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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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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.
June 17 · 1 hr 1 min
Can the UK stay the course with its climate plans?
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 UK has just released its seventh carbon budget, recommitting to the aggressive climate targets suggested by its nonpartisan Climate Change Committee. Can the Labour government actually hit those targets while keeping energy prices for the British people under control, even amidst a newly hostile political landscape? In this episode, I talk with the UK’s new climate minister, Katie White, about those challenges and more.
June 10 · 1 hr 13 min
Why is NERC so worried 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 The North American Electric Reliability Corporation has issued a historic warning about AI data centers. I chat with energy experts Colin McCormick and Doug Bryan about the unique electrical engineering challenges of giant computational loads that can abruptly drop hundreds of megawatts of power in the blink of an eye. We dive into the upcoming regulatory battle between hyperscalers and operators, the sudden rush for firm gas generation, and how software updates and battery storage could eventually make data centers a tool for grid stability instead of a liability.
June 5 · 25 min
This oil shock won't be like the others
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.volts.wtf Why is the latest fossil fuel crisis pushing the world toward rapid electrification instead of a drilling boom? To find out, I chat with Tim Sahay and Kate Mackenzie, hosts of the Polycrisis newsletter and podcast, about the concept of “polycrisis” and the global rise of manufacturing-heavy electrostates. We examine the massive global diffusion of cheap electrotech and discuss why American climate wonks need to look past domestic policy and start paying attention to international macroeconomics.

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