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Volts

David Roberts

Volts is a podcast about leaving fossil fuels behind. I've been reporting on and explaining clean-energy topics for almost 20 years, and I love talking to politicians, analysts, innovators, and activists about the latest progress in the world's most important fight. (Volts is entirely subscriber-supported. Sign up!)

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  • 23 episodes
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  • English

Episodes 23

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  • Wednesday · 1 hr 11 min

    How to respond to disinformation about clean energy, at scale

    This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.volts.wtf/subscribe Disinformation about clean energy is showing up everywhere — online after every blackout, at county commission meetings about siting new projects, in regulatory dockets stuffed with fake comments. GoodPower, which combines a C3 education arm with a C4 advocacy arm, is trying to fight back with a network of thousands of content creators, rapid-response campaigns around storms and grid failures, and an AI tool that detects manufactured public comments. I talk with CEO Leah Qusba about what they've tried, what they've measured, and what actually works. Chapters: 00:00 – Introduction 03:06 – What the disinformation claims, and who spreads it 05:57 – From Action for the Climate Emergency to GoodPower 08:38 – Building a creator network in non-political verticals 14:17 – Competing with talk radio and Fox News 18:26 – Winter Storm Fern and the rapid response system 23:26 – Measuring whether a deployment actually worked 27:24 – Pre-bunking and the 80-county experiment 33:18 – Getting people off the couch and into the room 38:10 – AI agents and where human judgment sits 42:05 – Keeping the C3 and the C4 distinct 47:13 – Battery fires, Moss Landing, and talking to fire chiefs 50:54 – TrueVoice and manufactured public comment 56:13 – Whether AI will overwhelm the comment process 58:11 – The best messages that actually land 1:04:22 – Super PACs, budgets, and what comes next

  • August 28 · 1 hr 8 min

    Could we use Trump's tricks to make good green policy?

    This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.volts.wtf/subscribe Even as he has torn down climate policy, Donald Trump has normalized the use of more powerful & aggressive tools of economic statecraft, like equity stakes in private companies, new federal authorities, and sovereign wealth funds. The Roosevelt Institute recently issued a collection of 17 essays exploring how a future administration could use the tools Trump has assembled for decarbonization. I talk with Todd Tucker, editor of and contributor to the volume, about these new industrial planning tools. Chapters: 00:00 – Introduction 02:32 – Did Biden's green policy prove durable? 09:39 – The Defense Production Act and the Sable pipeline 14:59 – Whether to leave the DPA on the table 15:35 – Executive orders and the durability problem 19:01 – Whether the Supreme Court treats Democrats differently 22:03 – Executive power and a disempowered Congress 25:05 – Senate malapportionment and filibuster reform 29:43 – Court reform and the major questions doctrine 34:13 – Manufacturing vs. deployment 42:52 – Permitting, abundance, and theory of power 49:20 – Public ownership and the U.S. Steel golden share 55:22 – What state capitalism could look like for green ends 59:56 – Shelley Welton on utilities as planning tools 1:02:42 – Speed vs. deliberation before 2029

  • August 26 · 53 min

    Making data centers flexible so they can serve the grid rather than stress it out

    This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.volts.wtf/subscribe Typically, AI data centers are large, inflexible loads that the grid has to build around, which is one reason utilities take so long to connect them. Emerald AI has designed a “digital brain” that can ramp down, move, or delay computing jobs in a data center on demand, making a data center a flexible asset to the grid. I talk with CEO Varun Sivaram about how the software works, what flexibility costs the compute, why it beats just installing batteries, whether utilities can enforce it, and what it would mean for clean energy. Chapters: 00:00 – Introduction 03:05 – Temporal, spatial, and resource flexibility 06:26 – What Emerald Conductor touches on site 08:35 – Who decides which workloads can flex 10:55 – Who is liable when a job slows down 13:45 – Who actually signs the contract 14:49 – Larger and faster grid connections 18:02 – Enforcing the flexibility promise 19:05 – What broke in the demos, from bad nodes to slow telemetry 26:41 – What flexing costs the compute jobs 29:21 – Why not just use batteries, and the demand merit order 35:44 – Training, inference, and substation-scale data centers 40:23 – PJM, ERCOT, and legal enforceability 44:50 – Renewables, gas, and consumer bills

  • August 21 · 1 hr 11 min

    Why can't utilities innovate?

