Five Feet High and Rising
-Johnny Cash

The fate of fossil fuel systems in the "mid-transition" I talk with Emily Grubert about the hidden dangers of letting the free market manage the decline of our legacy energy infrastructure.

thanks to @volts.wtf for having me on to talk about coordinating and planning fossil phase out to build a better and actually decarbonized world. there‘s a lot we can do if we imagine a people-centered, service oriented future — and a LOT we miss if we don’t.

Credit: Fabrice Coffrini / AFP / Getty Brazil's Lucas Pinheiro Braathen, center, winner of an alpine ski, men's giant slalom race, jumps in celebration on the podium flanked by second placed Switzerland's Marco Odermatt, left, and third placed Switzerland's Loic Meillard, at the 2026 Winter Olympics.(AP)

What a great photo of Brazilian alpine skier Lucas Pinheiro Braathen, the first South American to ever win a medal at the Winter Olympic Games.

This is why electrification means more energy security:

In 2024, ~81% of EU electricity came from locally sourced fuels (57% excluding nuclear). Just 19% relied on imported fossil fuels.

Fossil fuels are mostly imported.

Source @ember-energy.org

“Nothing Less Than an Apology” — U.S. Bishops Blast Trump’s Racist Obama Post When Trump shared a video showing the Obamas as apes, outraged Catholic bishops denounced it as “viciously racist” and urged the former president to take responsibility — and apologize immediately.

NEW: Top U.S. Catholic bishops are demanding Donald Trump apologize for a racist post depicting the Obamas as apes.

The Vatican has weighed in — and Pope Leo XIV, the first modern pope of Black descent, is watching.

Rev. James Martin on Our Moral Duty in Turbulent Times

Honored to be interviewed by the @nytimes.com
www.nytimes.com/2026/02/03/m...

California is off to another great start this year in terms of getting fossil fuels off their electricity grid.

Look at how much progress they have made over the last few years after starting to be able to put a massive amount of battery storage capacity on their grid:

Important analysis here from Ember. Compare dispatchable solar at $76/MWh (given these assumptions) to the most recent LCOE numbers from Lazard. At these price points, it's game over for thermal generation. (NB: combined cycle gas isn't particularly dispatchable)

OpenAI are quietly adopting skills, now available in ChatGPT and Codex CLI One of the things that most excited me about Anthropic’s new Skills mechanism back in October is how easy it looked for other platforms to implement. A skill is just …

OpenAI aren't talking about it yet, but it turns out they've adopted Anthropic's brilliant "skills" mechanism in a big way

Skills are now live in both ChatGPT and their Codex CLI tool, I wrote up some detailed notes on how they work so far here: simonwillison.net/2025/Dec/12/...

Pic of Pontevedra from the air.

“It's not my duty as Mayor to make sure you have a parking spot. For me it's the same as if you bought a cow, or a refrigerator, and then asked me where you're going to put them.” — Mayor of Pontevedra, Spain (re-elected 6 times)

Holy shit San Francisco!

60% of the city rezoned, most places exceeding (!!) SB 79. The most restrictive of these allows attached 4–8 story apt buildings with no cap on the # of homes inside, no parking mandates, and by-right streamlined approval.

Movement racking up the municipal wins today 🏆🏆🏆

Energy transitions can happen faster than we think:

In 2000 almost 90% of Denmark's electricity was from fossil fuels.

In 2024 less than 10% of Danish electricity was from fossil fuels.

Another way electric cars clean the air: study says brake dust reduced by 83% Exhaust isn't the only impact of cars, they also emit tiny brake particles. Thru regen braking, EVs reduce that (but bikes are even better!)

A new study has provided quantitative evidence underscoring how battery-electric vehicles reduce the amount of brake dust generated by 83%.
electrek.co/2025/05/27/a...

EVs Set to Displace 10mn b/d Oil by 2035 EVs set to displace 10mn b/d of oil by 2035 as electric vehicle adoption accelerates across global markets.

Given that 1.8 million barrels of oil per day are already being displaced by #EVs — before the real S-curve phase hits with 25% YoY growth — the writing’s on the wall. Every km on electrons is demand oil never gets back. No wonder the industry is panicking as it traverses a full-blown death spiral.

