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Robinson Meyer

@robinsonmeyer.bsky.social

43K followers 1.1K following 2.8K posts

Founding executive editor of Heatmap News. Contributing Opinion writer for The New York Times. Cohost of the Shift Key podcast. 📍NYC

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Robinson Meyer @robinsonmeyer.bsky.social · 3d

NEW SHIFT KEY

What China’s New Climate Pledge Says About Its Power Grid

We chat with @michaeldavidson.bsky.social about China’s new Paris Agreement pledge — and the policies + factions that have made its grid run on coal *and* solar. I learned a lot in this one.
heatmap.news/podcast/shif...

How China’s Power Grid Really Works

Rob and Jesse break down China’s electricity generation with UC San Diego’s Michael Davidson.

heatmap.news

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Reposted by Robinson Meyer

NPV10 @npv10.bsky.social · 1d

significant parts of USG run on salesforce; he is exposed more than most

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Robinson Meyer @robinsonmeyer.bsky.social · 1d

One big question is whether the antitrust wing of the party gets blamed for this, cements its position because of this, or both.

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Robinson Meyer @robinsonmeyer.bsky.social · 1d

If Benioff is MAGA now that’s a huge signal that the Silicon Valley big money donor base is basically gone for Dems (it’s a signal of other things, too, obviously)

www.nytimes.com/2025/10/10/u...

Marc Benioff Says Trump Should Send Guard Troops to San Francisco

www.nytimes.com

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jael holzman @jael.bsky.social · 1d

the republican governor of utah spencer cox cites my story about esmeralda 7’s apparent cancelation to criticize the trump administration:

“this is how we lose the AI/energy arms race with china”

Spencer Cox: This is how we lose the AI/energy arms race with China. Our country needs an all-of-the-above approach to energy (like Utah). We should be all in on nuclear/natural gas/geothermal and keeping our coal plants open for as long as possible. However, there are innovation/permitting/supply chain issues slowing those down. While intermittent sources have been overvalued in the past (and offshore wind is a disaster and should be discontinued), the incredible leaps in battery technology completely change the value proposition of solar in the right places. Solar with batteries can now be close to baseload power and we should keep these projects rolling until we get the gas/nuclear/geothermal plants we need.

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Robinson Meyer @robinsonmeyer.bsky.social · 1d

Honestly also a pretty good approach to using social media.

Conor Sen @conorsen.bsky.social · 1d

If you're under 50 you have 30+ years to make up for whatever might go badly over the next few years, but if you get too brain-damaged in a bust that time won't help you.

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Robinson Meyer @robinsonmeyer.bsky.social · 1d

[loudly shuffles papers, drops them all over the floor]

Robinson Meyer @robinsonmeyer.bsky.social · 1d

thanks so much for reading and for assigning us! and thanks to your library for subscribing!

Reposted by Robinson Meyer

John Voelcker @johnvoelcker.bsky.social · 1d

"GM would not clarify what it meant by limited run during a call with news media on Oct. 9. GM plans to start shipping Bolts to dealerships in January."

Many reporters asked what that means. We all got: "We'll tell you later."

Most baffling new-car reveal in some time, this one, #EV or otherwise.

Originally marketed as a sport-utility vehicle, the Bolt EV debuted in 2016 and quickly set sales records.

www.freep.com

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Robinson Meyer @robinsonmeyer.bsky.social · 1d

Things we love to hear:

Salil @salilb.bsky.social · 1d

hell yeah, my college just got institutional access to @heatmap.news (and my syllabi for my next US state/local energy policy class is going to be lit.)

Reposted by Robinson Meyer

jael holzman @jael.bsky.social · 2d

SCOOP: The Bureau of Land Management says the largest solar project in Nevada — the Esmeralda 7 mega-farm — has been canceled

The news was quietly dropped via a sudden website update with no public word from any of the companies involved or a statement from the agency

@heatmap.news

Esmeralda 7 Solar Project Has Been Canceled, BLM Says

It would have delivered a gargantuan 6.2 gigawatts of power.

heatmap.news

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Robinson Meyer @robinsonmeyer.bsky.social · 2d

Feeling vindicated in my “you don’t actually want a bye, byes are terrible” belief

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Robinson Meyer @robinsonmeyer.bsky.social · 2d

The thing is that despite the error the bullpen did its job. Strahm, Lazardo, Sanchez kept giving the offense a chance. And they could never make something happen.

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Robinson Meyer @robinsonmeyer.bsky.social · 2d

Arguably my most lasting contribution to the global public. For years and years, this post would creep onto The Atlantic’s ”most popular” page when the news was slow.

Nat Bullard @nathanielbullard.com · 2d

Once every 18 months or so I end up re-surfacing this article for reasons, and then laughing when I realize that @robinsonmeyer.bsky.social is the author www.theatlantic.com/technology/a...