    This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.volts.wtf/subscribe When it comes to innovative new grid technologies, every utility wants to be the third in line to try them. None of them want to be the first to take risks and iron out new processes. That's one reason grid-enhancing technologies, better software, and smarter internal procedures stay stuck in pilot purgatory, even as the industry faces the biggest buildout since rural electrification. PG&E's Quinn Nakayama and Microsoft's Hanna Grene discuss what's actually blocking utility innovation — and Quinn offers a novel proposal for paying someone to go first. Chapters: 00:00 – Introduction 03:44 – Why grid-enhancing technologies stall in the US 07:54 – Selling grid software into utilities: what goes wrong 11:08 – From a pipes-and-wires company to a technology company 12:38 – Pilot program hell and the last 30 percent 15:04 – Innovation as a bolt-on, and the three muscles 17:47 – The digital spine, data quality, and smart meters 23:56 – Org chart versus work chart 25:09 – Strategy, structure, people, process, technology 29:24 – Build, buy, and the ecosystem skill set 36:15 – Data leakage, shadow AI, and paying twice 41:12 – Why utility product cycles run five to seven years 46:27 – Human in the loop, and EPRI's SAFERai.power 49:06 – Advanced market commitments and the kingmaker problem 53:22 – EPIC, and whether software counts as infrastructure 01:00:05 – The CapEx incentive problem and final advice 1:04:34 – Digital Infrastructure as Capital Spend 1:06:53 – Final Advice

  • August 19 · 1 hr 2 min

    He helped Uruguay decarbonize. Can he help other countries do the same?

    This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.volts.wtf/subscribe Ramón Méndez Galain helped Uruguay decarbonize its grid (today it’s 98% fossil-free) while keeping the utility public and letting private capital foot the bill. Now he’s trying to export the same playbook across the global South. We talk through how Uruguay pulled it off — the hydro “battery” for wind & solar “baseload,” the cross-party political deal, the market redesign — and what actually transfers to countries without the same advantages. We also discuss why, seven years on, no other country has followed Uruguay’s path. Chapters: 00:00 – Introduction 03:09 – From particle physics to a nuclear proposal 05:46 – Taking the job as energy secretary 07:00 – The 2008 crisis: drought, expensive oil, blackouts 09:26 – Getting every party to sign the same plan 12:51 – Why climate was not the lead argument 15:42 – Attracting private capital without privatizing 20:22 – What a public utility made possible 23:06 – Planning a grid where wind and solar are the base load 29:26 – Thermal plants as insurance, and the last 2 percent 32:36 – EVs, smart meters, and building an electrostate 37:33 – Why bills fell less than generation costs 39:46 – What transfers to other countries 44:15 – Optimum curtailment, Colombia, and Haiti 50:51 – The political work, and the argument against the dominant narrative 56:36 – The Global South and the NDC as development catalyst

  • August 14 · 1 hr 1 min

    Can public EV chargers be as reliable as gas stations?

    This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.volts.wtf/subscribe As the U.S. EV market slows and federal charging support recedes, IONNA, a fast-charging network backed by eight major automakers, is still expanding. On Volts, CEO Seth Cutler makes the case that public charging is entering a new phase focused on reliability and customer experience, but the economics remain difficult, with low utilization and demand charges squeezing margins. With roughly 1,300 bays live and a target of 30,000, IONNA is testing whether a multi-brand network can offer a Tesla-like charging experience while building a sustainable business. Chapters: 00:00 – Introduction: can public EV charging be as reliable as a gas station? 02:30 – Public charging’s four phases, and IONNA’s phase-four bet 08:17 – IONNA’s origin story 09:55 – Scale, footprint & site strategy 11:52 – Rechargery @ vs. freestanding: the two site formats 18:45 – Can DC fast charging make money? Unit economics 21:29 – Demand charges & why fast charging is expensive 23:57 – Getting power: permitting, interconnection & utilities 29:18 – Site design, amenities & the monetization question 34:14 – Regional site customization: the gas station turned bakery 36:35 – The charging experience: apps & Plug&Charge 39:03 – Reliability strategy & metrics 42:47 – Headwinds: the EV market downturn & policy risk 46:54 – Business model, profitability & the IONITY comparison 50:09 – Geographic rollout: the chicken-and-egg problem 54:07 – Competitive position vs. Tesla 56:37 – Closing: vision, fears & timeline

