Ketan Joshi
LightNews LightNews
banner
ketanjoshi.co
Ketan Joshi
@ketanjoshi.co
57K followers 3.5K following 22K posts
Hey, I'm a climate and energy writer / data analyst who focuses on corporate + govt accountability

Creator + curator of the Greensky feed: https://ketanjoshi.co/greensky/

Based in Oslo but write about US, Europe, Aus too - ketan.joshi85@gmail.com
Posts Replies Media Videos
ketanjoshi.co
The idea *suppliers* of fossil fuels are neutral meeters-of-demand remains one of the worst lies

Their job is not just digging up fossil fuels: their job is bullying, pushing, fighting, lying and lobbying to ensure fossil fuels get burned as much as possible

www.rigzone.com/news/wire/ch...
China Gas Sector Lobbies for More Power Plants to Boost Demand by Bloomberg|Bloomberg News | Tuesday, June 10, 2025 | 2:30 AM EST China Gas Sector Lobbies for More Power Plants to Boost Demand China's natural gas producers are lobbying Beijing to increase the number of power plants that run on the fuel, in a bid to help prop up faltering demand. Image by zhang meng via iStock China’s natural gas producers are lobbying Beijing to increase the number of power plants that run on the fuel, in a bid to help prop up faltering demand. The power sector - which currently accounts for 18 percent of China’s gas consumption - is viewed by the industry as a key engine of growth, according to people involved in advising on energy policy. Under the sector’s latest proposal, China would build nearly 70 gigawatts of new gas-fired capacity by 2030, an almost 50 percent increase from 2025’s estimated level, they said, asking not to be named as the plan is not public.
November 11, 2025 at 9:29 AM
ketanjoshi.co
The installed capacity of carbon capture and storage is about 50 megatonnes per annum of carbon, but it actually captures about 30 a year

Have been hunting for this number for a LONG time - buried in a DNV CCS report ->

brandcentral.dnv.com/original/gal...
CCS actual captured
November 10, 2025 at 9:34 PM
ketanjoshi.co
America is entering its Australia era

The great @justinmikulka.bsky.social -->>>

powering-the-planet.ghost.io/the-end-of-t...
Due to the fracking boom the U.S. was producing much more gas than it could use. Access to global markets was the only way to make a profit on producing natural gas in the U.S. which spurred the massive investment in U.S. LNG export terminals and now the situation has been reversed as the U.S. will be exporting so much gas in the form of LNG that the U.S. will have a gas shortage and domestic gas prices will rip higher. It’s already happening. From the Wall Street Journal:
November 10, 2025 at 8:15 PM
ketanjoshi.co
"alleged bias towards clean energy" are you kidding me!!!!!
wind power projections solar power projections
November 10, 2025 at 1:55 PM
ketanjoshi.co
maybe this time it's going to happen for nuclear power folks!!
nuclear power output
November 10, 2025 at 12:53 PM
ketanjoshi.co
Will update my file properly once the data's out but I just added in 2015, so you can see:

- Wind has exited the whole "exceeding expectations" trend, which is bad

- The "Current policies" scenario massively over-estimated coal use in the power sector
a chart showing rising wind power generation a chart showing coal output lower than projected
November 10, 2025 at 12:49 PM
ketanjoshi.co
Plenty of focus on the IEA adding the "current policies scenario" back into the World Energy Outlook (new one coming Weds), but this catches my eye, given the resurgence of "we're helping the poor Africans" fossil fuel industry narrative

www.iea.org/commentaries...
Multiple scenarios enable us to explore different aspects of energy security, affordability and sustainability None of the scenarios in the WEO are a forecast. A framework that includes multiple scenarios allows us to explore the consequences of different policy choices for the key policy priorities of energy security, affordability and sustainability. The WEO-2025 will include two exploratory scenarios: the Current Policies Scenario (CPS) and the Stated Policies Scenario (STEPS). Neither of these scenarios target any particular outcome. They do not assume that aspirational objectives – such as those in the Paris Agreement – are met. The CPS was a regular feature of the International Energy Agency’s suite of scenarios until the WEO-2020, when it was discontinued amid turmoil in energy markets and rapid changes in the policy landscape during the Covid‑19 pandemic. Now that the world has passed through the pandemic and the global energy crisis, there is merit in revisiting the CPS. The WEO-2025 will also include two normative scenarios that map out ways to achieve specific outcomes: the Net Zero Emissions by 2050 (NZE) Scenario, and a new scenario called the Accelerating Clean Cooking and Electricity Services Scenario (ACCESS). The ACCESS scenario builds on the best examples of rapid historical progress to develop a country-by-country pathway to universal access to modern energy services. The WEO this year will not include the Announced Pledges Scenario (APS). The APS has been included in the WEO since 2021 and models a future for the energy system in which all national energy and climate targets – such as countries’ nationally determined contributions – are achieved in full and on time. The intention for WEO-2025 had been to assess the new round of NDCs that were due this year, generally covering the period 2031-35. However, many countries are yet to announce or update their targets, and an update to the APS would give only a partial picture of the implications fo…
November 10, 2025 at 12:26 PM
ketanjoshi.co
not shown: the experience of taking a tired, angry kid home in 0c when they're wearing 4 sopping wet muddy layers down to their skin

