Mark Interrante
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interrante.bsky.social
Mark Interrante
@interrante.bsky.social
#photography #ICMphotography #Urbanism #YIMBY
Previously Salesforce, Dell, HP, Deloitte
Reposted by Mark Interrante
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)
December 15, 2025 at 9:33 PM
Reposted by Mark Interrante
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/...
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 …
simonwillison.net
December 12, 2025 at 11:32 PM
Reposted by Mark Interrante
“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)
December 13, 2025 at 12:55 AM
Reposted by Mark Interrante
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 🏆🏆🏆
December 3, 2025 at 2:56 AM
Reposted by Mark Interrante
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.
December 1, 2025 at 4:18 PM
Reposted by Mark Interrante
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...
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!)
electrek.co
November 29, 2025 at 5:08 PM
Reposted by Mark Interrante
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.
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.
discoveryalert.com.au
November 16, 2025 at 6:06 AM
Wind and solar covered all the growth this year
Good morning with good news: Global solar grew by 498 TWh (+31%) in Q1-Q3 2025, compared to 2024, "the largest increase ever over a nine-month period."

Global solar output in first 3 quarters of 2025 already surpassed total output in all of 2024.

ember-energy.org/latest-insig... #energysky
November 13, 2025 at 8:50 PM
Reposted by Mark Interrante
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.
October 8, 2025 at 8:07 PM
Reposted by Mark Interrante
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.
September 30, 2025 at 7:39 PM
Reposted by Mark Interrante
🚨 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...
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...
colorado.gov
August 4, 2025 at 9:12 PM
Reposted by Mark Interrante
Dallas has become a destination location for international concepts, leaving local restaurants in a lurch.
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.
www.dallasobserver.com
September 28, 2025 at 5:00 PM
Reposted by Mark Interrante
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
September 22, 2025 at 2:49 PM
Reposted by Mark Interrante
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
September 1, 2025 at 12:49 PM
Reposted by Mark Interrante
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.
September 1, 2025 at 1:14 PM
Reposted by Mark Interrante
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/...
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...
www.maxdubler.com
August 28, 2025 at 9:22 PM
Reposted by Mark Interrante
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
August 16, 2025 at 12:58 PM
Reposted by Mark Interrante
Latest on the "stalling" shift to electric vehicles, EU edition
July 30, 2025 at 11:17 AM
Reposted by Mark Interrante
There are more apartments available under $1,500 in Austin than there are under $4,000 in NYC*

(*that are listed on Zillow)
July 26, 2025 at 6:39 AM
Reposted by Mark Interrante
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-...
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...
www.pew.org
July 23, 2025 at 5:20 PM
Reposted by Mark Interrante
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.
July 17, 2025 at 8:54 PM
Reposted by Mark Interrante
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.
i have really come to believe that this — treating the public like its too stupid to understand anything complex — is one of our big problems.
Savvy operative types in DC truly believed then and believe now that average Americans are too dumb to understand how government works or why it exists. Educating and defending the Corporation for Public Broadcasting—with its profound impact on people for negligible taxpayer cost—was a layup.
July 17, 2025 at 1:55 PM
Reposted by Mark Interrante
🌞 Solar that never sleeps? It’s no longer a fantasy.
With today’s batteries, we can now deliver near-constant solar power, up to 97% of the time, at prices cheaper than coal or nuclear.
Here’s why that changes everything 🧵 1/9 👇
July 16, 2025 at 3:19 PM
Reposted by Mark Interrante
The “real doom loop” is the dramatic aging of the Bay Area. There aren’t enough kids or young people.

The reason? Housing, housing, housing — a profound housing shortage that’s pushing out young families & young people generally.

We need to build so many more homes. We’re working hard to do that.
This is the real doom loop. It will change everything about life in the Bay Area
Already one of the oldest parts of the U.S., the San Francisco metro area is aging faster than any other major region. It will change every aspect of our lives.
www.sfchronicle.com
July 14, 2025 at 3:13 PM
Reposted by Mark Interrante
NYC experimented with new window heat pump models in some public housing units. in winter, "The window unit-heated apartments used a whopping 87% less energy than the rest of the building’s steam-heated apartments did, cutting energy costs per household in half."

heatmap.news/sustainabili...
Window Heat Pumps Could Change the Game
A new report from the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy has some exciting data for anyone attempting to retrofit a multifamily building.
heatmap.news
July 14, 2025 at 2:12 PM