  • August 12 · 1 hr 1 min

    Another bipartisan housing miracle, this time in Idaho

    This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.volts.wtf/subscribe Last year I did a pod on Montana’s surprising burst of bipartisan housing legislation. Turns out Idaho was watching. This year its legislature passed six housing bills of its own (two others failed). Republican state Sen. Ben Toews and Democratic state Rep. Megan Egbert join me to walk through what passed, what didn’t, and what they gave away to get it done — plus the property tax cap that quietly works against all of it, and why duplexes turned out to be the red line. Chapters: 00:00 – Introduction and the Idaho housing package 02:43 – How each guest came to the housing issue 06:39 – Inside the interim housing study committee 09:05 – SB 1354, ADUs by right, and Dillon’s Rule 12:52 – The 5,000 to 10,000 compromise, and HOAs 15:03 – SB 1352 starter homes, manufactured homes, lot splits 16:28 – HB 706 and single-stair buildings 18:11 – The permitting shot clock and the 6-day rule 19:48 – Living with the compromises, and why counties were left out 22:54 – The two bills that died: duplexes and YIGBY 28:41 – HB 389, the property tax cap, and the growth undertow 34:41 – What the public understands about growth 37:23 – Regulatory reform on supply side vs. incentives for housing 43:59 – The February deadline and city resistance 48:52 – Horizontal vs. vertical density 56:03 – What comes next for the committee & Idaho housing

  • August 7 · 1 hr 12 min

    Grid cybersecurity: how big is the threat & what should we do about it?

    This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.volts.wtf/subscribe Could the US grid be brought down by Chinese hackers? To find out, I talked with Patrick Miller, who helped write the cybersecurity rules for the bulk power system and became the first person with federal authority to enforce them. We get into what's actually been hacked, why those "rogue devices" in Chinese inverters are less sinister than they sound, and why squirrels still do more damage than hackers. Chapters: 00:00 – Introduction 02:47 – What state utility commissioners get wrong about cyber risk 04:50 – Real attacks on the grid so far: Ukraine, Poland, and the US 06:57 – IT versus OT, and why grid devices are hard to protect 10:30 – The NERC CIP standards: scope, requirements, enforcement 17:40 – Distributed resources outside the CIP perimeter 20:54 – Dropping the threshold to 20 MVA, and federal jurisdiction 29:12 – Chinese inverters and the commodity board 36:09 – Volt Typhoon, Salt Typhoon, and China's intent 39:26 – Data centers as a new attack surface 43:19 – The trade-off between security and speed 47:44 – Cyber-informed engineering and analog safeguards 54:05 – AI on offense and defense 1:02:21 – Squirrels, balloons, and physical threats 1:04:24 – CISA cuts, CIRCIA, and harmonizing the rules

  • August 5 · 1 hr 3 min

    What should state policymakers do about data centers?

    This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.volts.wtf/subscribe State legislatures are writing data center rules faster than they can verify the demand forecasts underneath them. Fifteen states accounted for 80 percent of data center electricity demand in 2023, a single hyperscale campus can arrive as 15 to 20 percent of a utility's demand, and the transmission to serve it takes five to 15 years to build. On this episode of Volts, David Roberts works through Climate Cabinet's Taming Data Center Turmoil series with Saleem Chapman, who leads the group's electricity affordability policy work, on why Georgia's regulated utility, PJM's capacity market, and ERCOT's competitive market each left ratepayers holding the risk, and what a state can require before it approves a project, while the facility operates, and after the deal is done. Chapters: 00:00 – Introduction 02:49 – How Climate Cabinet came to the data center fight 03:58 – Three things that make hyperscalers unlike past industrial loads 07:51 – Warning signals: forecast opacity, gas dependency, unconditional subsidies 13:44 – Siting near overburdened communities and the Memphis case 15:34 – State preemption versus local control 18:31 – The same failure pattern in Georgia, PJM, and ERCOT 23:52 – Why not just ban data centers outright 28:07 – The framework, and what to require before approval 34:54 – While operating: real cost pricing and on-call load flexibility 37:39 – Scenario-based planning and the utility incentive problem 39:37 – After the deal: new and matched clean energy 43:48 – Siting standards and performance-tied incentives 50:27 – Existing facilities and the threat to build elsewhere 55:41 – Which states are ahead, and step one for lawmakers