🫠
Post See new posts Conversation Tansu Yegen @TansuYegen An ordinary day at a Danish kindergarten. The children are cheering by calling out the name of their friend who is about to jump into a muddy puddle.
November 10, 2025 at 9:12 AM
ketanjoshi.co
One possible exception here is how they're using speech to text which once worked reasonably well, but has a rapidly growing error rate thanks to generative AI

share.google/6Cay9vdIpfco...
points created over several years by separate offices. Transcripts Under Proposition 54 in 2016, the state Senate and Assembly are required to videotape public hearings and floor sessions and to post the video online within 24 hours. Digital Democracy sends the video to an online transcription service that uses artificial intelligence to transcribe the audio within a few hours. Speech-to-text technology is far from perfect, howe even with the latest advances in Al. In many applications, a 10% or 20% error rate is common. To significantly improve the quality of the transcript, a team of Digital Democracy contractors review each transcript to correct errors. Speakers are also identified with facial recognition technology, but human editors confirm the identification and link speakers to related information about that person in the database. To increase accuracy, the names of legislators and registered lobbyists are hard-coded into the program. To a limited extent, we use internet searches to identify some other speakers. Videos are also cut into smaller segments corresponding to bill discussions. Each segment of video and the corresponding transcript are indexed so that a search can precisely identify bill discussions, speaker quotes or keywords The Copy Share Select all Web search review for every hour of video. In all, when Digital of Democracy launched in March 2024, more than 1,600 hours of video were processed and more than 12,000 individuals Speech-to-text technology is far from perfect, h... Tap to see search results
November 10, 2025 at 7:50 AM
ketanjoshi.co
The example given seems to be narrow classification ML, not generative 🤔
Listen to this article 8:40 min Learn more By Benjamin Mullin and Katie Robertson This headline and article were written without assistance from generative A.I. Nov. 7, 2025 Ryan Sabalow, a reporter for the newsroom CalMatters, noticed something peculiar when began covering California lawmakers in 2023. Politicians would often give impassioned spee against a bill, then refrain from voting entirely He began to wonder how often legislators wer ducking tough votes and how that influence California's laws. Not long ago, those questions would send Mr. Sabalow scurrying to some dreary records room or scrolling through a spreadsheet. In the dawning age of generative artificial intelligence, all he had to d was ask a m hine. He and his team turned to an A.I. tool, Digital Democracy, which tracks every word uttered in California legislative sessions, every donation and every vote taken. It led to an article, and an Emmy- winning segment on CBS, that revealed that Democratic lawmakers had killed a popular fentanyl bill by not voting at all. ADVERTISEMENT G Define Copy Select all Share A
November 10, 2025 at 7:26 AM
ketanjoshi.co
Pretty rich to see this from an Australian academic - Australia, currently vying to host COP31 and also trying to expand fossil fuel production!!!!

