David Roberts

Volts

#57 in Politics · 🇮🇳 #104 in Politics · 🇺🇸

About the show

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!) www.volts.wtf

Newest episodes

The federal permitting bill has been updated. What changed?

Nov 11, 2026 1 hr 58 min

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 Senate’s bipartisan permitting bill got a manager’s amendment last week — 77 pages meant to answer objections from environmentalists, tribes, and utilities. Daniel Palken of Arnold Ventures returns to walk through what changed: narrower permit certainty provisions, a stronger transmission title, partial wins for tribes, and tighter rules making data centers pay. We also debate whether Democrats, fresh off a landslide, should take this deal or wait for a better one. We recorded Monday, hours before the Senate voted 73–25 to open debate. Chapters: 00:00 – Introduction 02:19 – Where the bill stands: the cloture vote 05:55 – Politics 1: who’s for the bill and who’s against it 11:41 – Politics 2: why not wait for a better deal? 18:58 – Politics 3: affordability and the modeling 25:11 – Transmission 1: the planning fix for utilities 29:30 – Transmission 2: the backstop, FERC oversight and PJM 37:10 – Certainty 1: what changed in Section 1401 48:29 – Certainty 2: what’s left, plus 1402 and 1403 56:51 – Tribes 1: the Section 106 changes 1:05:58 – Tribes 2: the vacatur fight and where tribes land 1:11:35 – Data centers: making them pay their way 1:21:03 – Environment 1: ESA and the Clean Water Act 1:25:10 – Environment 2: NEPA and the state-NEPA test 1:31:18 – Odds and ends: nuclear, prescribed burns and more 1:34:57 – What Palken would change 1:38:32 – Politics 4: who moved, and Trump’s endorsement 1:44:15 – Politics 5: the House, and what happens if it dies

So, how about those midterm elections?

Nov 9, 2026 1 hr 25 min

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 week’s election was a blue wave all the way down the ballot: Democrats took the House and Senate, went from 16 state trifectas to as many as 22, flipped utility commissions, and rejected data centers almost everywhere. Caroline Spears of Climate Cabinet, which won more than 100 of its 120-plus races, joins me to sort through the statehouses, PSCs, and ballot measures. Then we ask the harder questions of whether these new majorities can actually bring down costs and what it all means for climate and energy policy. Chapters: 00:00 – Introduction 02:20 – How Climate Cabinet’s races went 04:31 – The national results and historic firsts 07:21 – Trifectas 1: which states flipped 12:25 – Trifectas 2: Pennsylvania and going big 18:21 – Trifectas 3: North Carolina, redistricting 22:47 – Regulators 1: Georgia’s new majority 26:09 – Regulators 2: Arizona and Louisiana 28:32 – Regulators 3: Texas Railroad Commission 32:22 – Undervoting and other down-ballot wins 38:05 – Data centers 1: the ballot-box backlash 40:27 – Data centers 2: is clean energy next? 45:09 – Ballot measures 1: Michigan and Colorado 49:13 – Ballot measures 2: Ann Arbor, Eugene, AZ 55:56 – Housing and transit 1:01:44 – How states can cut energy bills 1:08:46 – Quick fixes, lasting fixes, and EVs 1:13:11 – Looking ahead to 2028 1:20:14 – Final thoughts

Best of October 2026

Nov 6, 2026 14 min

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.volts.wtf Volts published eight conversations in October, which is a lot for anyone to listen to. We’ve rounded up the highlights into less than an hour. Enjoy! Chapters 00:00 – Introduction 01:52 – Leah Stokes on passing the IRA 07:52 – Daniel Palken on the permitting bill 13:26 – Matt Traldi on local clean energy fights 19:38 – Kristian Jensen on Denmark’s utilities 24:56 – Nick Chaset on consumer protection 30:11 – Sam D’Amico on engineers and factories 35:41 – Tom Matzzie on the clean energy super PAC 41:19 – Ketan Joshi on data centers and climate

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The newest 50 of 467 episodes

The federal permitting bill has been updated. What changed?

Nov 11, 2026 1 hr 58 min

So, how about those midterm elections?

