Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Reposted by Brent Heard

AGU (American Geophysical Union) @agu.org · 15d

📢 Submissions are now open for the U.S. Climate Collection, a joint @theAGU + @ametsoc initiative.

This special collection will publish U.S.-focused climate assessment science that’s free to read, ensuring rigorous, accessible science informs decisions for years to come.

🔗 buff.ly/1tHUSLC

2 22 32

Reposted by Brent Heard

Zeke Hausfather @hausfath.bsky.social · 23d

A new report by the prestigious US National Academy of Sciences concludes that the EPA’s 2009 endangerment finding was accurate, has stood the test of time, and is now reinforced by even stronger evidence:

Effects of Human-Caused Greenhouse Gas Emissions on U.S. Climate, Health, and Welfare | The National Academies Press

Read online, download a free PDF, or order a copy in print.

nap.nationalacademies.org

1 80 170

Reposted by Brent Heard

Climate at the National Academies @climate.nationalacademies.org · 23d

Our new report explores the effects of greenhouse gas emissions on the U.S. health and welfare. Read more: nap.nationalacademies.org/catalog/2923...

2 2

Reposted by Brent Heard

Kelly Hereid @kellyhereid.bsky.social · 23d

If you want to see what a best-in-class climate scientist with a lens on geopolitics and energy can do in the financial sector - read Sarah Kapnick's new report on energy system politics for JP Morgan. A few of my favorite figures below 🧵1/ www.jpmorgan.com/content/dam/...

1 25 91

Reposted by Brent Heard

sylvain gignac @sylvaingignac.bsky.social · 29d

Growing connections of AI/DC have now reached a level of complexity warranting a NERC alert, citing "rapid, major swings in load, experienced both in typical operations as well as in response to grid disturbances.” = more data + modeling needed.
www.nerc.com/pa/rrm/bpsa/...

www.nerc.com

1 2

Reposted by Brent Heard

Sarah Dougherty @sarahdougherty.bsky.social · Sep 9

So many companies do business in CA, this is a big deal, indeed. Investors can’t manage (at least well) what they cannot manage.

Joshua Basseches @joshuabasseches.bsky.social · Sep 9

This is a big deal that California is inching forward on this, despite some delays. Especially since a similar federal measure was scrapped entirely.

California releases draft corporate climate risk disclosure guidelines

Air regulators offered guidance ahead of a climate disclosure law for corporations with at least $500 million in global revenue.

www.eenews.net

4 4

Reposted by Brent Heard

Jesse D. Jenkins @jessedjenkins.com · Sep 6

Two new papers find renewables are good insurance (they stabilize electricity price volatility in welfare improving ways)

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
🔌💡

Power price stability and the insurance value of renewable technologies - Nature Energy

Increasing solar photovoltaic and wind generation capacity beyond European 2030 targets could make electricity prices more stable, with reductions in sensitivity to fluctuations in the price of natura...

www.nature.com

7 140 390

Reposted by Brent Heard

katie brigham @kbrigham.bsky.social · Aug 22

re: cow’s methane-laced burps, viable emissions reduction solutions are scarce. now though, forays into methane destruction - and even atmospheric removal - are gaining traction. i explore one pathway, from Ambient Carbon, here:

How Methane-Zapping Technology Could Finally Solve the Cow Burp Problem

Ambient Carbon is doing the methane equivalent of point source carbon capture in dairy barns.

heatmap.news

2 4 10

Brent Heard @bheard.bsky.social · Aug 19

Next week begins our @nationalacademies.org 3-part webinar series on greenhouse gas removals!

Experts will cover research priorities, governance challenges, and practical applications.

Learn more and RSVP here: www.nationalacademies.org/our-work/atm...

2

Reposted by Brent Heard

John Walke @johndwalke.bsky.social · Aug 18

cen.acs.org/careers/US-s...

US science research was gutted in 2025. How will it rebuild?

