Stephen Shankland
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stshank.bsky.social
Stephen Shankland
@stshank.bsky.social
1.3K followers 810 following 1.9K posts
Head of Content at Commonwealth Fusion Systems, a company commercializing fusion energy: clean, safe, affordable, secure. Former science and technology journalist. Bird nerd. Assigned to the Conehead clique as a teenager.
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stshank.bsky.social
Can confirm — the block I hit on X earlier today is gone and I can use it again.
November 13, 2025 at 6:40 AM
stshank.bsky.social
IEA published its World Energy Outlook 2025 today: www.iea.org/reports/worl...
Pressing threats and longer term hazards are elevating energy to a core issue of economic and national security. Energy is at the heart of today’s geopolitical tensions, with traditional risks to fuel supply now accompanied by restrictions affecting supplies of critical minerals. The electricity sector – so essential to modern economies – is also increasingly vulnerable to cyber, operational and weather-related hazards. Decisions taken by energy policy makers will be crucial to address these risks, but they do so against a complex backdrop: Geopolitical fragility coexists with subdued oil prices. Ongoing conflicts and instability sit alongside oil market balances showing a large surplus of supply over demand. Countries are prioritising energy security and affordability but are reaching for different levers to achieve them. Some, including many fuel-importing countries, lean towards renewables and efficiency as solutions. Others focus more on ensuring ample supplies of traditional fuels. There are fractures in the international system and uncertainties over the outlook for trade, but energy trade is more important than ever. Abundant supplies of oil, solar panels, batteries and, before long, liquefied natural gas (LNG) create strong incentives for producers to seek out international markets. There is less momentum than before behind national and international efforts to reduce emissions, yet climate risks are rising. 2024 was the hottest year on record and the first in which global temperatures exceeded 1.5 degrees Celsius (°C) above pre-industrial levels.
November 13, 2025 at 12:41 AM
stshank.bsky.social
Imagine being Thomas Harriot or Galileo Galilei looking through a telescope, seeing the contours of all those craters, and blowing up the idea that the moon was a perfect sphere. (Photo: this morning's gibbous moon.)

History: www.loc.gov/collections/...
#Moon #Astrophotography #Science
A gibbous moon roughly 3/4 full against a black sky, with shadow lines showing a multitude of craters in sharp relief.
November 9, 2025 at 5:30 PM
stshank.bsky.social
Tonight's full moon. It was cloudy all day but cleared up at sunset. I shot this pointing the camera nearly straight up, which means minimal atmospheric interference.
#Photography
A crisp photo of the full moon, with just a fringe of shadow on the right edge showing crater rims in relief.
November 6, 2025 at 7:08 AM
stshank.bsky.social
Google News is doing its best to break me out of my filter bubble today. Some really creative news article categorization.
#AI #Google
A Google News screenshot showing inappropriately categorized news articles, e.g. a Dallas Cowboys article in the "Physics" section.
November 6, 2025 at 2:32 AM
stshank.bsky.social
One core enabling technology at @cfs.energy is high-temperature superconductors (HTS). Working at warmer temperatures is nice, but their real advantage for fusion energy is enabling much higher currents and working at much higher magnetic fields. That means stronger, more compact magnets.
October 31, 2025 at 3:51 PM
stshank.bsky.social
Banana slug celebrating the fall foliage. Uvas Creek County Park south of San Jose.
#NaturePhotography #Slug #Autumn
A greenish-ocher colored banana slug, its upper tentacles extended and its body covered with dark spots, creeps onto the top of an orange leaf.
October 28, 2025 at 3:29 AM
stshank.bsky.social
Reason No. 1 that loyalty programs undermine my actual loyalty.
October 20, 2025 at 2:54 PM
stshank.bsky.social
PG&E sends me these reports about how we're doing. They'd make me feel bad except that we have two EVs. Aside from that we're pretty energy efficient.
October 17, 2025 at 11:04 PM
stshank.bsky.social
A black-necked stilt at Baylands Nature Preserve on the marshy and muddy edge of the San Francisco Bay. #birds 🐦
October 17, 2025 at 5:19 PM
stshank.bsky.social
👀

JPMorganChase Launches $1.5 Trillion Security and Resiliency Initiative to Boost Critical Industries

www.jpmorganchase.com/newsroom/pre...
The firm’s effort comes at a time when the U.S. is looking to modernize infrastructure, fortify supply chains, and implement policies that promote growth. JPMorganChase will focus on the following four key areas, supporting companies across all sizes and development stages by offering advice, providing financing, and, in some cases, investing capital: Supply Chain and Advanced Manufacturing, including critical minerals, pharmaceutical precursors and robotics Defense and Aerospace, including defense technology, autonomous systems, drones, next-gen connectivity and secure communications Energy Independence and Resilience, including battery storage, grid resilience and distributed energy Frontier and Strategic Technologies, including AI, cybersecurity and quantum computing
October 15, 2025 at 9:05 PM
stshank.bsky.social
DOE's new fusion energy roadmap to support commercialization: www.energy.gov/articles/fus...