The Best Way to Type ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Every time you shrug, you don’t need to Google, then copy, then paste.

www.theatlantic.com

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Reposted by Robinson Meyer

Ben Monreal @benmonreal.bsky.social · 2d

In the 1950s, National Geographic wanted Kodachrome nature photography that really popped in print. One trick was to put foreground subjects (hikers, etc.) in bright colors; it was called the "red shirt school". Dick Lasher's Pinto makes this the greatest red shirt school photo of all time.

Mount St. Helens in 1980 @mountsthelens1980.bsky.social · 3d

Tomorrow, we will talk about this photo.

A red Ford Pinto hatchback angles across a narrow gravel forest service road, a blue enduro motorcycle on a rear hitch carrier. Tall firs frame the view. Beyond them, a towering ash cloud from a pyroclastic density flow billows skyward. Photo by Richard Kent Lasher, May 18, 1980.

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Robinson Meyer @robinsonmeyer.bsky.social · 2d

This is grueling. I am being grueled.

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Robinson Meyer @robinsonmeyer.bsky.social · 2d

I was just thinking about it as I used the McDonald’s app

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Robinson Meyer @robinsonmeyer.bsky.social · 2d

CASTY

Robinson Meyer @robinsonmeyer.bsky.social · 2d

For a while it felt like “gamification” was this vacuous buzzword that companies would talk about because investors wanted to hear it. That lasted for about eight years. Then one day gamification had won and our whole mass culture was downstream of the gamification feature kit.

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Robinson Meyer @robinsonmeyer.bsky.social · 2d

The AI boom is driving a new buildout of natural gas power plants — but they’re going up off grid, with new pipelines running straight to cheap, low-tech and inefficient turbines: heatmap.news/energy/natur...

Data Centers Have Solved Their Speed-to-Power Problem — With Natural Gas

“Old economy” companies like Caterpillar and Williams are cashing in by selling smaller, less-efficient turbines to impatient developers.

heatmap.news

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Reposted by Robinson Meyer

Conor Sen @conorsen.bsky.social · 2d

Congressional Dems say (or at least are posturing) that they’re willing to hold out for weeks: www.cnn.com/2025/10/09/p...

Democrats say even missed paychecks for US troops won’t be enough to end shutdown alone | CNN Politics

Congressional Democrats are privately preparing to hold their position in the shutdown standoff for several more weeks if Republicans do not agree to their health care demands – and not even a missed ...

www.cnn.com

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Conor Sen @conorsen.bsky.social · 2d

Bluesky (who didn’t think Schumer had it in him) and the DC guys (who assumed a quick Dem fold and/or Dems would lose while getting nothing) have both been wrong too. Life, man, life!

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Robinson Meyer @robinsonmeyer.bsky.social · 2d

Ubisoft: I will not forgive. I will not forget. And I *will* buy this video game when you revive it in 2029 www.gamefile.news/p/scoop-ubis...

The new game would have brought the history-spanning series to one of its most modern settings: The American Civil War and, moreso, the Reconstruction period that followed in the 1860s and 1870s.

In this Reconstruction-era Assassin’s Creed, gamers would play as a Black man who had been formerly enslaved in the South and moved west to start a new life. Recruited by the series’ Assassins, he would return to the South to fight for justice in a conflict that would, among other things, see him confront the emergence of the Ku Klux Klan.

That’s according to interviews with five current and former Ubisoft employees who spoke to Game File on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak about the project. (Ubisoft did not respond to a request for comment for this story.)

The people were enthusiastic about the game but were also frustrated by its cancellation, which they perceived as Ubisoft bowing to controversy.

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Zac Estrada @zacestrada.com · 2d

Pretty much everything we've already heard about the 2027 Chevy Bolt is now official by GM: under $30k, ~150kW charging speed, NACS, V2H capability, optional SuperCruise, Angry Birds and HBO Max capable

THEY estimate 255 miles of range and on sale Q1 2026 news.gm.com/home.detail....

It’s back: Introducing the 2027 Chevrolet Bolt

news.gm.com

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Catherine Rampell @crampell.bsky.social · 2d

Oh no, my second-favorite store is closing :((( gothamist.com/news/rei-shu...

REI shutting down SoHo store, its only NYC location

The company's Paramus location is also closing.

gothamist.com

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Robinson Meyer @robinsonmeyer.bsky.social · 2d

from @jeremywallace.bsky.social’s new essay at @heatmap.news, on China’s new UN climate pledge: heatmap.news/ideas/china-...

The new pledge — known in UN jargon as a nationally determined contribution, or NDC — reveals a disconnect between the government’s official position and the optimistic discourse that now surrounds China’s clean energy sector. China today is described as the world’s first electrostate; it stands at the vanguard of the solar and EV revolution, some say, ready to remake the world order against a coalition of petrostate dinosaurs.

The NDC makes it obvious that the Chinese government does not yet view itself in such a fashion. China might look like an adult, but it more closely resembles a gangly teenager who is still getting used to their body after a growth spurt. As the analyst Kingsmill Bond recently put it on Heatmap’s podcast Shift Key, Chinese clean tech manufacturers have unlocked a cleaner and cheaper path to economic development. It isn’t yet clear that China is brave enough to commit to it. If China is the adult in the room, in other words, we’re screwed.

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