildingstuff/Tune in to our stream today as our host Dr. Nehemiah Mabry is joined by energy syste...

4 hours and counting… ⏰📺

Excited to go live with Dr. Nee on PBS NOVA today - will be streaming on Twitch and YouTube if you want to join the conversation live!

www.youtube.com/live/hFmAOrA...

A card reads: "Ecuador Hit by Nationwide Blackout. The South American country of 18 million people has struggled with an energy crisis for years — though none of the blackouts have been as widespread as this one."

Ecuador was plunged into a nationwide blackout on Wednesday afternoon, the country’s public work minister said, blaming the emergency on a failure of a key transmission line. www.nytimes.com/2024/06/19/w...

Driving in Tennessee this week — and each of our last 3 Tesla charging stations have increased in size by 2-3x since our August ‘23 trip

Can’t help but wonder how much this region’s history (read: TVA) is influencing the build out @joshdr83.bsky.social

#energytransition #electrification

Really enjoyed diving into these two books with @edcrooks.bsky.social and @josephmajkut.bsky.social on The Energy Gang last week!

Happy listening, y'all!

For those who are also interested in reading Alon's latest --- Island Press just let me know that folks can use code TECH for 20% off

islandpress.org/books/making...

What an awesome start to the week! Just had coffee with Alon Tal. Thanks 🙏 for the great conversation and the copy of your latest book with @IslandPress, Alon! Can’t wait to dive into it 📖 😀 #climatetech #energytransition

How to Unlock Super Cheap Rooftop Solar Inside episode 17 of Shift Key.

How do we make rooftop solar cheap in America? Here, it costs ~$4/watt to install a rooftop PV system, 4X as much as a similar system in Australia today! On today's Shift Key, we talk to Mary Powell, CEO of Sunrun, about how to unlock rooftop solar's full potential. heatmap.news/podcast/shif...

This looks really cool --- and, as the posting says "This is not an academic exercise—we’re looking for proposals with a near term path to implementation such that they could translate into real demand for carbon removal suppliers within the next 3-5 years."

#netzero #speedandscale

But, the number does show me that the work that we do can (and does) directly help leaders make informed decisions....

...And I am cheering each one of y'all on as you work to have huge, positive impact in the world.

#sciencecommunication #sciencediplomacy #sciencepolicy

end 🧵

To my fellow researchers - this number is NOT the only way to measure "impact" or "success". But, it's certainly one potential metric. And one thing to think through when we design our next research project or write our next research paper.

#measuringsuccess #researchimpact

And for me, that is a tremendous piece of evidence of the direct "impact" that the work has had in the world. Impact on the policies that will shape our lives.

Former Columbia University President Bollinger called this "fourth purpose" impact.

fourthpurpose.columbia.edu/content/what....

Nearly 800 times, a piece of policy was directly informed by analysis rooted in the evidence. In the data. In the analysis. And in the insights gained through collaborations with folks across disciplines and borders.

#sciencecommunication #sciencediplomacy #informeddecisionmaking