  • August 2 · 45 min

    Best of July 2026

    Volts published eight conversations in July on subjects with nothing obvious in common: an Arizona utility board election, Minnesota smart meters, land value taxes in Spokane, silicon battery anodes. Yet six of them arrived at the same constraint. What stops energy infrastructure from getting built in the United States is more often written into law than into physics. On this episode, David Roberts pulls one stretch from each July conversation into a single hour, with two Minnesota utility regulators, a Spokane city council member, a Hawaii state senator, a co-founder of a battery materials company, and more. Chapters: 00:00 Introduction: a new format for Volts 01:22 Arizona: winning the utility elections nobody watches 07:04 Minnesota: the smart meter data nobody uses 12:40 Spokane: how property taxes reward empty lots 17:31 Hawaii: the education gap in state energy policy 22:13 The data center backlash is a politics story 27:41 Why America can't build transit: procurement 32:41 Clean energy after the IRA: the glass debate 38:26 Silicon anodes: the other half of the battery 44:47 Closing: tell me if this worked This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.volts.wtf/subscribe

  • July 31 · 45 min

    Silicon anodes for batteries unlock greater energy density and faster charging times

    This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.volts.wtf/subscribe Materials in lithium-ion battery cathodes have continuously evolved since the 1990s, but anodes have stubbornly remained graphite. Now, finally, there’s some innovation on that side: silicon anodes, which engineers have struggled to master for a decade, are finally coming into wide commercialization. They enable up to five times the energy density of graphite anodes, charge many times faster, and are poised to revolutionize the battery market. In this episode, I talk with Rick Costantino, co-founder and CTO of Group14, which is selling a silicon-carbon composite material for anodes. They’re already selling to dozens of large battery manufacturers and expect silicon anodes to completely take over the market by 2030. Chapters: 00:00 – Introduction and the graphite anode problem 01:54 – Why silicon, and why it kept failing 06:26 – From pharma to batteries: Rick's path 09:24 – How SCC55 works: silicon in a carbon scaffold 14:38 – The payoff: energy density and charge speed 18:59 – A drop-in material, and scaling in South Korea 21:11 – Where the batteries go: phones, EVs, drones 24:29 – Cost versus graphite 26:20 – Cycle life, calendar life, and safety 31:26 – Supply chain and the silane bottleneck 36:26 – Pairing with LFP, DOE support, and phones 40:30 – Bringing the cost down, and competitors 43:27 – The five-year outlook

  • July 29 · 1 hr 27 min

    Should we feel good about the trajectory of clean energy post-Trump?

    This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.volts.wtf/subscribe The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) established substantial tax credits for wind and solar power. Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) eliminated those tax credits. How much damage did that do to the overall trajectory of clean energy in the post-Trump world? A new research commentary argues that the damage was less than many had feared and that the road forward for clean energy is less about restoring those credits than about easing the permitting and interconnection constraints inhibiting renewable energy. Today I talk with author Lily Bermel about the modeling her commentary is based on and the somewhat controversial conclusions she draws from it. Chapters: 00:00 The IRA, the OBBBA, and the case for optimism 03:25 OBBBA - Why Bermel ran the analysis 05:50 The headline numbers: 74, 71, 67 08:07 Decomposing clean: solar and batteries hold, wind takes the hit 12:14 The lag analysis, and the 'glass half full' perspective 15:27 2.8 gigatons, and losses you can't get back 18:01 The third scenario, and Trump I versus Trump II 21:49 What the model leaves out: manufacturing, LPO, loans 23:07 Interior's permitting campaign against wind and solar 27:22 The demand surge and behind-the-meter gas 32:15 Nuclear restarts, geothermal, and clean firm 35:31 Booms, busts, and the electrification wave 42:22Transmission, interconnection, and the ceiling 46:41 Tax credits versus permitting reform 51:46 Durability, polarization, and preemptive surrender 60:01 Can enough storage make renewables firm? 66:48 Grid utilization versus building new grid 70:52 Final reflections: 2021, and what Bermel would do with a trifecta

  • July 22 · 1 hr 7 min

    The US is terrible at building public transit. Here's how to get better.

