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Brendan Pierpont @brendan.bsky.social · 17h

You can even see fun stuff like helicopters doing circles above a certain federal facility in Portland...

Brendan Pierpont @brendan.bsky.social · 17h

If you like good maps, check this out: aerowhere.com

AeroWhere Flight Tracks

Interactive visualization of historic aircraft flight tracks from ADS-B data. Explore flight patterns, filter by time and altitude, and export data for analysis.

aerowhere.com

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Brendan Pierpont @brendan.bsky.social · 18h

Really interested to hear other folks' reactions here - I want to see long-duration storage technologies take hold but wary that leaning too hard on something that looks like market mechanisms to support "dispatchability" is a dead end. We should be precise about what we're paying for.

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Brendan Pierpont @brendan.bsky.social · 18h

7. And finally - there's clearly a case to be made for supporting early deployment now to enable learning by doing and cost reductions. Definitely a justification for policy to support deployment today, but open question as to whether we should redesign markets vs. use other policy mechanisms.

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Brendan Pierpont @brendan.bsky.social · 18h

6. Some LDS technologies can potentially provide useful energy in other forms (e.g. as fuels for hydrogen or ammonia, or heat for long-duration thermal batteries) - which could be additional value/revenue sources.

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Brendan Pierpont @brendan.bsky.social · 18h

5. So beyond reliability and energy shifting, what other services and value can long-duration storage provide? One is decarbonization. Another is potentially independence from reliability risks that impact coal and gas generation - like fuel delivery in cold weather.

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Brendan Pierpont @brendan.bsky.social · 18h

4. There is also a really important role for long-term planning, especially under decarbonization constraints, to realize the value of these types of resources and provide certainty around the long-term market for long duration storage techs.

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Brendan Pierpont @brendan.bsky.social · 18h

3. Where long-duration storage has more value is 1) where dirt-cheap wind and solar are available to charge it and 2) where it enables retirement of expensive existing thermal generation. My overall sense is that wind/solar/LDS still comes at a premium, but the gap is closing.

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Brendan Pierpont @brendan.bsky.social · 18h

2. That's because we have an existing system, with existing resources that provide similar services. To turn this question on it's head, it's basically the same as asking whether we need new baseload / dispatchable resources, or can we meet the incremental system need with energy-limited storage.

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Brendan Pierpont @brendan.bsky.social · 18h

1. Right now, the incremental capacity contribution and energy arbitrage value of long-duration storage in markets (above something like a 4-hour battery) is relatively small and not justified by the incremental cost.

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Brendan Pierpont @brendan.bsky.social · 18h

This is a good article and interesting topic and question. Fundamentally there are a few things to consider:

Matt Zeitlin @zeitlin.bsky.social · 19h

a decarbonized grid will have (will need!) long-duration energy storage, but can the market support it? heatmap.news/energy/long-...

The Grid Needs Longer-Lasting Batteries. But How to Pay for Them?

Long-duration storage is still an awkward fit in most U.S. electricity markets.

heatmap.news

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Brendan Pierpont @brendan.bsky.social · 1d

Seems like these labs' theory is that they'll get there by throwing more data and more compute at the problem (then work on alignment on the back-end), but that's not how any of us learned to think critically and reason so unclear why they believe it'll work.

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Brendan Pierpont @brendan.bsky.social · 1d

It was a cautionary tale, not a playbook.

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Brendan Pierpont @brendan.bsky.social · 1d

I also think social recognition and shame are powerful forces that shape what motivates and constrains us to be pro-social, have empathy, etc. and it's hard to imagine what could fill this gap for AI systems if we want them to have similar motivations.

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Brendan Pierpont @brendan.bsky.social · 1d

Opinions vary on how we learn best - IMO it's supported trial and error and experimentation, with support to introduce new tools to solve problems and understand the world, with an allowance for failure and opportunity to learn from it, with opportunity to connect concepts across knowledge domains.

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Brendan Pierpont @brendan.bsky.social · 1d

Instead - it seems like we're getting "let's just train it to be helpful to humans" and now we have sycophantic systems that will reinforce what the user wants no matter if that's harmful to them to to society.

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Brendan Pierpont @brendan.bsky.social · 1d

Something about the way many AI technologists talk about what they're building makes me worry that they have little to no grounding in the systems, pedagogies, approaches, experiences that lead to critical and empathic human intelligence, even as they attempt to replicate it with machines.

Ethan Mollick @emollick.bsky.social · 1d

This relatively short essay by Jack Clark (from OpenAI & Anthropic) is a good indicator of the attitude of many people inside the AI labs, and what they think is happening right now in AI.

You do not have to believe him, of course, but it is worth noting: importai.substack.com/p/import-ai-...

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Brendan Pierpont @brendan.bsky.social · 1d

Under-appreciated dynamic:
- Over 1/3 of US nat gas production is associated gas from oil wells
- Demand and price outlook for oil looks like it won't support a lot of new wells (eg link)
- Add rising gas demand and exports and we're in for some gas price volatility.
www.spglobal.com/commodity-in...

www.spglobal.com

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Brendan Pierpont @brendan.bsky.social · 1d

CTs, are quite flexible. CCGTs, especially older ones, can take a few hours to bring up to full power so they often stay online if they're needed for the evening. CAISO also still has a few inflexible and inefficient steam gas plants around too.

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Brendan Pierpont @brendan.bsky.social · 2d

🤣

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Brendan Pierpont @brendan.bsky.social · 2d

Come on, Portland has been through enough in recent weeks Jael!

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Reposted by Brendan Pierpont

Michael McLean @mclean.bsky.social · 5d

Legislation filed in Illinois would commission a study to evaluate the creation of the 'Energy Reliability Corporation of Illinois', a new independent system operator for our electricity grid.

Good riddance PJM and MISO!

🔌💡 www.ilga.gov/documents/le...

HB4116 104TH GENERAL ASSEMBLY

www.ilga.gov

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Reposted by Brendan Pierpont

jael holzman @jael.bsky.social · 5d

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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Reposted by Brendan Pierpont

John Kostyack @kostyack.bsky.social · 5d

Tech companies want "speed to power" for data centers far more than clean power. Some in the gas industry believe they can win this race w behind-the-meter natural gas produced with single-cycle turbines - which generate nearly double the GHG pollution than combined-cycle. Via @zeitlin.bsky.social

Data Centers Have Solved Their Speed-to-Power Problem — With Natural Gas

“Old economy” companies like Caterpillar and Williams are cashing in by selling smaller, less-efficient turbines to impatient developers.

heatmap.news

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Reposted by Brendan Pierpont

John Kostyack @kostyack.bsky.social · 5d

Would love to see more analysis of how this behind-the-meter strategy works in light of the gas industry's long track record of outages and its vulnerability to extreme weather events. Gas is arguably more vulnerable than any other power source. www.utilitydive.com/news/gas-pow...

Gas plants ‘disproportionately vulnerable to failure,’ warns Union of Concerned Scientists report

Extreme temperatures threaten gas plants and electric reliability, particularly in regions where grid operators use simple methods to account for resource contributions, according to UCS.

www.utilitydive.com

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