Lightbucket

Low clouds cool and high clouds warm. All clouds reflect some sunlight. But high clouds have cold cloud tops, so they absorb relatively warm thermal radiation coming up from below but re-radiate at the cold temperatures of their cloud tops, making them net thermal absorbers. contrails.org

Underground power cables are much more expensive than pylons, but the sheer scale of the trench also has environmental costs. The cable corridor for an 400 kV underground cable is 33 m wide, about the width of a 3-lane motorway. 👇 ⸻ Ref: Electricity System Operator www.neso.energy/document/304...

The largest arms companies are mostly American, and Lockheed Martin is by far the largest. Following the Starlink debacle, the US is finished as a defence exporter. ⸻ Ref: SIPRI www.sipri.org/visualizatio... ⸻ The revenues of the largest arms-producing companies in the world, in 2024. 👇

Hey everyone, gather around! Elon Musk, the trillionaire defense contractor currently spending >$400m on political campaigns to prop up the party of a deeply unpopular president who launched the Iran War has some thoughts about Ukraine, elites, and money in politics.

October 23rd 2026: Bank of Russia holds its key interest rate at 14.0% (again). Next key rate meetings:  • 18 December 2026  • 12 February 2027  • 19 March 2027 www.cbr.ru/eng/dkp/cal_... #Russianeconomy 10 years of interest rates, for context 👇: ⸻ Ref: tradingeconomics.com/russia/inter...

The Times has been fully mask-off for some time now. Like, an actually quite shockingly racist newspaper.

 ❝ The Finnish Governmen gtranted today, 22 October 2026, to Posiva the operating licence for the encapsulation and final disposal facility for spent nuclear fuel located in Olkiluoto. This is the first operating licence anywhere in the world granted for the final disposal of spent nuclear fuel. ❞

Humiliating and dangerous: Trump has now finally just made America an ally of the Kremlin and is aiding Putin in his war against an American friend and partner. Shameful betrayal of a US friend, and pathetic submission to a US enemy. www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/1...

It was clear from the start what this Trump administration's positions on Ukraine and on Russia were going to be. Many people in Europe didn't accept that - because they wanted it to be otherwise, or because they were persuaded by Europe-whisperers like Lindsey Graham that it would all be okay.

Here's how grid-scale batteries and pumped hydro charged over the past week… It's interesting to see the patterns throughout the week. There's a lot of background activity as well as periodic moments where the entire fleet appears to store energy at the same time.

Free weekend out. The big story is that Donald Trump is now free to be what he always was--strong supporter of Vladimir Putin and an agent pushing for Russian victory. He no longer has to pretend he cares at all about Ukrainian dead or Russian War crimes. phillipspobrien.substack.com/p/weekend-up...

they did the thing

Here's the cumulative volume of curtailment and turn-up actions over the past week… We had a particularly heavy period of transmission constraint throughout September, both in terms of energy volume as well as cost. Why? ⬇️

I often see people claim that because clean energy sources like solar, wind, or nuclear are manufactured using fossil fuels their emissions are high. But thats absolutely not the case: even accounting for full lifecycle emissions they are vastly better than burning coal or gas:

@hockeyviz.com I found some beautiful data viz for you

We're pushing 1,500 MW today from the under-construction cluster of wind farms in the North Sea, and they're mostly capped at ~50% capacity for now When complete these three will be outputting at 3,800 MW on a windy day

"It's been a very abusive relationship if you're an ally for the last eighteen months. The idea we can go back to trusting America is low." Distinguished Fellow Robin Niblett joined Times Radio to discuss his latest book 'After America' and the wider impact of Donald Trump's presidency.

‘“Decarbonisation” was supposed to drive down prices and encourage consumers to switch from using fossil fuels for driving and heating. This hasn’t happened.’ @arthurdowning.bsky.social on Britain’s energy crisis: www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

WSJ: The AI build-out is on track to become the biggest economic bet in US history, dwarfing the investments made to fund other huge US infrastructure projects — such as the railroads, the highway system and the plumbing for the internet.” (via Jefferies)

FT Alphaville on the USS pension fund (a subject I have a rather direct personal interest in): 👇

hold up, this guy is the R. Wendell Harrison Distinguished Service Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago and he didn't know there were banking sanctions against Russia?

Beef production has been the largest driver of deforestation this century. Over the last two decades, around 128 million hectares of forest have been cleared to make way for agriculture and forest plantations. That’s an area five times the size of the United Kingdom.