Eric Roston

a cartoon character says how 's a you gonna pay for all this else ? Alt: Watto, a flying bug store proprieter, from the "Phantom Menance," saying "How's a you gonna pay for all this eh?"

right, right
this guy

😂

No, you're thinking of Jimmy the Greek

I thought you were going more for a Mott the Hoople thing

and there's not even a product yet

There's no place like home.

Picasso's "Les Demoiselles d'Avignon"

I hadn't realized Picasso worked in blueberries

What I'm getting from this is that 93% of Americans have seen "Frozen" multiple times.

sigh, great. now I have to buy this book and enjoy it and recommend it to others, just on principle smdh

I used to think the true path to unhappiness was treating past choices as if they were still live decisions.

Now I think the truest path to unhappiness is pushing simultaneously for high oil prices and low gasoline prices.

Best subtweeter of the post-twitter era.

One of the John McPhee craft-retrospective essays in the NYer has a phenomenal example of this. I just tried to look for it, but can't remember which one.

So this post inspired my New Year's resolution to read 50 books this year.

That's about a book a week.

All these folks in the timeline fondly recalling your liberal arts education? No time like the present to continue it.

Everybody will want a piece of the rebate if it's televised.

muting all BREAKING and CONFIRMED from people who have never reported out a story in their lives.

Many State Flood Maps Are Not Up to Date. Connecticut Is Trying to Fix That A new tool offers the public detailed estimates of their flood exposure, but some worry risk disclosure will impact home values.

In troubled times, it's always calming to go back to the basics: How hard flood-mapping is.
From @leslieatlarge.bsky.social and @mrgopal.bsky.social
🎁🔗 www.bloomberg.com/news/feature...

Why California is Reconsidering Nuclear Energy After 50-Year Ban The state is one of several looking into allowing new nuclear reactors to meet climate goals as AI power demand surges.

New: Cracks are showing in California’s 50-year-old moratorium on new nuclear power plants as artificial intelligence spikes electricity demand and the state struggles to meet its climate goals. With @willwwade.bsky.social. Free link.
www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

If as a lay person learning about climate change, you're not becoming more and more bored to tears, you're either reading the wrong material or you've secretly been a big nerd your whole life.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth orders cancellation of DOD ties with Columbia beginning in 2026-27 academic year Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth ordered the cancellation of the Department of Defense’s ties with Columbia beginning in the 2026-27 academic year, arguing that Columbia and other universities are “w...

Pentagon cuts ties with institution that started the Manhattan Project
www.columbiaspectator.com/news/2026/02...

Nobody's talking about how the Deep State has now rolled up all the hairdressers
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

AI Lost Out to Traditional Models in Forecasting NYC's Blizzard Two days before New York's biggest snowstorm in a decade began, forecasters were still unsure how much snow would fall. One traditional US model had consistently predicted a major hit, while newer art...

Why wasn't AI more helpful in predicting this week's giant snowstorm for New York and much of the Northeast? As one scientist put it, "there’s no perfect model yet -- that's the problem." Gift link 🔗

www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

Trump-Backed Gas Plant Could Become Biggest US Power Polluter US President Donald Trump’s proposal for a massive gas-fired power plant in Ohio would likely create one of the nation’s largest sources of carbon dioxide emissions from electricity generation.

Here's our full story from the other day, by Aaron Clark and me. 9/9
🎁🔗 www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

Earth's CO2 emissions, including emissions by humans, dwarf Tonga volcano | Fact check The eruption is estimated to have released significantly less CO2 than is emitted annually either by humans or natural processes.

The 2022 Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai eruption put out 2 million to 5 million tons of CO2.

So if the 9.2GW plant is built, it’d be like between 3 to 9 Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai volcanoes a year, every year.

(Humanity does ~100 million tons CO2 a day)
8/9
www.usatoday.com/story/news/f...

The forecasts compare with total emissions from the James H. Miller Jr. coal-fired plant in Alabama of about 16.6 million tons in 2023, according to EPA data. CHART: Top Polluting US Power Plants A coal-fired plant in Alabama had the highest power station emissions in the US in 2023, EPA data shows James H Miller Jr. (Alabama) 16.56 mtCO2e Labadie (Missouri) 15.39 General James M Gavin (Ohio) 13.45 Martin Lake (Texas) 12.79 Oak Grove (Texas) 12.28

That’s competitive with or greater than the greenhouse gas pollution from the US’s most-emitting power plants:

Also:
❓How much carbon dioxide would the plant emit?

Chances are: A lot.

Could be 16.2 million to 19.4 million metric tons a year.

That’s basically the annual emissions for more than a million Americans.

Plus side, the power could power 7.4 million homes. Or its equivalent in data centers.
6/9

The lack of immediate concrete details to back up triumphant announcements and big numbers has become a hallmark under Trump, who often talks up trade deals months before formal agreements codifying them. But that practice clashes with longstanding customs in the US power sector, where developers - often navigating lengthy permit delays and waitlists for key equipment - generally adopt a more methodical approach ahead of making announcements.

Back to the announced giga plant.
❓ Where will the 9.2GW plant’s gas come from?
❓ Who will provide the turbines?
❓ How long for permitting?

These are all open questions.

The grid operator didn't even know about it before it was announced.
5/9
🎁🔗 www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

Trump’s Coal Renaissance Comes at Cost for Taxpayers Also: the collapse of a crucial clean-cooking initiative in Africa.

[Side note: Keeping coal plants open has a heavy price tag in money, noise and lives]
4/9

🎁🔗 www.bloomberg.com/news/newslet...

PJM Interconnection supply by nameplate capacity. Enormous amounts of solar (yellow), gas (gray), batteries (pink) and wind (blue), being built, with coal (black) decreasing. From: BloombergNEF US Data Center Outlook 2H 2025

The actual power-generation is different from each technology being built. (Generators don’t produce 24/7. They range from ~25% for solar to >90% for nuclear.)

There’s lots and lots of solar and gas going in. Not so much coal, but more recently than in many years. (yellow=solar; gray=gas)
3/9

Chart text: Biggest US Grid Is Growing Fast Data center needs are driving planned effective power load capacity in the PJM Interconnection. Chart shows green power-supply shortfall gradually overwhelming planned supply in an annual bar chart from 2025-2030.

One thing’s for sure. Lots of new data centers are coming. They power hungry.

The east-central US gets power from the PJM Interconnection.

Demand, driven by data centers, is outpacing supply by a considerable margin in this region that reaches east from Illinois and Kentucky to the ocean. 2/9

🧵US last week said it wants a $33B gas power plant in Ohio that'd be, by any reasonable estimate, absolutely gobsmackingly ginormous:

⚡9.2 gigawatts⚡

For context: People lost their minds for decades because somebody once said "1.21 gigawatts" out loud

The release didn’t mention something else
1/9