Space fiber optic cable manufacturing, nuclear district heating, Spain’s high-speed rail crash, China’s spaceplane, and more.

Thanks to Kyle Schiller at Marathon Fusion for conversations and information that informed this essay.

Minimum lot sizes, Boeing’s next 737 MAX, Fervo short sellers, Figure AI’s training data, and more.

Icon’s fundraising, employment in China’s solar industry, grid-scale battery reliability, Tesla’s flying roadster, and more.

The enormous advance in AI capabilities over the last several years has in large part been driven by the availability of vast amounts of training data.

Propane in air conditioners, Anduril making submarine parts, nuclear reactors on the moon, the robotic hand landscape, and more.

In 1960, a team at the University of Illinois released the first version of their PLATO “computerized instruction system,” a network of what would eventually be thousands of computer terminals connected to large mainframe computers.

A Senate permitting reform bill, the potential of Tesla’s Cybercab, the Navy’s $200 billion worth of shipyard renovations, returning a SR-71 to service, and more.

An Explanation of Vision-Language-Action Models

Permitting reform prediction markets, ASML’s lack of European sales, a California distributed power plant, Starlink as a planetary barometer, and more.

AirBnB’s housing accelerator, rising steel prices, a resurgence of US coal power, low-head dams, and more.

If you’re reading this, there’s a very good chance you’ve seen this famous image of three iterations of SpaceX’s Raptor rocket engine.

City permitting speeds, more efficient ground source heat pump drilling, an Amazon Air crash in Miami, cooling paint, and more.

Construction is famously labor intensive: direct labor makes up close to 50% of the cost of constructing a new single-family home in the US, compared to around 6 to 8% of the cost of manufacturing a car.

SpaceX’s turbine blade factory, Fervo’s deal with Google, Delhi’s cheap metro, why recycling is overrated, and more.

This is my third and final essay looking at the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act, and how it’s likely to affect housing supply.

Sinking London homes, US magnesium manufacturing, the World Humanoid Robot games, catastrophic flooding in Nepal, and more.

The US Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) is the largest crude oil storage facility in the world.

Los Angeles’ ADUs, electrical transformer manufacturing, gas turbine power plants, how water in the Colorado River is used, and more.

Home price declines, the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, The Boring Company fundraising, and more.

This is the second installment of my look under the hood of the recently passed 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act, looking at what each provision actually does and trying to suss out its actual impact on housing supply.

The Endangered Species Act and housing production, why it’s hard for LEGO to use 3D printing, robotic welding and shipbuilding, modular data centers, and more.

A few weeks ago the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act became law. This is an enormous housing bill that’s been in the works for roughly a year — I first discussed it on Statecraft back in 2025 — and folks are optimistic that it will, per its description, “increase the supply of housing in America.”

Pepper-spray drones, China’s chip Manhattan Project, Commonwealth Fusion’s fundraise, and a proposed Dulles Airport renovation.

A battery technology that’s getting a lot of attention is solid-state batteries, lithium-ion batteries that replace the liquid electrolyte with a solid material.

China’s EV subsidies, the future of aeroderivative gas turbines, a US-Saudi nuclear deal, defective roadway guardrails, and more.

Last time in our series on the nature of the construction productivity problem, we looked at economies of scale, finding that capturing economies of scale in homebuilding is difficult.

A setback for California Forever, a $500 million artillery shell plant not producing any shells, the difficulty of recycling EV batteries, manufacturing wire harnesses, and more.

An enormous amount of ink has been spilled (some of it by me) on the trials and tribulations of complying with the National Environmental Policy Act, better known as NEPA.

Adults living with their parents, Samsung’s profits, Native American data centers, Puerto Rico’s electricity grid, and more.