Madalsa
@madalsa.org
130 followers 280 following 85 posts
Assistant Professor, Rochester Institute of Technology. I study and teach carbon-constrained energy systems. Views mine. https://madalsa.org/
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madalsa.org
look forward to your thoughts! I hope you’re well
madalsa.org
Wrote this with @ines-azevedo.bsky.social and Bruce Cain
madalsa.org
We end with three prescriptions
- add environmental damages to cost calculations
- ensure customers have devices and knowledge to respond to time varying rates (green mountain power and LADWP are doing some cool stuff here)
- TOU rates or critical pricing with rebates are good ways to start.
madalsa.org
And then, if we manage to find an ideal efficient rate, how do we make sure people can respond to the price signals. Right now, customers with DER can use the “flexibility premium“ but about others? (Remember griddy?).
madalsa.org
There’s also a technocratic and epistemic question - what is marginal and how do we calculate it?

Should it be forward looking, backward looking? What’s “marginal”? what’s the time-frame?

This was our attempt to delineate.
madalsa.org
In rest of the perspective, we discuss the tension between efficiency and equity.

Having electricity rates that track underlying marginal system costs is great. But how do we recoup the growing “non marginal” share.
madalsa.org
Electricity was expensive in California and most states in New England. These states also saw a higher than average real increase in the decade prior.

WV and KY stood out for the higher than average real increase, though prices overall remained low.
madalsa.org
Before I dig in : the plots and data in this perspective provide a nice snapshot of what was happening to electricity prices until 2023 — no demand surge and macroeconomic uncertainty.
madalsa.org
New perspective : How do we design electricity prices that reflect changing system costs but also not hurt people’s bill?

Balancing efficiency & equity in rate design can be tricky. We provide ideas to operationalize it and challenges along the way

Open access: iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1...
Reposted by Madalsa
himalmag.bsky.social
As #snakebites surge in #Southasia due to flood conditions, revisit Diwash Gahatraj and Ali Jabir Malik'ss award-winning reporting linking climate change and snakebite prevalence in #Southasia. Read their piece from May 2024 now:
Snakebites surge across Southasia amid rising heat, floods and habitat loss
Climate change is driving an increase in snakebites and envenomation deaths in India, Pakistan, Nepal, Sri Lanka and beyond – and community-driven solutions are leading the fightback
buff.ly
madalsa.org
I’ll keep an eye out! I use sumac very often but always bought from Middle East markets.
madalsa.org
so I should restock my sumac with grown in…Indiana?
madalsa.org
It’s SO good. Many gut laughs, easy three hours. Gosh I needed that
madalsa.org
I didn’t think anyone could make a car chase exciting in 2025 but Paul Thomas Anderson did it.
Reposted by Madalsa
carlzimmer.com
Today my @nytimes.com colleagues and I are launching a new series called Lost Science. We interview US scientists who can no longer discover something new about our world, thanks to this year‘s cuts. Here is my first interview with a scientist who studied bees and fires. Gift link: nyti.ms/3IWXbiE
nyti.ms
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kevinjkircher.com
In April, Spain and Portugal suffered Europe's worst blackout in 20 years. Now, 5 months later, an expert panel has released a report on the blackout. In the meantime, opportunists filled the information void, blaming renewables without evidence. The misinfo stuck, @juliaradio.bsky.social reports.
After Spain's blackout, critics blamed renewable energy. It's part of a bigger attack
When millions lost power in Spain and Portugal this spring, some were quick to blame too much solar and wind power. That wasn't the cause, but the misinformation had an impact.
www.npr.org
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handle.invalid
Congratulations to 2025 #MacFellow William Tarpeh! The Stanford chemical engineer is working on sustainable and practical solutions to treat wastewater and recover valuable mineral resources.

🗞️: stanford.io/3IZIBqF
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yearprogress.bsky.social
▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓░░░░░ 76.85%
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seema.bsky.social
Our new paper shows that men benefit from couples' long-distance joint moves more than women do, in both Germany and Sweden. Is this just b/c men are usually the main breadwinner? No, it's hard to explain the patterns we see w/o a gender norm prioritizing men's careers. www.nber.org/papers/w32970
Moving to Opportunity, Together

Many couples face a trade-off between advancing one spouse’s career or the other’s. We study this trade-off using administrative data from Germany and Sweden. We first conduct an event-study analysis of couples moving across commuting zones and find that relocation increases men’s earnings more than women’s, with strikingly similar patterns in Germany and Sweden. Using a sample of mass layoff events, we then find that couples in both countries are more likely to relocate in response to the man being laid off compared to the woman. We investigate whether these gendered patterns reflect men’s higher potential earnings or a gender norm that prioritizes men’s career advancement. We provide suggestive evidence of a gender norm using variation in norms within Germany. We then develop and estimate a model of household decision-making in which households can place more weight on the income earned by the man compared to the woman.
Reposted by Madalsa
seema.bsky.social
We just spent 6 months to add 1 figure to this paper. Some people said, "Couples aren't prioritizing men's careers. Men just have better earnings opportunities when moving."

Earnings effects of moves for couples on the left, singles on the right. Negligible gap between single men and women.
Event study coefficients that show that men's earnings rise more than women's among couples following a cross-commuting zone move (left panels). The pattern is muted or reverses among single men and single women (right panels).
Reposted by Madalsa
Reposted by Madalsa
volts.wtf
This is amazing: @ladwp.com, the Los Angeles utility, has launched a program that will install solar+battery systems on qualifying low-to-moderate-income households, *for free*.

Yes: free.

If you know someone eligible, tell them to apply!
Self-Generation Incentive Program
The Self-Generation Incentive Program (SGIP) helps qualified LADWP residential customers install solar and battery storage systems by providing financial incentives. This program supports clean energy...
www.ladwp.com