John Bistline
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bistline.bsky.social
John Bistline
@bistline.bsky.social
5.6K followers 480 following 460 posts

Energy systems modeling, economics, policy | IPCC, NCA, Stanford/CMU alum | Views my own

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Economics 30%
Engineering 28%
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Reposted by John Bistline

chrisbataille.bsky.social
Chris Bataille @chrisbataille.bsky.social · 1d
New paper on US iron and steel decarbonization pathways from our crew based on the global NetZeroSteel model. Lead by the indomitable fgnxl.bksy.social. NetZeroIndustry.org Free access here to March 22 kwnsfk27.r.eu-west-1.awstrack.me/L0/https:%2F...

bistline.bsky.social
John Bistline @bistline.bsky.social · 3d
Weird. That didn't feel like anything more than a 1.6993571859512.
earthquakesla.bsky.social LA QuakeBot @earthquakesla.bsky.social · 3d
#Earthquake Update: A magnitude 1.69935718595124 earthquake took place 9 km N of Fillmore, CA at 10:52:58 AM. #micro
For details from the USGS:
M 1.7 - 9 km N of Fillmore, CA | 41175727
2026-01-29 18:01:58 (UTC) | -118.923°N 34.483°W | 4.8 km depth
earthquake.usgs.gov

Reposted by John Bistline

earthquakesla.bsky.social
LA QuakeBot @earthquakesla.bsky.social · 3d
#Earthquake Update: A magnitude 1.69935718595124 earthquake took place 9 km N of Fillmore, CA at 10:52:58 AM. #micro
For details from the USGS:
M 1.7 - 9 km N of Fillmore, CA | 41175727
2026-01-29 18:01:58 (UTC) | -118.923°N 34.483°W | 4.8 km depth
earthquake.usgs.gov

bistline.bsky.social
John Bistline @bistline.bsky.social · 3d
The paper frames three levers that decide whether you get "win-win" outcomes:
1. Planning
2. Rate design and cost allocation (avoid cost shifting)
3. Demand flexibility

Read the white paper here: winwin.epri.com
Home | Win-Win Watts
winwin.epri.com

bistline.bsky.social
John Bistline @bistline.bsky.social · 3d
What do recent data suggest? 2019-2024 state patterns show faster load growth tended to coincide with smaller price increases (correlation, not causation). Headline stat: 10% load leads to ~0.6¢/kWh lower prices on average.

bistline.bsky.social
John Bistline @bistline.bsky.social · 3d
Key test [switches to white board voice]: Incremental cost vs. average cost. When incremental is below cost of serving today's customers, added load can reduce average prices; if they are above, prices rise.

bistline.bsky.social
John Bistline @bistline.bsky.social · 3d
Can load growth ever lower electricity prices? EPRI's new Win-Win Watts paper: sometimes yes; it depends.

bistline.bsky.social
John Bistline @bistline.bsky.social · 5d
Clean energy cost projections that ignore actual financing terms are wishful thinking. Cool new paper finally gives empirical, national-level WACC for 10 key technologies across 176 countries.

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

bistline.bsky.social
John Bistline @bistline.bsky.social · 10d
Two lines tell the story of U.S. coal jobs
📉 U.S. coal production: ~884M tons (1985) → ~513M (2024)
📉 Coal mining employment: ~174k (1985) → ~43k (2024)

Automation meant jobs fell faster than production.

For scale, Tesla has ~120k U.S. employees... ~3x the mining workforce.

Reposted by Rebecca Solnit, John R. Hutchinson, Cailin O’Connor

bistline.bsky.social
John Bistline @bistline.bsky.social · 11d
Texas power buildout in one picture: wind (green) laid the foundation, solar (yellow) is the new wave, and energy storage (purple) is clustering around load. This is the grid transition, mapped.

bistline.bsky.social
John Bistline @bistline.bsky.social · 18d
This is an impressive data visualization.
olufemiotaiwo.bsky.social Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò @olufemiotaiwo.bsky.social · 18d
how things stand in the Premier League for this same stat (note our man in the top 5!)
"Which players have added the most value with their line breaking passes?" graph with maps of passes. top players in order they give: Marcos Sensei, Jack Freakish, Adam Wharton, Hugo Bueno, Alex Iwobi, Pedro Porro, Bukayo Saka, Diego Dalot, Amad Diallo

Reposted by John Bistline

olufemiotaiwo.bsky.social
Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò @olufemiotaiwo.bsky.social · 18d
how things stand in the Premier League for this same stat (note our man in the top 5!)
"Which players have added the most value with their line breaking passes?" graph with maps of passes. top players in order they give: Marcos Sensei, Jack Freakish, Adam Wharton, Hugo Bueno, Alex Iwobi, Pedro Porro, Bukayo Saka, Diego Dalot, Amad Diallo

bistline.bsky.social
John Bistline @bistline.bsky.social · 18d
Every circle on this map is a real project with steel (or lithium) in the ground or on the way. Zoom in on the Central Valley and tell me again that nothing ever gets built in California.

bistline.bsky.social
John Bistline @bistline.bsky.social · 18d
Great article, Noah! I'm glad this is the only climate question economists can't answer.

bistline.bsky.social
John Bistline @bistline.bsky.social · 19d
New Rhodium data show U.S. economy-wide emissions rose in 2025.