theconversation.com/brazil-claim...
Brazil’s environmental credentials Brazil describes itself as an environmental leader. In some areas, this claim holds weight. More than 80% of its electricity comes from renewable sources, mainly hydropower. It has a strong biofuel industry and rapidly expanding wind and solar power. Brazil’s ethanol program, launched in the 1970s to reduce dependence on imported oil, remains one of the most established in the world. Even so, environmental pressures remain intense. Land-use change, especially rampant deforestation in the Amazon and Cerrado (tropical savanna) regions, still accounts for about half of Brazil’s greenhouse gas emissions. At the same time the agribusiness sector – broadly defined as farm production, processing, inputs and services – is a major economic force (about a fifth to a quarter of GDP) and carries substantial political influence. Official data shows deforestation in the Amazon fell by about 11% in 2024-25, with around 5,800 square kilometres of forest lost (roughly half the size of greater Sydney). Illegal mining continues to affect Indigenous territories and river systems, while large cities struggle with air and water pollution. Adding to the tension, Brazil’s environment agency recently authorised Petrobras, the state-owned oil company, to drill exploratory wells off the mouth of the Amazon River. Belém, where COP30 is being held, is also on the mouth of the river. The approval is for research drilling to assess whether oil extraction would be viable, yet the timing, weeks before COP30, has drawn criticism from environmental groups. It raises questions about how Brazil will reconcile its clean-energy reputation with its fossil-fuel ambitions.
November 9, 2025 at 10:59 PM
ketanjoshi.co
comfortably meta's dirtiest data cente (dirty centre???????)
a chart showing emissions by data centre
November 9, 2025 at 10:47 PM
ketanjoshi.co
The Altoona site has seen the second greatest increase in power consumption, 2nd only to their Oregon site
meta's data centre power consumption chart and table a chart and table
November 9, 2025 at 10:46 PM
ketanjoshi.co
Meta is now running pro-data-center ads in regions with intense development

about.fb.com/news/2025/11...
November 9, 2025 at 10:27 PM
ketanjoshi.co
Can't 100% confirm this is the project they used AI to object to initially but if they did, it worked

www.kentonline.co.uk/sevenoaks/ne...
Plans to turn The Old Meeting House in St John’s Road, Sevenoaks, into mosque refused over highway safety concerns Read all comments | 1Elli Hodgson ehodgson@thekmgroup.co.uk Published: 14:00, 12 July 2025 | | | | A long-running bid to turn an old meeting house into a place for Islamic worship has been refused again, after fears over road safety. The Old Meeting House in St John’s Road in Sevenoaks has been the subject of an ongoing planning battle for two years.
November 9, 2025 at 10:21 PM
ketanjoshi.co
Something I've really noticed among institutional "responses" to generative technologies is that "DO NOT USE THIS TOOL, IT'S COMPLETELY INAPPROPRIATE" is fudamentally erased from any possibility of ever being an option

Often paired with fatalist stuff like "this isn't going away"
View Steve Little’s graphic link Steve LittleSteve Little • 2ndPremium • 2nd AI Program Director, National Genealogical Society; Founder/Owner: AI Genealogy Insights; United Methodist ClergyAI Program Director, National Genealogical Society; Founder/Owner: AI Genealogy Insights; United Methodist Clergy 1d • 1 day ago • Visible to anyone on or off LinkedIn Follow This spring, genealogists discovered a problem: new AI "photo restoration" tools and techniques using GPT-4o and Nano Banana don't actually "restore" historical images—they generate plausible new images that can permanently corrupt our historical record. The image below shows the issue. One is a historical photograph. The other is an AI-generated face based on that photograph—convincing, but completely fabricated. The man on the left is my grandfather; the man on the right is not. By August, when Google's Nano Banana made this technology instantly accessible to millions, unlabeled AI "restorations" began appearing throughout online family trees. Many were being treated as authentic historical photographs. Expert genealogists responded. The Coalition for Responsible AI in Genealogy—led by genealogists who deeply understand evidential standards and the Genealogical Proof Standard—developed practical guidelines to address this challenge. Today they released their statement: "Protecting Trust in Historical Images." Three core recommendations: 1. Always label modified images 2. Always cite the original source 3. Use as illustration, not evidence These aren't restrictive rules—they're practices that let us explore what these technologies offer while protecting the integrity of our shared historical record. As a technical advisor to the Coalition, I'm grateful to the expert genealogists who led this work and to our broader community for taking these challenges seriously. Read the full story of how the genealogy community identified and addressed this challenge: https://lnkd.in/eTgZtTW4 I’ve been privileged to serve as a technical advisor to the Coalition, but the real work here was done by genealogists who deeply understand evidential standards and the Genealogical Proof Standard. This statement reflects their expertise. The Coalition’s three core recommendations are simple and practical: Always Label modified images. Always Cite the original source. Use as Illustration, Not Evidence. For detailed guidance on implementing these recommendations, see the educational articles linked at the bottom of the statement. When we use AI tools—and many of us will—we're accountable for accuracy, transparency, and ethical practice. Our Responsibility These tools aren’t going away. As genealogists, our responsibility is clear: we must be the “humans in the loop.” When we use AI tools—and many of us will—we’re accountable for accuracy, transparency, and ethical practice. The Coalition’s guidelines help us meet that responsibility. They protect the integrity of our shared historical record while allowing us to explore what these technologies might offer.
November 8, 2025 at 10:15 PM
ketanjoshi.co
my partner's reading @olufemiotaiwo.bsky.social!

