Dan Schroeder

I'm stuck on the concept of a laundry chef.

Very true—though I'm not convinced Klein tries, when he thinks he has a fact that fits his narrative.

I'm still pissed at Klein for not bothering to look up how much firewood Thomas Jefferson burned at Monticello.

This is the sort of claim I never trust unless it comes straight from @hausfath.bsky.social .

Yeah, and I think people need to recognize that even today, the majority of heat pumps being installed in the US are single-unit mini-splits, far too small to keep an entire house warm in a cold climate as in VT. And a big heat pump that can do that, especially in an old house retrofit, is $$$$$.

What's going on in the first few frames, down at the bottom where the pulse is forming? Is that a numerical artifact or something physical?

U.S. Gas Prices, Up 11% in a Week, Pile Pressure on Trump

Here's a gift link to the article: www.nytimes.com/2026/03/06/b...

New York Times chart of U.S. average price of unleaded gasoline (as reported by AAA) from around September 2024 through early March 2026. The chart shows an abrupt 11% increase during the most recent week, to the current value of $3.32 per gallon. The price was about the same back in September 2024, but gradually drifted down, with many fluctuations, to a minimum near $2.80/gallon at the end of 2025. The price then rose gradually during January and February, followed by the recent abrupt rise.

Most journalists would've chopped off the bottom of this chart to make the recent jump look bigger in relative terms. I commend the @nytimes.com data folks for their self-discipline, which lets readers accurately see the increase's relative size at a glance.

To summarize what I've gleaned from the replies:

• Many Vermonters have installed mini-splits as add-ons, or for summer AC, but these aren't enough to replace the main heating system in winter.

• Retrofitting an old house with a big enough heat pump to handle VT winters is very expensive.

Have any legislators ever said why there should be different rules in different counties?

Haven't read the whole report but I see that it says most of these heat pumps are add-ons rather than replacements, with the primary heat source still being combustion of some kind. In some cases it sounds like they're being used only for summer air conditioning.

I appreciate the reply but I'm very confused.

Isn't oil or propane also expensive?

Wouldn't insulating a home help just as much if you heat with oil or propane?

I understand the lukewarm air complaint but doesn't that just mean it needs to run more continuously?

Says here most Vermonters currently heat with oil or propane. Those are both expensive, no? So I gotta wonder why Vermonters aren't already buying heat pumps in droves. Anyone know what the main barriers are?

www.nrc.gov/sites/defaul...

NRC has issued the Construction Permit for TerraPower in Kemmerer, Wyoming.

First one in ten years.

I remember reading updates as they went through step by step last year, so I don't think this is just a Trumpian rush job.

Looks like this one may have been a little high for 2025.
bsky.app/profile/sola...

The other day I brought a consumer model CO2 detector to class and passed it around, inviting students to alternately breathe on it and fan it with ambient air. We couldn't get the reading to go below 1000ppm.

To Extract Hot Water From the Earth, a Plan to Pipe It In First

This poorly informed nytimes article on closed loop geothermal is a perfect example of why you need specialist reporters covering energy topics or else you just get warmed over regurgitation of company talking points.

www.nytimes.com/2026/02/28/b...

This is really helpful. Thanks!

Insightful and timely summary of the benefits and challenges of microreactors.

I wonder how many people distinguish between a journalist making a prediction and a journalist reporting on someone else's prediction.

Of course audiences want to know what's gonna happen! Perhaps the best role for journalists is following up and telling us whose predictions were right or wrong.

Here's the link: www.eia.gov/electricity/...

(You have to download the spreadsheet.) For all three Cape Station units they're reporting 53 MW nameplate, 28 MW net summer, 31 MW net winter. Of course I have no idea whether those numbers are accurate.

Again I'm in way over my head, but here's what jumped out at me:

• "geologically analogous" to Cape Station. Wouldn't such sites be uncommon?

• Parasitic losses ~15%. The EIA860 data for Cape Station 1–3 shows net capacity just 56% of nameplate.

• Redrilling every 8 years. How does that work?

Had a feeling this was Valar before I clicked on it

Do all those details look pretty realistic to you? I'm in way over my head here.

Also, what do you know about this study's author, in terms of credentials and possible self interest? It seems odd for a study like this to come from someone with no institutional affiliation.

The gap between wholesale and retail gas prices has always seemed large to me. Most of what we pay retail is unaffected by wholesale prices, right?

US military airlifts small reactor as Trump pushes to quickly deploy nuclear power The Pentagon and the Energy Department have airlifted a small nuclear reactor from California to Utah, demonstrating what they say is potential for the U.S. to quickly deploy nuclear power for militar...

So the @sltrib.com article linked above says "250 kilowatts of peaking power [the test reactor] will produce when it first fires up", but this NPR article says it "will be able to generate up to 5 megawatts of electricity" (according to Taylor). Seems like a big range. www.npr.org/2026/02/21/n...

Seems like this'll be a bfd if it happens. 🔌💡

Stacked area chart of US annual electricity generation from 1950 through 2025. Total generation rose dramatically and pretty steadily through around 2007, then flattened until around 2021, and is now rising again. Coal generation accounted for about half the total until 2007 but has fallen dramatically since then, though it ticked upward in 2025. Gas, wind, and solar have grown dramatically in the last two decades, although wind has grown only slightly since 2022.

Log-scale line chart of US electricity generation by source from 1950 through 2025. Generation from coal, hydro, gas, and petroleum all grew dramatically during the earlier decades. Nuclear grew even more dramatically from 1960 through the mid-1970s, then more slowly through about 2000. Geothermal grew dramatically until around 1990 but then plateaued, remaining a minor contributor. Gas resumed its growth from 1990 until nearly the present. Wind and solar grew dramatically in recent decades, although wind has grown only slightly in the last few years. Percentage contributions in 2025 were gas 40.2%, nuclear 17.4%, coal 16.3%, wind 10.3%, solar 8.6%, hydro 5.5%, biomass 1.0%, petroleum 0.4%, and geothermal 0.3%.

EIA has posted electricity generation data for 2025, so I've updated these charts. Solar and coal are up from 2024, gas is down, other sources are pretty flat. The upward trend in total demand is now unmistakable. 🔌💡

Wow. 24 more and you'll be at a nice round number.

I was there too! Wish I remembered it better.