To hit net-zero by 2050, the pace of decarbonization would need to roughly triple.

We're now closer to 2050 than the first season of Survivor.

bistline.bsky.social
John Bistline @bistline.bsky.social · 24d
Let's check in on clean energy deployment in California and Texas. Texas surpassed California as the leading utility-scale solar state in 2025 with roughly 12.9 GW added last year alone. CA still has more total solar when you include distributed capacity. And lots of batteries everywhere.

bistline.bsky.social
John Bistline @bistline.bsky.social · 25d
Check out the original IIASA paper here: pure.iiasa.ac.at/id/eprint/40...

Here's the 2025 update: iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1...
pure.iiasa.ac.at

Reposted by Daniel Huppmann, Hisham Zerriffi

bistline.bsky.social
John Bistline @bistline.bsky.social · 25d
Your great-great-grandparents commuted about an hour a day. So did Roman merchants. So do you. No matter how fast we make transportation, people just live farther from work regardless of income. It's called Marchetti's constant, basically Jevons paradox for your morning commute.

bistline.bsky.social
John Bistline @bistline.bsky.social · 26d
Read it here: rdcu.be/eS7lj

This is similar to Zheng et al.: Even >3x interregional transmission only cuts costs of a zero-emissions 2050 system by ~7% (lots of substitutes: storage, siting, nuclear). Reliability benefits can be larger than pure $ savings: arxiv.org/abs/2402.14189
Implications of policy-driven transmission expansion for costs, emissions and reliability in the USA
Nature Energy - Interregional transmission is key to a cost-efficient, reliable and cleaner US grid. Senga et al. find that current legislative proposals can increase reliability while capturing...
rdcu.be

bistline.bsky.social
John Bistline @bistline.bsky.social · 26d
Transmission discourse is usually: "Build more lines = cheaper + cleaner." This great new paper by @knittelmit.bsky.social and others is spicier: The big tradeoff is cost vs. extreme weather reliability, where interconnection is an insurance policy.

bistline.bsky.social
John Bistline @bistline.bsky.social · 27d
Great article, Zeke! Deep decarbonization scenarios for the U.S. also show a "merit order" for fossil fuel reductions, though there are many pathways for reaching net-zero emissions (bottom row), depending on assumptions about policies, technologies, regional resources, etc.

bistline.bsky.social
John Bistline @bistline.bsky.social · Jan 2
Carbon isn’t the only thing that matters for carbon capture. New modeling from my colleagues shows amine solvent emissions can create nitrosamines/nitramines and even affect PM2.5. But acid wash can dramatically cut these levels.

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

bistline.bsky.social
John Bistline @bistline.bsky.social · Jan 1
New year, new profile pic. Same ideas, just a few more gray hairs from 2025.

bistline.bsky.social
John Bistline @bistline.bsky.social · Dec 31
Starting the year with a little reflection. Happy 2026.

Reposted by Peter Thorne

bistline.bsky.social
John Bistline @bistline.bsky.social · Dec 30
Without intervention, higher income is strongly associated with higher car dependence across ~800 cities; doubling income ~37% more car journeys.

Electrifying a car-dependent city still means congestion, space, safety risk, and asphalt eating your budget.

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

bistline.bsky.social
John Bistline @bistline.bsky.social · Dec 23
Santa's wearing shorts this year. Christmas 2025 is forecast to be the warmest mean temperature across the Contiguous U.S. in the past half century.

h/t my colleague Erik Smith for the analysis: 2025 temps from GFS 06z, 1975-2024 from ERA5, area-weighted (lat) and averaged over the CONUS.

bistline.bsky.social
John Bistline @bistline.bsky.social · Dec 23
Check out the full report here from UCSB researchers (including @leahstokes.bsky.social): www.2035initiative.com/clean-manufa...

The EMF 37 study also discusses opportunities and challenges in this space: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
The Clean Heat Climate Opportunity — The 2035 Initiative at UC Santa Barbara
A Near-Term Roadmap for Electrifying Low- and Medium-Temperature Industrial Heat
www.2035initiative.com

Reposted by Leah Stokes

bistline.bsky.social
John Bistline @bistline.bsky.social · Dec 23
"Hard-to-abate" is sometimes code for "we haven't looked closely yet." This great new report shows opportunities for clean heat (low/medium-temp industrial process heat) through electrification, which also has public health benefits.

bistline.bsky.social
John Bistline @bistline.bsky.social · Dec 22
Solar wait times in interconnection queues are increasing, too.

Reposted by Paul Lehmann, Juan Cole, Paul Nightingale

bistline.bsky.social
John Bistline @bistline.bsky.social · Dec 18
Wind developers: "We're ready to build."

Grid: "Please hold. Your call is very important to us. Estimated wait time... 8 to 12 years."