    This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.volts.wtf/subscribe America once led the world in building transit and now leads the world in what transit costs, roughly three times the international average per mile, measured not against authoritarian megaprojects but against Italy, Spain, and Japan. On this episode of Volts, David Roberts talks with Will Poff-Webster of the Institute for Progress, who put together the new Transit Abundance Playbook, and Stephanie Pollack, former head of the Massachusetts Department of Transportation and former acting administrator of the Federal Highway Administration. Their argument is that the costs are a policy choice: federal funding rules teach transit agencies to plan on a napkin and do the real work years later, to hire the lowest bidder over the one they know will deliver, and to defer to anyone holding a veto, while highways operate under looser versions of the same rules. As Pollack puts it, "if you hate transit, you should spend less on it." A surface transportation reauthorization bill is coming, and two of the playbook's proposals have already reached the House version. Chapters: 00:00 Introduction: why cars work against cities 03:25 Agency culture or federal law: where does the fix come from 11:31 Planning: how federal funding enforces bad habits 20:10 Overdesign: the Green Line stations and the frequency-first test 23:40 Buses: why every agency orders a custom fleet 26:53 Procurement: lowest bid versus best value 32:56 Veto points and Italy’s conference of services 39:56 Permitting: environmental review as a NIMBY tool 45:28 State capacity: why consultant brain took over 51:46 Labor costs, automation, and Section 13(c) 56:19 Is any of this politically achievable? 1:03:28 Final question: one reform each

  • July 20 · 1 hr

    Making sense of the data center backlash

    This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.volts.wtf/subscribe Data center opposition has gone from nonexistent to organized in about two years, roughly 120 moratoriums across 38 states, and it does not track proximity: Gallup finds 70% of Americans oppose a data center near them, while only 8% of opponents live near one. On this episode of Volts, David Roberts joins Energy Empire hosts Jigar Shah and Jamie Nolan, along with Arnab Pal of Deploy Action, for a crossover conversation, and his argument is that everyone is solving the wrong problem. The hyperscalers could buy their way to consent for a rounding error, batteries in basements, solar on roofs, funded schools, lower bills, and they refuse, which David reads as a symptom of low social trust that no amount of better modeling touches. “This is not a technocratic problem that you can just solve with a few switches,” he says. Thirty-six governors go to the ballot this fall having to answer for it. Chapters: 00:00 Intro: a Volts and Energy Empire crossover 01:25 Has the AI case been made? Energy vs. AI as the real revolution 04:23 The backlash by the numbers, and hyperscalers' botched PR 08:20 Animal spirits, low social trust, and the information environment 12:46 Enshittification, lost jobs, and why governors still want data centers 15:50 The local playbook: schools, bioswales, batteries in basements 17:18 Bespoke industrial rates without setting a bad precedent 22:33 How utilities earn: spend-to-earn, the distribution black box, efficiency 30:11 Gendering the grid: gas as firm, renewables as soft 37:57 NERC's level-three alert and the case for more batteries 39:29 Both/and: distributed capacity as serious supply 45:33 Abundance's missing half: state capacity, staffing, NEPA 48:55 The midterms: 36 governors and the politics of affordability 53:33 Hope vs. fear: the Mamdani lesson and the information environment

  • July 15 · 1 hr 3 min

    Spreading the good news about electrification

    This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.volts.wtf/subscribe Most of the energy decisions that touch daily life in America get made in state legislatures, and the people making them are increasingly new to the job. In smaller states, a freshly elected lawmaker gets a pad of paper, no staff, and about 150 lobbyists at the door, then votes on billion-dollar energy budgets in a landscape where the technology changes faster than anyone can track. On this episode of Volts, David Roberts talks with Hawaii state Senator Chris Lee, co-founder of the Electric Innovation Initiative, a bipartisan network betting that education moves electrification faster than mandates: put lawmakers in front of working technology, connect them across state lines, and let affordability carry the argument where climate framing will not. As Lee puts it, "nine times out of ten, people just don't know what they don't know." Chapters: 00:00 Introduction 03:39 How electrification clicked: the 2008 iPhone moment 06:10 The education gap: why the initiative exists 11:35 Proxy staff and cross-state validation 15:44 What lands on the tours: eVTOL to the data-center win-win 20:51 Plain 'electrification': the bipartisan framing bet 26:28 Climate hushing and Hawaii's two-track proof 30:17 Policy that spreads: e-buses, heat pumps, RFPs 37:37 Utility business-model reform: Hawaii's PBR law 42:03 Affordability after the federal subsidies 45:22 Hawaii under pressure: LNG and the Lahaina grid 51:53 State power against federal hostility 55:19 The ten-year vision and the closing advice

  • July 10 · 1 hr 9 min

    Want less sprawl and more urban infill? Try a land value tax!