New strategies as diverse as venture capitalism and investments from abroad are emerging to sustain the field

cen.acs.org

1

Reposted by Brent Heard

Andrew Dessler @andrewdessler.com · Aug 9

Nice article about NASEM review of the endangerment finding by @insideclimatenews.org

National Academies Will Review Endangerment Finding Science insideclimatenews.org/news/0708202...

Andrew Dessler, director of the Texas Center for Extreme Weather at Texas A&M University, said the new controversy that the Trump administration had stirred around climate science was a fitting subject for a fast-track effort by the National Academies.

“The National Academies [were] established exactly to do things like this—to answer questions of scientific importance for the government,” he said. “This is what the DOE should have done all along, rather than hire five people who represent a tiny minority of the scientific community and have views that virtually nobody else agrees with.”

14 33

Reposted by Brent Heard

sylvain gignac @sylvaingignac.bsky.social · Aug 5

It’s a signpost that grid planning + op are entering a new paradigm. System operators are rethinking how to maintain reliability in a BPS where inertia is no longer free and stability must be actively engineered.
spectrum.ieee.org/grid-scale-b...

Grid-Scale Battery Stabilizes Scottish Power Supply

Grid-scale batteries in Scotland are stabilizing power supply with advanced grid-forming inverters.

spectrum.ieee.org

1 6

Reposted by Brent Heard

Sylvia Chi 齊思涵 @sylviachi.bsky.social · Aug 1

Timely:

Austin Kocher, PhD @austinkocher.com · Aug 1

A new report from the American Statistical Association reveals that federal statistical agencies—the government offices that collect and publish official data about everything from unemployment rates to immigration patterns—are in serious trouble.

www.amstat.org/docs/default...

2 4

Reposted by Brent Heard

Kate Marvel @drkatemarvel.bsky.social · Aug 1

I love renewable energy tech because it's either "use quantum mechanics and semiconductor physics to leverage the photoelectric effect" or "put three spinny things on a stick"

7 24 150

Reposted by Brent Heard

Bloomberg News @bloomberg.com · Jul 28

Nearly half the US will wilt under hot, sticky conditions through the bulk of the week as temperatures and humidity soar from Chicago to NYC and New Orleans, boosting power demand and raising health risks.

Searing Heat Threatens Grids and Health Over Nearly Half the US

Nearly half the US will wilt under hot, sticky conditions through the bulk of the week as temperatures and humidity soar from Chicago to New York City and New Orleans, boosting power demand and raising health risks.

bloom.bg

4 16 43

Reposted by Brent Heard

Robinson Meyer @robinsonmeyer.bsky.social · Jul 23

It’s hard to find a trend in the electricity system right now that *doesn’t* point to near-term rate hikes if not a broad affordability crisis. That’s a serious problem for climate policy, but also the American economy writ large. I wrote about it: heatmap.news/politics/ele...

What is less well understood is how poorly the United States is prepared to match this rise in electricity demand with an equivalent increase in supply. To some degree, American electricity prices are already rising: So far this year, utilities have received or requested permission to increase customers’ bills by $29 billion, according to a July report from PowerLines, a think tank and advocacy group. That’s a large number in its own right, and it’s more than twice as much as had been approved at this time last year.

But when you look across the power system, virtually every trend is setting us up for electricity price spikes:

The supply chain to build new natural gas power plants is backed up. Virtually all new utility-scale gas turbines are spoken for until the end of this decade, as Heatmap News covered in February.
U.S. natural gas supplies will come under more strain in the next few years as fossil fuel companies export more of the fuel abroad. From 2024 to 2028, North America’s liquified natural gas export capacity is projected to double.
Many of the key components to build more grid infrastructure — such as copper or steel — have surged in cost due to Trump’s tariffs and self-induced trade uncertainty.
The federal government has become a less stable fiscal and financing partner for energy producers and distributors. On Wednesday, Energy Secretary Chris Wright killed a government loan guarantee for the Grain Belt Express transmission project. Why? “To ensure more responsible stewardship of taxpayer resources,” but also because President Trump asked him to.