#FusionEnergy
October 14, 2025 at 3:15 PM
stshank.bsky.social
800mm telephoto shot of @sutrotower.bsky.social from ~15km / 9mi away yesterday — randomly got a Canadian Forces Snowbirds jet. They substituted during Fleet Week in San Francisco for the US Navy's Blue Angles, grounded because of the US government shutdown. Heat distortion makes everything blurry.
A photo of San Francisco's Sutro Tower with a jet arcing downward through the sky over hills with lines of houses.
October 13, 2025 at 11:36 PM
stshank.bsky.social
TIL the MacOS 7.5 control panel said "Daylight Savings Time" instead of the correct but less common "Daylight Saving Time." (Though you don't need to capitalize it.) Via the amazing tour de control panels, with emulation, from the incomparable @aresluna.org: aresluna.org/frame-of-pre...
#UI #MacOS
A screenshot of the MacOS 7.5's Date and Time control panel including a section for "Daylight Savings Time."
October 11, 2025 at 12:59 AM
stshank.bsky.social
Cholla cactus backlit by the New Mexico sunrise this morning.
October 4, 2025 at 5:34 PM
stshank.bsky.social
You can see the sunspots without using fancy filters if you take a photo of the sun with the right thickness of clouds in the way.
September 28, 2025 at 5:13 PM
stshank.bsky.social
A green heron today at Baylands Nature Preserve on the San Francisco Bay. Cool two-tone feet and tan-outlined green glossy feathers on its back. #birds 🐦
A large brown, gray, and dark green bird with yellow and brown legs perches on a white pipe, its yellow eye looking straight at the camera and its sharp bill in profile.
September 21, 2025 at 10:56 PM
stshank.bsky.social
Google's promo — buy a $1200 new phone, get this exclusive sticker! (While supplies last.)
September 16, 2025 at 8:41 PM
stshank.bsky.social
Got it, thanks. I respectfully suggest that you factor other opinions into your thinking. We haven't published detailed LCOE estimates, but our CEO discussed needs for competitive fusion energy in a 2024 open letter. We plan power from our first ARC in the early 2030s. cfs.energy/news-and-med...
September 10, 2025 at 7:51 PM
stshank.bsky.social
IPv6 traffic at Google is brushing up against 50%. www.google.com/intl/en/ipv6...
#IPv6
A chart showing the steady increase of the newer IPv6 internet data-transfer protocol from 2010 to the present.
September 10, 2025 at 5:54 AM
stshank.bsky.social
Wild turkeys — giving off very non-avian dinosaur vibes, especially when you see their big scaly feet. But with really neat glossy, iridescent feathers. Coyote Hills Regional Park near Fremont, California. #birds 🐦
Four wild turkeys feathers walk through straw-colored dry grass A view of the neck and head of a tom turkey looking left, his bluish face and reddish wattle contrasting with his glossy, mostly black neck feathers. A tom turkey's black feathers show lots of rust/orange and green/blue iridescent patches
September 6, 2025 at 10:49 PM
stshank.bsky.social
A quartet of peer-reviewed papers from Pacific Fusion including details about its fusion machine roadmap and physics basis: www.pacificfusion.com/updates/vali...

#FusionEnergy
September 4, 2025 at 5:32 AM
stshank.bsky.social
When you get an educational course offering for artificial intelligence but it uses the @adobe.com Illustrator logo. #AI
August 30, 2025 at 5:35 PM
stshank.bsky.social
Assorted failed attempts to get Google Gemini to create a particular image. (I ran out of time and gave up.)
August 26, 2025 at 10:13 PM
stshank.bsky.social
Northern New Mexico during a hot spell last week — lots of birds panting: black-chinned hummingbird, Say's phoebe, canyon towhee, piñon jay (the latter pretty scarce these days). Don't remember ever seeing a hummingbird panting. You can see the piñon jay's spiky tongue if you look closely. #birds 🐦
August 23, 2025 at 12:47 AM