Sorry bout that, thought I originally posted the gift link but I didn’t:

www.science.org/eprint/NRCEW...

100%. And something about how seriously you have to take the prospect of decarbonization before you notice that this is basically The Problem to Solve, too

I’m a little out of my depth on extant resources but one thing we’re looking at on the research side is how to decouple safety from individually owned tech — how do you arrange emergency access to heat in, say, a library as a backup plan. That’s the kind of thing locales are really well scaled for.

Right! And the fact that took decades is why we argue this transition can’t be voluntary. But that also carries greater responsibility to ensure it goes well.

I’m obsessed with the heating challenge — this is actually what my other postdoc (and a past PhD student) are working on. Thank you for this cartoon - I hadn’t seen it before!

Apologies — I thought I posted the gift link. Here it is:

www.science.org/eprint/NRCEW...

TL;DR: Minimum viable scale means transition needs to go faster. Planning is how you get there. It's still not going to happen overnight, but it would happen a whole lot faster if we actually tried.

One well publicized instance where a sudden refinery or power plant closure kills people because they don't have enough EVs or solar or whatever would set this fragile transition back for a very long time, in addition to just being morally reprehensible given that good planning could prevent this.

because the things that would produce those few emissions can actually only operate if they're producing a lot of emissions.

If services fail without a backup, 1) bad things happen to people, which you should care about, and 2) you lose public trust in the transition, which delays things a LOT

What we're worried about is that people aren't taking seriously enough the point that we can't rely on the fossil system to be a backup safety valve for providing energy services as long as it seems. We don't really have the condition where maybe a few emissions are ok if it saves the system,

If you care about decarbonization, the existence -- and scary-close proximity -- of minimum viable scale is a really hopeful thing. We are much closer to enabling a full transition than an ~80% fossil-based system seems like it would be.

This is why Emily, Josh, and so many others like us have been thinking and organizing for the necessary public ownership transitions that we _must_ put in place to succeed.

We can both make sure we see the end of fossil fuels and make sure the phase out builds more justice, not more catastrophe.

Yeah, I typically don't frame it as rationing, but I think we do need to have a normative prioritization of who gets energy in what order when we have restrictions. Heat before cars before commercial buildings, that kind of thing.

It’s for work, tragically

Relatedly im very cold from waiting for the bus for 25 minutes

TL;DR is save your money for the reclamation and pension parts — we show you can buy out the entire PRB for much less than that and be consistent with market conditions

I don't think so. It's usually different mines, in my experience -- unless met prices are super high and you get "crossover" coals moving into met -- but this is kind of a happy accident in some ways

100%. This is one of our favorite examples, among us!