I will read it afterwards
OLÚFÉMI O. TÁÍWÒ CAPTURE HOW THE POWERFUL TOOK OVER IDENTITY POLITICS (AND EVERYTHING ELSE)
November 8, 2025 at 8:57 PM
ketanjoshi.co
sure you can tell a lot about the inner workings of my brain from what I idly scribble whilst on calls
a scribble of a sort of wavy wind turbine with a wide base, and a shaded moon or sun like orb floating above it
November 8, 2025 at 8:56 PM
ketanjoshi.co
It's extra incredible to think about how many massive, chugging, dirty methane gas turbines had to blast out deadly pollutants to create this video

www.youtube.com/watch?v=mSWg... @oilfieldwitness.bsky.social
November 8, 2025 at 8:00 PM
ketanjoshi.co
Lots of important stuff but this specific bit is INCREDIBLY important and something I hope those all us who do some form of public communications and rely on the intensely difficult work of reporting hear

drilled.media/news/media-b...
I have ranted about this before (see below), but I talk to far too many (educated! politically engaged!) people who tell me their top source of news is an influencer. And look, I don't have a problem with the existence of "newsfluencers"--if they are better at getting people to engage with the news, then great. What I do have a problem with is that people don't seem to get that those folks can't exist without real reporters doing the actual work of information gathering and analysis. Like every other reporter I know, I can point to numerous occasions where an aspiring (and sometimes even successful) influencer has lifted my work, repackaged it and put it out as their own. In the very best case, they might cite the outlet the story came from. But what tends to happen in this scenario is that various members of the public will say some version of "that influencer is so much better than the 'mainstream' media," and increasingly opt to give their time, money and attention to the influencer. Nine times out of ten the information that person is sharing is not from a "legacy" outlet but from an independent one like ours, OR it's coming from one of the reporters at a legacy outlet that's still doing a really good job. In either case, like the tech bros before them, the influencers are lifting the benefits of the content without any of the responsibilities. They do not take on the legal, financial, or physical security risks required to get and share that information, they do not invest the months of reporting time or work with a fact-checker to make sure it's all accurate, nor do they have the years of experience on the beat to be able to connect the dots for people. And when they cut journalists out of the equation, it's not just for that moment in time--they're contributing to cutting those jobs forever.
November 8, 2025 at 7:45 PM
ketanjoshi.co
The last episode of @dickon.bsky.social's podcast about Norway's relationship with oil, The Black Thread, is out now :)

Hosted at @amywestervelt.bsky.social's @drilledmedia.bsky.social - here's a KetanClip 🍾

pocketcasts.com/podcast/dril...

communicatingclimatechange.com/the-black-th...
November 7, 2025 at 8:04 PM
ketanjoshi.co
Recent historical emissions are higher than projected: I will bet any money this is the case again for CAT's #COP30 update, and by an even worse margin.

We have become obsessed with Building Lots Of Stuff and we're failing to stop burning fossil fuels

climateactiontracker.org/documents/12...
recebt hustirucak enussuibs are higher than projected
November 7, 2025 at 4:08 PM
ketanjoshi.co
Appendix C: This @ttp-updates.bsky.social report from 2022 feels extremely relevant in 2025.....

techtransparencyproject.cdn.prismic.io/techtranspar...

