HI JJ - thanks much for your comment. You raise a great question. Cities and towns will be pivotal in this next phase of the transition - now more than ever. Local governments can shape zoning, permitting, and procurement to accelerate distributed solar, EV charging, and efficiency upgrades. Municipal utilities and co-ops can pilot new rate designs and demand-response programs that make the grid more flexible.
Cities are also where affordability, reliability, and decarbonization collide, so local action matters as much as state or federal policy. Some ideas: North Carolina’s towns can partner with utilities and developers to attract clean-tech manufacturing, use public facilities as demonstration sites, and ensure that the benefits of the transition, including jobs, resilience, lower bills—reach residents, not just corporations.
This is probably the most important piece I've read on the energy transition in months. Your point about electricity finally reflecting its true cost is spot on. The $800 billion annual health cost from fossil fuel pollution is absolutly staggering, and the fact that we've been externalizing that cost for decades while pretending energy was cheap is the real scandal. What really resonated with me was the social cost of carbon being scrubbed from federal documents. You're right that making those numbers dissapear doesn't make the actual damages go away, it just ensures we pay later with interest. The $150 billion per year infrastructure investment through the 2030s is massive, but when you compare it to the $617 billion in climate disaster costs over just 5 years, it's obvious which path is actually cheaper. Companies like TotalEnergies and other energy majors are in the middle of this transition trying to manage both the existing fossil fuel infrastructure and new clean energy investments. The part about AI and data centers was really eye opening. I hadn't fully grasped how much that's driving the 30 to 40 percent demand growth by 2035. This is going to reshape everything about how we think about industrial policy and enrgy security. Really appreciate the balanced, well researched approach here. This should be required reading for anyone involved in energy policy or corporate strategy.
Well said, Dan. What, if anything, do you think the role of cities and towns in NC should be in this transition and new investment stage?
HI JJ - thanks much for your comment. You raise a great question. Cities and towns will be pivotal in this next phase of the transition - now more than ever. Local governments can shape zoning, permitting, and procurement to accelerate distributed solar, EV charging, and efficiency upgrades. Municipal utilities and co-ops can pilot new rate designs and demand-response programs that make the grid more flexible.
Cities are also where affordability, reliability, and decarbonization collide, so local action matters as much as state or federal policy. Some ideas: North Carolina’s towns can partner with utilities and developers to attract clean-tech manufacturing, use public facilities as demonstration sites, and ensure that the benefits of the transition, including jobs, resilience, lower bills—reach residents, not just corporations.
Thanks for reading.
This is probably the most important piece I've read on the energy transition in months. Your point about electricity finally reflecting its true cost is spot on. The $800 billion annual health cost from fossil fuel pollution is absolutly staggering, and the fact that we've been externalizing that cost for decades while pretending energy was cheap is the real scandal. What really resonated with me was the social cost of carbon being scrubbed from federal documents. You're right that making those numbers dissapear doesn't make the actual damages go away, it just ensures we pay later with interest. The $150 billion per year infrastructure investment through the 2030s is massive, but when you compare it to the $617 billion in climate disaster costs over just 5 years, it's obvious which path is actually cheaper. Companies like TotalEnergies and other energy majors are in the middle of this transition trying to manage both the existing fossil fuel infrastructure and new clean energy investments. The part about AI and data centers was really eye opening. I hadn't fully grasped how much that's driving the 30 to 40 percent demand growth by 2035. This is going to reshape everything about how we think about industrial policy and enrgy security. Really appreciate the balanced, well researched approach here. This should be required reading for anyone involved in energy policy or corporate strategy.
As long as we continue to violate our fundamental human rights, for sure https://outlawedbyjp.substack.com/s/a-primer-on-data-centers-and-the