    This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.volts.wtf/subscribe Property taxes are two taxes stapled together: one on the land, one on whatever gets built on it. Put up an apartment building and the bill goes up. Pave the lot for parking and it stays low. It discourages building and rewards land speculation. The answer? Tax the buildings less and the land more. The idea of a “land value tax” goes back 150 years, but implementing it today involves navigating tricky constitutional issues. In this episode, I talk with Greg Miller of the Center for Land economics about the rationale for such taxes, and with Kitty Klitzke, a Spokane, Washington council member, about the difficulties of putting it in practice in a real city. Chapters: 00:00 Introduction 03:22 Henry George and the case for taxing land 08:12 How property taxes work now, and what a split rate changes 11:26 Land value taxes and upzoning as complements 15:18 The Pennsylvania record and the reassessment problem 18:51 Vancouver, and why homeowners outlast the policy 24:03 Estonia, Singapore, and the Scottish Islands 26:53 Washington's uniformity clause and the building exemption 33:18 Kitty Klitzke on twenty years of Spokane infill 43:27 What Spokane needs from the state legislature 45:25 Single family homeowners and the Division corridor 48:34 The assessor objection 52:45 What the Spokane modeling shows 59:31 The plan for next session 1:01:44 Virginia, Kentucky, and cross-partisan momentum

  • July 8 · 1 hr 8 min

    Forcing utilities to justify their distribution-system spending

    This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.volts.wtf/subscribe Minnesota regulators Sydnie Lieb and Pete Wyckoff on why utility distribution spending — now a third of capital budgets and the biggest driver of rising bills — escapes the scrutiny the rest of the grid faces, and how to fix that. 00:00 - Introduction 04:23 - How distribution is regulated differently than generation and transmission 09:25 - Why distribution matters now: an aging system and the build-more incentive 14:00 - Contestable “mandatory” spending: undergrounding, DERMS software, capitalization 22:19 - Reliability standards and the cost of chasing 100 percent 28:42 - The MISO comparison: valuing a lost hour, and the scale of the numbers 35:12 - Non-wires alternatives: batteries, the Xcel project, and modeling gaps 40:31 - What regulators should require: AMI forecasts and beyond the prudence test 47:22 - The speed objection: does more analysis slow things down? 50:10 - Why spending caps and rate freezes are the wrong fix 52:40 - Spending more anyway, and recent Minnesota PUC disappointments 55:09 - Restructured markets: does the same logic apply? 58:38 - The vision of a well-functioning process and scaling it nationally

  • July 1 · 55 min

    A key Arizona race will test clean energy's electoral power

    This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.volts.wtf/subscribe Following a stunning clean energy victory over right-wing donors on an obscure Arizona utility board, organizers are setting their sights on a much bigger prize: the state’s powerful utility commission. I chat with Charlie Fisher and Ning Mosberger-Tang about how they used disciplined messaging to overcome massive opposition spending and historically abysmal voter turnout. We discuss whether this localized ground game can scale to a massive statewide electorate and help build a durable, nationwide clean energy political machine.

  • June 24 · 1 hr 5 min

    How to keep people cool without making the planet even hotter

    This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.volts.wtf/subscribe You might have noticed that it’s kind of hot out there. And it’s only going to get worse: global demand for cooling is projected to triple by 2050. Finding a way to cool spaces and people without frying the planet is a crucial climate challenge. I’m joined by RMI’s Ankit Kalanki to unpack the hidden world of AC refrigerants and testing standards, the crucial distinction between lowering temperatures and dehumidifying, new AC technologies on the horizon, and the building and urban design changes that can take some of the pressure off.

  • June 19 · 55 min

    America's flagship automaker enters the home energy market

    This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.volts.wtf/subscribe In this episode, I talk with GM Energy executive Aseem Kapur about General Motors’ move into bidirectional EV charging and home energy management. We dig into the practicalities of turning hundreds of thousands of EVs into mobile backup generators, how to navigate a patchwork of 4,000 different utilities, and what it takes to get everyday consumers to see their cars as grid assets.

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