www.techtransparencyproject.org/articles/cry...
Texas also pays some bitcoin miners millions for their willingness to curtail their power demand, whether they actually reduce their energy usage or not. According to one miner, they only curtail their load 3% of the time that the state pays for their participation in the program. Bitcoin miners may collect as much as $170 million a year from programs that pay large energy consumers for their willingness to shut down. Miners have proposed that Texas expand one program that pays miners to curtail their energy use, potentially raising payments to the crypto industry under that program to more than half a billion dollars a year. Crypto advocates say Texas miners will “do the right thing” and decrease their electricity consumption in times of need, even if it doesn’t align with their economic interests. In communications with investors, mining companies appear more preoccupied with their bottom line. One miner’s parent company tells shareholders it will “opportunistically sell electricity” depending on the market price. Texas’s reliance on the honor system leaves the state dependent on a range of obscure actors, some with checkered pasts. The CEO of one Texas miner has faced extortion charges and a 2017 lawsuit over more than $1.2 million in delinquent loans. Texas has allowed cleaner alternatives for grid stabilization, like battery projects, to languish at the same time that it has welcomed bitcoin miners as a panacea to the state’s energy reliability woes. Despite projections that the state would have more than 1,500 megawatts of battery capacity by the end of 2021, the Texas grid ended the year with 833 megawatts of installed capacity, barely more than half the projected level. Under certain market conditions, some Texas crypto miners already make more from energy arbitrage than from bitcoin mining, a TTP analysis shows. The structure of bitcoin virtually guarantees that mining will become less lucrative in the coming years, likely making energy trading even more at… Cruz and other cryptocurrency partisans have also argued that miners’ ability to quickly ramp energy consumption up or down means that the bitcoin industry can create new demand for renewable energy sources that generate power intermittently, allowing for green infrastructure development. In reality, miners’ voracious appetite for energy has outpaced the development of renewable energy facilities in Texas. Between 2020 and 2021, consumption of coal-powered energy increased in Texas, mirroring trends in other states where the crypto mining industry revived dying coal plants. Skeptics have pointed out that increasing the overall energy demand without generating an economically useful product is a backward step. “One good thing about crypto mining is it’s adding flexibility to the system,” a former ERCOT board member told the Washington Post last year. “But the problem is it’s consuming real resources, doing a function that has no value.” The promise of increased grid flexibility may also prove to be empty. Bitcoin miners are far more driven by profit than grid stabilization, and the vast majority of the energy they control can only be curtailed on a voluntary basis. As the TTP analysis shows, changes to the economics of bitcoin mining that are beyond the state’s control could change the calculus for miners, leaving the state in the cold at the worst possible moment. Energy storage technologies that exist for the sole purpose of providing flexibility, like batteries, do not carry the same risk. And large-scale industrial batteries can store intermittently produced energy and release it during peak times without consuming massive amounts of energy, as cryptocurrency miners do. “Miners are a strain on the grid, not a help,” one energy analyst said recently.
November 7, 2025 at 1:50 PM
ketanjoshi.co
APPENDIX B: how the hell did I forget to mention that this is the exact logic of carbon offsetting, including the extremely perverse financial incentives that created decades of fraud and literal crime

Not really something to blindly welcome as a much-needed tool in the climate solutions kit :)
In Texas, crypto miners can participate in ERCOT’s demand-response program (Responsive Reserve Service) and be paid by the grid operator for agreeing to shut down operations to prevent blackouts. The program pays crypto operations even if they are not actually asked or required to shut down. Many facilities may only shut down for only a few hours a year but can make millions of dollars. Demand-response company Voltus estimates that a cryptocurrency mining company can generate up to 10% of its annual revenue by providing shutdown services to the grid. $60M Five facilities in Texas collectively made at least $60 million from this program since 2020. $9.3M In July 2022, the Riot mine in Texas was asked to shut down for a total of nearly 3.5 hours but made about $9.3 million from the program. $1.6M In June 2023, during just the beginning of the summer heat waves, Riot Platforms made $1.6 million from the demand-response program. These payments are made to participating users whether or not the user would have elected to shut down operations without a request, due to high energy prices at the time of system risk. Compounding this inequity, most cryptomining equipment cannot physically operate in Texas’ extreme heat.
November 7, 2025 at 1:23 PM
ketanjoshi.co
I recently read this described as "double-subsidised" and I like it, but @edhirs.bsky.social's phrase "the tapeworm on the ercot grid" is also good

www.wired.com/story/bitcoi...
On March 1, in a letter seen by WIRED, Laird put these complaints to the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, the Public Utilities Commission of Texas, and other state regulators. An accompanying petition was signed by 88 local residents. Marathon declined a request for an interview, but in an open letter published in a local paper said it had “initiated an independent sound study” in response to complaints. Others argue the state’s strategy of paying bitcoin miners not to mine when the grid is under heavy load is nonsensical. “The most important thing a regulator can do is match assets and liabilities—match supply and demand,” says Ed Hirs, an energy fellow at the University of Houston. With the deterioration of the state’s fleet of fossil fuel plants, he says, allowing large-scale mining facilities to increase demand on the grid can only “exacerbate the situation” and invite further instability. In Texas, claims Hirs, crypto mining is primarily an energy arbitrage business, the profitability of which is dependent on the ability to purchase energy cheaply in bulk and sell it back to the grid at a premium when demand is high. These operations are effectively double-subsidized by residents, says Hirs, whose taxes provide both the funds for buying energy from the miners in periods of peak demand and the fees paid to miners for participating in demand response. Hirs likens miners to parasites, calling them “the tapeworm on the ERCOT grid.”
November 7, 2025 at 1:08 PM