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Costa Samaras

@costasamaras.com

46K followers 2.2K following 12K posts

Climate, energy, emerging tech, resilience, & policy professor. Carnegie Mellon Univ. Institute for Energy Innovation Director. Former Biden-Harris White House OSTP Chief Advisor for the Clean Energy Transition. Personal account. He/Him. costasamaras.com

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Costa Samaras @costasamaras.com · Jan 21

If you’re new to Bluesky, welcome. A starter pack is an easy way to find folks to follow. Want to know what all these new energy regulations mean for your wallet, your lungs, and the climate? Here are my computer friends who work on climate: go.bsky.app/Aa1sErQ

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Costa Samaras @costasamaras.com · 1h

that is great! Thanks for your work!

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Costa Samaras @costasamaras.com · 1h

here's a short policy brief we wrote about this a while ago: climateandsecurity.files.wordpress.com/2017/06/4_di...

climateandsecurity.files.wordpress.com

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Costa Samaras @costasamaras.com · 1h

I'm listening

Costa Samaras @costasamaras.com · 1h

Great!

Costa Samaras @costasamaras.com · 1h

If you want the podcast version of this post: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/t...

or the video version: youtu.be/f6536KWBZAc?...

Trump admin is like a “cartoon throwing thumbtacks in the road” impeding renewable energy process

YouTube video by MSNBC

youtu.be

Costa Samaras @costasamaras.com · 1h

policy idea: something good for once, anything really

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Costa Samaras @costasamaras.com · 1h

Picture how big the Hoover Dam is. An absolute unit. The Hoover Dam has a power capacity of 2 gigawatts (GW).

The solar farm that the Admin just cancelled could have produces 6.2 GW of power. That's more than 3 Hoover Dams.

jael holzman @jael.bsky.social · 1h

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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Costa Samaras @costasamaras.com · 1h

The Administration

- raised taxes on clean energy with one big beautiful bill

- is stopping or making clean energy projects harder to be built

- is raising prices on materials with tariffs

- all while AI is spiking electricity demand

They are stopping supply while demand goes up

It’s a crisis

jael holzman @jael.bsky.social · 1h

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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Costa Samaras @costasamaras.com · 1h

Here's the TOTAL budgets of some other agencies that are being cut so the Admin can send $20B your tax dollars to their ideological friends:

- EPA (clean air and water): $9.1B

- NOAA (weather forecasts, warn if hurricane coming): $6.8B

- DOE EERE (energy efficiency & renewable energy): $3.4B

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Costa Samaras @costasamaras.com · 2h

We're spending $20B to bail out Argentina, but they cut USAID down to the bone, causing deaths around the world. The entire budget of USAID, the whole agency, was $21B last year. Shameful.

The Washington Post @washingtonpost.com · 3h

The Trump administration confirmed that the U.S. bailed out Argentina.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said he had directly bought Argentine pesos in global currency markets in a bid to relieve pressure on the nation’s embattled President Javier Milei, a supporter of President Trump.

The U.S. just bailed out Argentina, Treasury Secretary confirms

The US Treasury has finalized a $20 billion financial rescue of Argentina, including a currency swap arrangement with the country's central bank.

www.washingtonpost.com

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Reposted by Costa Samaras

Dr. Damien P. Williams Wants A Better Sociotechnical Paradigm @wolvendamien.bsky.social · 4h

*Lil Jon Voice* States' Rights to What

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Costa Samaras @costasamaras.com · 5h

many people are saying

Costa Samaras @costasamaras.com · 5h

why did I say train and not rail? Idk. But it's the train that moves 🧐 🧐 🧐

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Costa Samaras @costasamaras.com · 5h

also when we post about the high speed train network we deserve bsky.app/profile/cost...

Costa Samaras @costasamaras.com · Jan 8

Build it

A Sci-Fi US rail map, with lots of stops, from https://ggwash.org/view/230/sci-fi-coast-to-coast-high-speed-rail-network. This is a Sci-Fi map, which takes some artistic license on the relative locations of different cities, and also solves the tricky problem of train travel across the ocean. Dream big.

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Costa Samaras @costasamaras.com · 5h

bsky when we post about e-bikes

Carl Quintanilla @carlquintanilla.bsky.social · 1d

#WarRavagedPortland

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Reposted by Costa Samaras

Don Moynihan @donmoyn.bsky.social · 6h

This is the genius of the Portland protests - they make the claims of lawlessness look not just wrong, but comical

The Daily Show @thedailyshow.com · 8h

The following is REAL footage from Portland, 2025. Viewer discretion is advised.

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Costa Samaras @costasamaras.com · 1d

Yes! I just don't think the leaders are considering the long-term downside risk and the motivating power of spite

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Reposted by Costa Samaras

Dominique Baker @bakerdphd.bsky.social · 1d

I'll be updating next week's current-state-of-state-higher-ed-policy slides.

Left is an article about the VA senate dems telling UVA their state funding will be in question if they agree to that odious compact. On the right is the key part of the senate letter.

www.cbs19news.com/news/state-s...

Screenshot from the top of the article. Title is "State Senate Democrats tell UVA to not consider education compact." Published today.

Main text reads "RICHMOND, Va. (CBS19 NEWS) -- The University of Virginia could lose state funding if it signs onto an education compact it received from the federal government last week."

Screenshot from the letter from VA dems which reads "Therefore, we call upon you to immediately cease all consideration of signing this compact.
Furthermore, we want to be explicitly clear: if the University of Virginia signs this compact, there will be significant consequences in future Virginia budget cycles. As the leadership of the Senate with responsibility for appropriations affecting higher education, we will work with our colleagues to ensure that the Commonwealth does not subsidize an institution that has ceded its independence to federal
political control."

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Costa Samaras @costasamaras.com · 1d

not that it woulda changed anything but I told my UVA hosts that if they had signed anytime before I went on stage yesterday I regrettably woulda exited with voice

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Costa Samaras @costasamaras.com · 1d

awesome!

Costa Samaras @costasamaras.com · 1d

was it worth the psychic damage? [long drag]

i reckon so

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Costa Samaras @costasamaras.com · 1d

basically most of the good things that happened for me professionally was because of social: learning from folks, communicating our work, having fun. There was an AGU conference in 2019 where we did this IRL meetup in a bar and gd it felt like Cheers as corny as that sounds. bsky.app/profile/cost...

Costa Samaras @costasamaras.com · 16d

I built my entire career on twitter, starting in 2008. Was part of an energytwitter community, studied dril's sacred texts, felt I made it when I had an official White House account. I pretty much stopped using twitter last year. But I posted this over there, & got 9 likes. Bsky is just better.

Costa Samaras @costasamaras.com · 16d

A sleeper political issue of the next few years is the rising costs of electricity. AI & data centers are driving up demand & the Trump Administration is making it harder to add clean energy supply. I joined @chrislhayes.bsky.social on #WITHpod to talk about it: open.spotify.com/episode/32ps...

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Costa Samaras @costasamaras.com · 1d

aimee mann fav'd one of my tweets once

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Costa Samaras @costasamaras.com · 1d

Stand up for the rights of trans folks because everyone should have human rights and freedom to live their lives, it's really not complicated.

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Costa Samaras @costasamaras.com · 1d

haha, thank you!!

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