9 100 270

Reposted by Brent Heard

David Roberts @volts.wtf · Jul 22

New report finds, yet again, that "The United States is failing to build the high-voltage transmission infrastructure needed to support the nation’s surging electricity demand and growing strategic industries."

Report: Fewer New Miles: Strategic Industries Held Back by Slow Pace of Transmission

Today, Americans for a Clean Energy Grid (ACEG) and Grid Strategies released the report “Large-Scale Transmission Deployment Saves Consumers Money.”

cleanenergygrid.org

4 24 73

Reposted by Brent Heard

Tyler Norris @tnorris.bsky.social · Jul 7

Me in UtilityDive today re: a new $10bn data center announced for NC (the same is true for most states) 🔌💡 www.utilitydive.com/news/growing...

2 4 14

Reposted by Brent Heard

Kelly Hereid @kellyhereid.bsky.social · Jul 5

When it comes to Texas weather, I look to @theeyewallwx.bsky.social to cut through the nonsense. @mattlanza.bsky.social knows his business on this analysis of the tragic TX flash flooding.

The Eyewall @theeyewallwx.bsky.social · Jul 5

The latest on TS Chantal today, but more importantly, we take a deep dive into the causes and forecasts leading up to the horrific flooding tragedy in Texas. A lot to unpack today. open.substack.com/pub/theeyewa...

Making sense of the weather that led to a horrible Texas flooding tragedy, plus Tropical Storm Chantal

In brief: Invest 92L became Tropical Depression 3 yesterday and is now Tropical Storm Chantal.

open.substack.com

5 22

Reposted by Brent Heard

Jesse D. Jenkins @jessedjenkins.com · Jul 2

REPEAT Project just completed our rapid analysis of the impacts of the Senate-passed version of the One Big "Beautiful" Bill (OBBB), which the House is considering now, on the US energy sector and emissions. Still working up full report, but here is a sneak peak...
🔌💡 🧵

8 100 230

Reposted by Brent Heard

Juan Moreno-Cruz @jmorenocruz.bsky.social · Jul 1

This looks depressing, but there are reasons to be optimistic. Not naive, but truly hopeful.

Renewable energy technologies are cheap, and global GHG emissions are flattening.

We never had a better chance to get this done.

But a lot of work remains, and we cannot stop.

2 4 20

Reposted by Brent Heard

John Bistline @bistline.bsky.social · Jun 30

How much could clean electricity adoption change without tax credits? Existing modeling suggests that annual additions could slow by roughly half for many technologies to 2035. But these studies omit recently proposed excise taxes, which could further reduce project deployment.

1 6 10

Reposted by Brent Heard

Kevin J. CREATURE @kevinjkircher.com · Jun 27

This is a nice summary of the Spanish grid operator's reports on the May Iberian blackout. As with any big event like this, there were many interdependent causes, but the TL;DR is that 3 nuclear and 7 gas plants failed to provide the voltage control that the grid operator contracted them to provide.

A review of reports on Spanish blackout causes and solutions • Grid Strategies

Michael Goggin, Grid Strategies June 24, 2025 Last week, the Spanish government and Spanish grid operator Red Electrica released lengthy reports on the blackout that affected the Iberian Peninsula on ...

gridstrategiesllc.com

3 41 89

Reposted by Brent Heard

Beth Zeitler @ezeitler.bsky.social · Jun 25

Are you a grad student or early-career STEM professional interested in experiencing careers in #sciencepolicy? Apply for the 2026 #MirzayanFellowship
@nationalacademies.org in #DC Mar 2–May 22! I was a fellow & am happy to answer ?'s via DM! Apply by Aug 20, 2025: mirzayanfellow.nas.edu #energysky

2 4

Reposted by Brent Heard

Zoë Schlanger @zoeschlanger.bsky.social · Jun 24

Everything is melting and we're not doing much of anything about it www.theatlantic.com/science/arch...

America Has a Hot-Steel Problem

Railways, roads, power lines, batteries—the heat of climate change is making them all falter.

www.theatlantic.com

16 45