This person is at Harry Ransom center

Wind and solar covered all the growth this year

Congratulations to my UT Austin colleague Jason McLellan (@mclellanlab.bsky.social), who’s just received a well-deserved MacArthur Fellowship. His work has been instrumental in developing vaccines for RSV and COVID-19.

Some good news.

London is meeting legal limits for toxic NO2 pollution for the first time – almost 200 years earlier than predicted – following the Mayor’s "world leading air pollution policies," City Hall announces.

The Ultra Low Emissions Zone - and similar policies - really do work.

Gov. Polis Announces New Actions for Coloradans to Access Money-Saving Clean Energy Resources and Accelerate Clean Energy Infrastructure | Colorado Governor Jared Polis DENVER - Governor Polis, joined by Public Utilities Commission Director Rebecca While, Colorado Energy Office Executive Director Will Toor, Conservation Colorado Executive Director Kelly Nordini, Kris...

🚨 Big win for rooftop solar in Colorado: @colorado.gov just made instant permitting + fast, flexible interconnection a statewide priority.

That means more Coloradans powering up clean energy without the red tape. Other states: time to follow suit. ⚡
colorado.gov/governor/new...

How Skyrocketing Rents Are Forcing Your Favorite Restaurants to Close One thing we love to say here in the Observer food section: if you love a local bar/restaurant - go there.

Dallas has become a destination location for international concepts, leaving local restaurants in a lurch.

China's coal generation dropped from 62.7% in July 2023 to 55.1% in July 2025!

7.6 Point drop in two years!

Petrostate boosters hate that China is moving from coal to wind, solar, hydro and nuclear to generate their electricity.

EVs also were 55% of August 2025 auto sales.

#energysky

The air quality in Shanghai has been substantially improved over the past decade. Left: the medium-level haze event in 2013, right: the air is much more clear in 2025, although there is still air pollution.

In a new #ScienceReview, researchers discuss the latest understanding of secondary organic aerosol formation in urban China, providing a framework for identifying knowledge gaps and guiding future research into haze chemistry and pollution control strategies. https://scim.ag/3HCgNrX

6 2-story townhouses front wide-side (lots of light) to this French Quarter garden court, which sits on a quarter acre with the garden on only 1/10 acre. 24 units/acre looks pretty good, doesn’t it? Missing Middle Housing from before it went missing.

Imelda Padilla Accidentally Told The Truth About Local Control — Max Dubler Yesterday Jon Lovett from Pod Save America released an interview he did with State Senator Scott Wiener and Los Angeles City Council member Imelda Padilla about a proposed state law that would l...

I wrote about how Imelda Padilla accidentally told the truth about what "local control" over land use policy actually means in practice: replacing actual planning with capricious, case-by-case decision making by elected officials.

www.maxdubler.com/blog/2025/8/...

Portland’s 2020 Residential Infill Project (RIP) opened most lots to middle housing, things like duplexes, triplexes, quadplexes, townhomes and more.

The result?

1,400 new homes, typically priced ~$300K less than nearby single-family houses.

📍Portland, OR

Latest on the "stalling" shift to electric vehicles, EU edition

There are more apartments available under $1,500 in Austin than there are under $4,000 in NYC*

(*that are listed on Zillow)

How States and Cities Decimated Americans’ Lowest-Cost Housing Option Low-cost micro-units, often called single-room occupancies, or SROs, were once a reliable form of housing for the United States’ poorest residents of, and newcomers to, New York, Chicago, San Francisc...

a year after i finished this article about the history of single-room occupancy (SRO) units, it's exciting to see Pew finally publish it. If you're curious about SROs or "micro-units," have a read! www.pew.org/en/research-...

This year, we Sierra Club opposed sensible CEQA reform to get more dense, pro-climate and conservation-friendly infill housing built in existing communities. But don't worry, there's no need to change existing land use patterns: just buy every household an electric F-150.

YIMBY organizing would not have gotten very far over the past several years if advocates weren't earnestly committed to explaining complex and highly technical issues in land use to laypeople.