Nat Bullard

My annual decarbonization presentation is here. 200 slides, covering everything from water levels in Lake Gatún to sulfur dioxide emissions to ESG fund flows to Chinese auto exports to artificial intelligence. www.nathanielbullard.com/presentations

Chevron replaces Cisco as the #1 Dow stock of the year: @cnbc.com $CVX

Time for 2026 updates to my annual “opinions about solar” thread, now with storage. If you like these, you might like edition 2 of my book, Solar Power Finance Without The Jargon. A 30% discount code WSQ0437 is valid on publisher website til end of Nov 2026. www.worldscientific.com/worldscibook...

Crazy stat: Battery storage failure rates declined 99% from 2018 to 2025

GS: The AI narrative is increasingly a bank narrative... US banks screen second only to technology on AI mentions ... The AI conversation is concentrated in the largest banks in the US

Diesel hits another record, and the Iran war isn’t the only problem @opinion.bloomberg.com www.bloomberg.com/opinion/arti...

And while crude is high, diesel's spike is being fully half-driven by the highest sustained diesel crack spreads on record. THE CRACK IS THE SAME AS THE FLAT PRICE OF CRUDE (US diesel vs Brent)

At more than $216 per barrel, US diesel futures are now at their highest level in history. We just busted through the prior record set at the height of the 2022 crisis.

Here's longer history for reference.

US diesel now fetching more than $200 per barrel. Highest print of the Hormuz crisis thus far, only two days closed at the height of the April 2022 crisis closed higher.

JPM: Hyperscalers “are issuing so much debt that they may be causing a supply-demand issue at the long end .. Unfortunately for [Bessent], there’s not much he can do .. in the words of FCC Chair Carr, I suppose that hyperscalers can always be informed to do things the easy way or the hard way..”

Pretty indisputably strong recovery in manufacturing/construction job openings: @econberger.bsky.social

Another narrative violation: State of Georgia has approved OpenAI's contract with GeorgiaPower: a $15/month *cost savings* to typical 1,000 kilowatt-hour/month customers.

Official monthly data is in today, and US solar power generation hit a new record high, up 20% compared to this time last year!

Dolly having a 100% approval rating at age 80 is one of the more remarkable things about someone who was in public life for so long.

Happy 30th birthday to one of the all-time bangers from @theonion.com: Somebody Should Do Something About All The Problems theonion.com/somebody-sho...

There are a lot of gas plants under development in the US. 472 of them to be precise, with a combined 270 gigawatts of generation capacity.

Some personal news... Today I'm excited to announce the launch of the Housing Frame, a Substack where I'll be analyzing the economy through a housing lens. My debut piece is the Housing Recession is Over. Follow and subscribe here: conorsen.substack.com/p/the-housin...

NEW | Battery storage additions could reach 459 GWh in 2026, enough to shift MORE THAN A THIRD of new solar generation to non-sunny hours 🔋 New analysis from @ember_energy 🧵1/5 ember-energy.org/lat...

Conor is a brilliant thinker and writer, and Housing Frame will be fantastic. Subscribe!

Wildfires burning across Washington and Oregon have left Portland with the worst air quality among major cities around the world, edging out Kinshasa in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Good read: www.stlouisfed.org/on-the-econo...

California and Texas are the largest solar power producers in the US, but on a per capita basis, New Mexico and Nevada are far ahead. In Nevada, solar produced ~5,000 kWh per capita in 2025. That's enough to drive an electric car over 15,000 miles, more than the average American drives per year.

Huge crowds of train fans turn out as the 1940s era Big Boy steam locomotive is making a rare trip cross country. n.pr/4pf4Byx

The Chief Economist at Indeed just posted that software development job posting growth is outpacing overall job posting growth:

Solar's sharp rise continues. As of April 2026, global solar capacity now exceeds 3 terawatt. 1 gigawatt → 1 terawatt: 20+ years 1 terawatt → 2 terawatt: 33 months 2 terawatt → 3 terawatt: 19 months

Happy 4th of July. Me (age 5), my younger brother (age 2), and our mother directing a tiny fife and drum corps (drums by Quaker Oats). Decatur, Georgia, 1982.

Last year the stack dropped 10% to 2.0 TW, as more than 750 GW withdrew. Gas proposals were up, especially in MISO, SPP, and ERCOT, but solar, storage, and wind capacity decreased. The usual caveat: not all projects in the queue will be built! But it is a strong indicator of near-term trends. 3/x

New data from @BerkeleyLab shows that the massive backlog of generation & storage interconnection requests has shrunk a bit, as reforms and other market factors take effect. See our slide deck, data dashboard, maps, and downloads at emp.lbl.gov/queues. -THREAD-

The latest @dkthomp.bsky.social podcast with @matthewherper.bsky.social is one of the best things I’ve heard all year. Ideal host, ideal guest, and an incredible set of topics (and set of science stories). Give it a listen. www.theringer.com/podcasts/pla...

In a tightly-contested match, Dutch Miffy plays Japanese Hello Kitty to a 2-2 draw

Solar has overtaken gas power in Asia to become the continent’s third-largest source of electricity www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-sol...

GS: Hyperscalers expected to allocate 100% of cash flows from operations to capex

WASHINGTON (AP) — Rising gas prices pushed inflation to its highest level in three years last month, a headache for the Federal Reserve and a potential political challenge for the Trump administration as midterm elections near. @chrisrugaber.bsky.social #CPI apnews.com/article/cons...

China's EV charging volumes were up a whopping 69% in April, showing a significant acceleration even from the pre-crisis growth trend and showing how a shift to EVs is mitigating the oil crunch. Urban rail and taxi ridership increased 6% and 7%.

New, deeply-reported @jenhiller.bsky.social piece for @wsj.com on Arizona's data center cluster, the grid response, and how the Phoenix is becoming a test case for who pays what for power. Happy to see @halcyonai.bsky.social in there too! www.wsj.com/business/ene...

LinkedIn has discovered their AI problem "we’re seeing a rise in what many call “AI slop," content that is low-effort, AI-generated content that may sound polished on the surface but lacks any real unique perspective or substance."

The Tesla Model Y was the top-selling car in Australia in May, the first time an EV has topped the charts. The recently introduced emissions standards are starting to have an effect. robbieandrew.github.io/carsales/?la...

Breaking news: A potential tie-up between US power company NextEra Energy and its rival Dominion Energy would rank as one of the largest deals of all time ft.trib.al/Rb4XQLB

24% of trips on China's highways during the May 1 holiday were in EVs, while the share of EVs in all vehicles is 15%, highlighting how EVs are making a bigger dent in oil consumption than their share in the fleet. EV charging volumes along the highways were up 56% year on year.

I read this from @zeitlin.bsky.social last week, and re-read it just now. It's very good. heatmap.news/energy/utili...

A handful of visuals from my latest newsletter.

Now at $4.40 www.gasbuddy.com/charts