Kristina Costa

Yesterday Real World: Boston cast member / acting NASA head Sean Duffy said he wants to build a nuclear plant... on the moon.

Vogtle cost $30B without having to escape Earth's gravity.

Average cost of a resi system that can bring your grandma's power bill to zero = $15-$25k

Make it make sense.

The remarkable work EPA regulations have achieved over 50 years to improve air quality and public health in the U.S. being steadily undone by climate-fueled wildfire disasters both here and in Canada.

Under Siege From Trump and Musk, a Top Liberal Group Falls Into Crisis

Between Musk & the Trump administration, Media Matters has been squeezed to the brink. In settlement discussions, lawyers for X demanded the organization hand over all its cash and shut down — all because MM reported ads appeared on X next to antisemitic content. www.nytimes.com/2025/07/25/u...

The other Kristina Costa is a seemingly very rad baker in San Francisco and every so often I think I probably owe her an apology.

Going to staple this to the forehead of every Wall Street type who keeps claiming without evidence that this administration is interested in pursuing serious permitting reform. This is an unprecedented and unnecessary amount of new bureaucracy, all to raise transaction costs on disfavored sectors.

Major questions doctrine for thee but not for me

On July 5, as floodwaters were starting to recede, FEMA received 3,027 calls from disaster survivors and answered 3,018, or roughly 99.7 percent, the documents show. Contractors with four call center companies answered the vast majority of the calls. That evening, however, Ms. Noem did not renew the contracts with the four companies and hundreds of contractors were fired, according to the documents and the person briefed on the matter. The next day, July 6, FEMA received 2,363 calls and answered 846, or roughly 35.8 percent, according to the documents. And on Monday, July 7, the agency fielded 16,419 calls and answered 2,613, or around 15.9 percent, the documents sho

www.nytimes.com/2025/07/11/c...

A heat wave hit New England's grid. Clean energy saved the day. On the hottest day this year, behind-the-meter solar panels and a growing network of batteries helped prevent blackouts and saved consumers millions of…

As temperatures soared in New England, solar panels and batteries kept ACs flowing — and may have saved customers millions of dollars.

At least we're also going to crater investment in domestic clean energy generation and manufacturing at the same time.

Particularly since we also had to do the actual work.

Most IRA programs did not involve the Biden administration choosing projects. They were incentives to the private sector, who made their own siting and investment decisions. The bet that Republicans would not want to kill jobs in their own districts was as much, if not more, a strategy of industry.

Alligator Alcatraz opened Tuesday ready for a hurricane – but not a summer shower Alligator Alcatraz opened Tuesday without a water view. Then it rained.

Great work by my Miami Herald friends.

www.miamiherald.com/news/local/i...

The GOP Tax Bill Will Destabilize Tomorrow's Power Grid The intensified attack on wind and solar power threatens capacity at a time when AI demand for electricity is surging.

“For a country supposedly locked in an existential competition with China, it is bizarre to eviscerate the fastest growing source of energy supposedly to save money while simultaneously providing tax breaks to, of all things, metallurgical coal miners.”
www.bloomberg.com/opinion/arti...

I’m old enough to remember when the “Cornhusker Kickback” was a weekslong scandal. Now it’s just regular order, apparently.

The Megabill’s Most Bizarre Fossil Fuel Handout A new subsidy for metallurgical coal won’t help Trump’s energy dominance agenda, but it would help India and China.

"In other words, cheaper metallurgical coal would do nothing for American energy dominance, but it would help other countries pump up their production of steel, which would then compete with American producers," writes @zeitlin.bsky.social: heatmap.news/politics/meg... 🔌💡

The bill being debated in the Senate now is poised to make these trends even worse and further entrench PRC dominance in the 21st century energy solutions the rest of the world is increasingly demanding. The US is going to be left in the past when we could be leading the future.

Wrote a thing (with @jakehigdon.com). Congress is killing IRA tax credits in an effort to look "tough on China." But the effect will be the exact opposite.

GOP tax bill draws flak on energy provisions from some onetime allies The GOP’s massive tax and immigration measure slashes federal funding on renewables and clean energy initiatives just as U.S. energy demand soars

We’ve got this surging energy demand. Our ability to deploy more stuff that’s not wind, solar and storage is supply-chain-limited. And what Congress wants to do is make it significantly more expensive to build out the stuff we can build

www.washingtonpost.com/climate-envi...

The Senate bill raises the deficit by more than $3 trillion to give tax cuts to the richest people in America. The idea that the difference between slashing $400 billion & $500 billion in job-creating clean energy incentives creates sincere concerns for “Republican fiscal hawks” is beyond laughable.

Economic Impacts of U.S. Senate “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” Energy Provisions • Energy Innovation The Senate's "One Big Beautiful Bill Act" will cost America 300GW of new power, $960 billion in GDP, and 770,000 lost jobs.

🚨New Report🚨
🔌💡 The U.S. Senate's “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” #Energy Provisions, will cost America 300GW of new power, $960 billion in GDP, and 770,000 lost jobs.
Check out the other economic impacts of the bill 👇
energyinnovation.org/report/econo...
#greensky #energysky

“There isn’t going to be a gas fired generator any time soon,” Tillis said. “You can’t get that online and the same time that [renewable] pipeline’s going down.”

First time GOP opposition over this made public in Senate debate on the reconciliation bill.

Senate GOP tax bill includes largest cut to U.S. safety net in decades The Senate Republican tax bill speeding to passage includes the biggest reduction of funding for the federal safety net since at least the 1990s.

www.washingtonpost.com/business/202...

The bazooka aimed at wind and solar will massively decrease investment in fastest-to-build sources of new electricity at a time of massive load growth. Anyone who thinks nuclear or geothermal or even natural gas can fill the gap is delusional.

See how your energy prices could change if the GOP passes Trump’s tax bill | CNN Republicans’ tax bill would increase Americans’ energy and transportation costs in every state in the continental US.

Multiple studies have focused on the impact of fewer new capacity additions on power prices — again, all before the new excise tax. Spoiler, it’s all bad. Energy Innovation has the best state by state analysis combining electricity price increases with fuel price impacts: www.cnn.com/2025/06/27/c...

Ways and Means Brings the Hammer Down on Energy Credits The House Ways and Means Committee issued its proposed language for inclusion in Congress’s massive budget reconciliation package. It’s the opening attempt to reduce spending in order to partially…

Previous analysis from the Rhodium Group found a mid-range scenario with 600 GW less new electricity added to the grid over the next 10 years. That didn’t include impacts of the new excise tax though. rhg.com/research/way...

The Senate bill would kick 11.8 million people off their health insurance by cutting health coverage over $1 trillion

Everyone acting as though Jesse is unfamiliar with the oil lobby should take some deep knee bends. Finance text was deeply flawed but signs were that there may be room to improve. Then Trump got personally involved, seemingly bc the Speaker can’t manage the Freedom Caucus, and it all went to shit.

Whether you’re paying for utility scale clean energy through direct dollars or tax incentives is not going to make a meaningful difference in where it is sited. And without massive amounts of utility scale clean energy, you aren’t decarbonizing anything.

Most IRA projects were not selected by the federal government. They were incentives for private investment. (Which btw overperformed relative to pre-passage estimates.) Developing utility scale energy projects frequently requires land. Rural areas with lots of land have been Republican for decades.

NABTU bringing the 🔥 on how devastating new Senate bill would be:

“This stands to be the biggest job-killing bill in the history of the country.”

Union job losses “equivalent of terminating over 1,000 Keystone XL”s

1.75 million construction jobs, 3 BILLION work hours in clean energy kaput