Benjamin Leibowicz
@BDLeibowicz
Associate Professor & Banks McLaurin Fellow in Engineering @UTAustin @ut_orie | operations research, systems analysis, economics, energy, environment, policy
Here’s my plan for energy dominance: - punch solar, batteries, and electric motors while China dominates us - larp as pro nuclear but do little to nothing - classify coal as a critical mineral - claim we’ll help O&G even though production was already at absolute record levels
DrIlL bAbY dRiLl. Rig Count has dropped for 15 straight weeks.
Remarkable moment between Trump and Powell.
It’s hard to find a trend in the electricity system right now that *doesn’t* point to near-term price increases if not a broad affordability crisis. The setup is bad and getting worse. I wrote about it for @heatmap_news:
100% this! Of course this can readily be *explained* by the political power of “old people.” But, it cannot be reasonably *justified* on either moral or economic grounds.
A social safety net that transfers resources from working-age people to non-workers makes sense, but within the category of non-workers we are massively overweight on "old people" relative to "kids and their caretakers."
REGISTRATION NOW OPEN 42nd USAEE/IAEE North American Conference November 16–19, 2025 | Fort Worth, TX | The Worthington Renaissance Fort Worth Hotel REGISTRATION: usaeeconference.org/aws/USAEE/pt/s… CONFERENCE HOME PAGE: usaeeconference.org Video Preview: youtu.be/_i67FQR4IeY
"Coal has exhibited reliability problems in serving the grid... From July 11 to July 12, 5,019 MW of coal-fired generation was offline across ERCOT—totaling 36.9% of the system’s accredited coal capacity of 13,596 MW." pv-magazine-usa.com/2025/07/22/sol…
White House AI plan, dropped today: "The US must develop a comprehensive strategy to enhance & expand the power grid" The same administration, also today:
⚡️EU power is becoming less and less reliant on fossil fuels EU countries with the largest fall in fossil share (2004 vs. 2024): 🇩🇰Denmark: 76% → 12% 🏆 🇵🇹Portugal: 73% → 15% 🇳🇱The Netherlands: 91% → 46% 🇮🇪Ireland: 95% → 55% 🇬🇷Greece: 90% → 50% 🇫🇮Finland: 44% → 5%
NYT today on steel tariffs: "as imports have declined, American producers have more power to opportunistically increase their prices" "data shows that domestic steel producers have raised prices 16% this year" "American-made steel is the most expensive in the world"😲
Breaking: General Motors' profit shrank 35% last quarter after taking a $1.1 billion tariff hit on.wsj.com/4eXz66U
I'm a big college football #CFB fan: @TexasFootball season tix holder, went to almost all my schools' home games as undergrad then grad student But this is absurd. If making #college more expensive is price to compete at highest level, then give it up. si.com/college/minnes…
Yes. Writing is not a second thing that happens after thinking. The act of writing is an act of thinking. Writing *is* thinking. Students, academics, and anyone else who outsources their writing to LLMs will find their screens full of words and their minds emptied of thought.