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30 Jun, 4 tweets, 2 min read
Watch FERC. Today is the last official day for my friend @FERChatterjee. Which means that President Biden has the chance to appoint a new director to arguably the most important agency in the government when it comes to near-term CO2 reduction. Gonna be a #HotFERCSummer
1/ If we are going to electrify our transportation fleet, we need a lot of new transmission (several hundred billion $ worth, according to @JesseJenkins) and >1,000 GW of new generation.
2/ Those investments will lower our cost of energy and drop CO2 emissions. But our electric regulatory structure has never been fully market-based. Federal $ (e.g., infrastructure) can close some, but not all of that gap.
3/ FERC's jurisdiction over power markets and asset siting makes them THE critical player in structuring rules to bring necessary private sector investments forward. This next appointment is a REALLY big deal. Stay tuned...

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More from @SeanCasten

Sean Casten Profile picture
26 Jun
OK, @NRCC. I'll bite. Let's talk about critical race theory. Buckle up and take notes. Thread:
1/ As a general matter, I don't engage with the @NRCC. They serve only to provoke and are run by people with the intellectual rigor and moral compass of an emotionally-stunted 12 year old.
2/ But this matters. They are talking about CRT not because they care about the substance. It's because they want to blow racist dog whistles at their base AND encourage parents to attack teachers. They think it will help them win elections and don't care about the cost.
Read 27 tweets
Sean Casten Profile picture
24 Jun
I continue to think LCOE is a lousy metric to understand the power sector. But when all-in costs for clean energy are lower than marginal costs for dirty energy, it's a big deal.
This is why I've been so focused on getting our financial regulators to start planning for the massive wealth transfers that are coming to our financial system. casten.house.gov/media/press-re…
The *physical* financial risks caused by climate change (property loss, crop failures, etc) are frightening but understandable. But in the near term, the *transition* risks may be bigger.
Read 9 tweets
Sean Casten Profile picture
23 Jun
A brief #energytwitter nerd thread. As usual, about things people aren't talking about but should be. Who should be allowed to own and profit from retail EV charging stations?
1/ That may seem a dumb question. We have a market economy, if people want this businesses will build it, right? Not so fast.
2/ Because for all the deregulation we've done of our electric markets over the past 3 decades, the "last mile" that connects to retail use is still a regulated monopoly in all 50 states.
Read 13 tweets
Sean Casten Profile picture
9 Jun
As a general rule, I love @drvolts stuff on our energy system and almost always learn from him. But I have to quibble with this one that - like most LCOE pieces conflates capex & opex. Short thread: #energytwitter
1/ My view is that for any energy storage system *once built* the only thing that really matters is round-trip efficiency (e.g., how much electricity you get out / how much you put in). For most battery systems it's around 80%.
2/ That means that you will run that asset as long as the price you get from selling the electricity is >= 1/0.8 = 1.25x the price you paid to buy the electricity. Above that point you will make marginal money and knock any more expensive source off the grid.
Read 12 tweets
Sean Casten Profile picture
2 Jun
Prairie State is being EXTREMELY disingenuous here. Coal-fired power is neither cheap nor clean. Their statement here suggests to the contrary and needs clarification. #energytwitter #nerdthread wbez.org/stories/pritzk…
1/ Backstory: IL state regulators are in the midst of negotiations to try and shut down high CO2 power sources like Prairie State. Those negotiations are still on-going and have no federal nexus. But their statement is made within that context.
2/ The plant has been a boondoggle since it was built. Over-budget, over-schedule and consistently forcing users to pay way more for electricity than they would have otherwise. See here for details: rmi.org/insight/transi…
Read 12 tweets
Sean Casten Profile picture
31 May
A few thoughts on this Memorial Day about patriotism. From the speech I gave this morning in Glen Ellyn here, but in a condensed thread here for you Twitter-philes.
m.facebook.com/castenforcongr…
1/ Memorial Day is a holiday that more than any other, forces us to think about what it means to be patriotic.
2/ First because of it's history. In 1865 African Americans in Charleston SC held the first remembrance of those they lost. A year later, white women in Columbus MS did the same to honor Confederates. The national holiday honoring all war dead didn't come until 1971.
Read 15 tweets

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