New from me w/ @theBTI Disruptive innovation in heavy industry is exceedingly rare; we still smelt aluminum and make ammonia using 100 y/o processes. To reindustrialize, decarbonize, and grow the economy, we must formally study what drives innovation in heavy industry 🧵

Hindsight makes it easy to find evidence that innovation happens linearly. But this isn’t entirely appropriate to conclude unless we can also prove it’s not nonlinear, which afaik we can’t since disputing nonlinearity has a higher burden of proof bc it’s so much more complex

One of the most underrated marvels in semiconductor fabs is the vacuum pump. A high end dry vacuum pump can spin at 90,000 RPM, operate 24/7 for years, maintain ultra clean vacuum environments, survive corrosive process gases, and hold tolerances measured in microns. These Turbo Molecular Vacuum Pumps cost $10,000 to $25,000 per unit. Without them, there are no chips, no AI GPUs, no smartphones. The semiconductor industry isn't just about EUV lithography. It's also about thousands of invisible engineering masterpieces quietly running in the background. Video Source :- Leon Li-666

Petition to rename ARPA-E into Advanced Research on Energy Projects Agency: AREPA

Baffles me how people can go a whole flight without ever opening the window and marveling at the fact that you’re 40,000 feet in the air

Alexander Graham Bell built a hydrofoil boat in 1918 that could reach 70 mph. Wild.

The way out is bilateral contracting at prices that reflect actual scarcity The solar industry didn't scale on ISO market signals alone; it scaled because corporates signed 15-year VPPAs that gave developers bankable offtake The battery equivalent is an emerging class of bilateral tolling agreements at prices negotiated between parties who know what reliable power is actually worth to them

All of the post WWII infrastructure that is now being rebuilt with higher capacities and more resilient technology that the GETs people would have you believe isn’t already happening just because people aren’t buying their particular expensive thing.

Congress needs to harness the market push for 800V data center architecture to onshore manufacturing of SiC and GaN wafers and power electronics. Unlike the industry for traditional Si semis, SiC and GaN are relatively immature, and the US still stands a chance to claim a chunk of market share if it acts quickly and decisively. Might be missing some key points but here’s what I think needs to happen: - aggressively fund R&D and commercialization for 8 inch SiC & GaN wafer growth - bring back policy supports for EVs to increase demand pull - lift permitting & regulatory barriers to grid expansion, partnered with financial support for modernization (another demand pull) - get DoW to study the quantity of WBG semis they use to get headline numbers on the nat sec vulnerability (similar to X tons of REE magnets per fighter jet)

Dynamic line ratings rely on wind to “unlock” capacity in transmission lines, so their potential maps onto wind potential. Naturally, most results you’ll see are from the states with tons of wind—results that can’t be reliably extrapolated to the whole country

I didn’t have Facebook training welders on my 2005 bingo card

Instead of using pipeline RoWs to site transmission, we should put transmission lines INSIDE pipelines. Hydrocarbons insulate the wire so we can run EHV, too. 🤯

“All of the above” energy is equally relevant for T&D technologies as it is for generation

My only benchmark for AGI is whatever model can produce an image that correctly conductors a transmission line

There’s a 5-10 yr delay btwn new grid policy or investment and seeing their impact in bills. Today’s affordability crisis began in 2015-2020. Bills will likely rise through 2030 bc of choices from 2020-today. The question is: can we reign in prices for the 2030s?

We really need to stop applying just-in-time manufacturing mindset to infrastructure and heavy industry