Nov 9, 2026 1 hr 25 min

Best of October 2026

Nov 6, 2026 14 min

The transformative potential of solid-state transformers

Nov 4, 2026 1 hr 31 min

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 Power electronics have taken over almost everything in our lives, with the exception, oddly, of the power grid itself — it is still held together by tens of millions of analog, iron-and-copper transformers, the design of which has barely changed in a century. Solid-state transformers replace the dumb gray box with something that can monitor and steer power or convert it from AC to DC and vice versa. In this episode, Enphase co-founder Raghu Belur, who built his company by dividing big solar inverters into thousands of small ones, explains how he’s trying the same thing with transformers, why AI data centers and big solar and battery projects are the first markets, and what it would take to put a smarter transformer on every pole. Chapters: 00:00 – Introduction 03:02 – What a transformer does 07:53 – What conventional transformers can’t do 11:43 – What makes a transformer solid state 15:27 – How much is software, how much is hardware 19:40 – Why power electronics hasn’t reached the grid 23:54 – Enphase’s distributed approach 31:23 – Building transformers from 5-kilowatt modules 34:58 – Copper, gallium nitride, and supply chains 43:44 – Cybersecurity 47:23 – Data centers and 800 volts DC 59:29 – Solar and battery storage 1:05:18 – The cost question 1:07:02 – Neighborhood transformers and the utilities 1:15:37 – Efficiency, lifespan, and heat 1:22:24 – Handling grid faults 1:25:27 – Standards, policy, and the next few years

The (climate) case against (AI) data centers

Oct 30, 2026 13 min

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.volts.wtf Volts guests have argued that data centers can be good for the grid if they’re built right. Here I hear the case against, from Ketan Joshi, a former wind-industry analyst who now tracks Big Tech’s climate claims. He sees data centers as the wrong kind of demand growth: lumpy, concentrated, unwanted by neighbors, and largely met with gas. Underneath it all is the worry that the backlash against data centers will become a backlash against electrification itself. Chapters: 00:00 – Introduction 02:14 – How Ketan became a big tech critic 06:01 – The case against data centers 07:39 – What data centers add to emissions 11:57 – Isn’t more electricity demand good? 20:12 – Backlash and the NEXTDC power-pole protest 24:21 – AI claims 1: will AI help the climate? 27:53 – AI claims 2: machine learning vs. generative AI 33:47 – AI claims 3: inflated climate wins 36:51 – The gas rush: how much gets built? 44:49 – Would easier renewables fix it? 49:14 – Can data centers be flexible load? 55:41 – Do we actually want AI data centers? 59:39 – What should data centers do to plug in? 1:05:31 – Fake crackdowns and the risk to renewables 1:09:24 – What if AI is a bubble?

The PAC taking out clean energy opponents

Oct 28, 2026 1 hr 8 min

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 Clean energy is the cheapest, fastest-growing source of power in the country, yet politically it barely registers. Republicans gutted its tax credits last year without fearing any consequences. The Invest in Tomorrow Coalition, a super PAC backed by clean energy investors, is trying to change that the old-fashioned way: by punishing the industry’s enemies. It went six for six in this year’s primaries; it’s now spending at least $15 million against seven Republican House candidates in the midterms. Its chair, Tom Matzzie, makes the case for fear as a political asset, explains why the industry has been so slow to throw elbows, and describes what it would take for clean energy to become a lion instead of a gazelle. Chapters: 00:00 - Introduction 02:55 - How the Invest in Tomorrow Coalition started 06:23 - Why a super PAC, and the idea of mythic power 09:50 - Punishing opponents to send a message to Congress 12:55 - Proving impact, and the permitting bill 17:13 - How ITC picks its general election races 21:41 - Does knocking out extremists help Republicans? 24:53 - Free riders and barriers to industry politics 28:58 - Who funds ITC, and why the industry underinvests 32:44 - Why clean power stays politically weak 38:28 - Did the IRA’s red-state investments pay off? 40:35 - Fear of Trump’s retaliation 45:05 - Avoiding the Democratic PAC label 49:30 - Presidential primaries and the ethanol playbook 53:20 - Gas inside the clean power trade groups 58:37 - Where ITC goes after November

Building our piece of the electric stack

Oct 23, 2026 1 hr 6 min

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 Collectively, the electric stack (batteries, motors, chips, power electronics) has gotten about 99% cheaper since 1990. It is quietly remaking every machine that turns electricity into motion, heat, or work. Problem is, China makes most of it. Sam D’Amico, co-author of “The Electric Slide” and founder of Impulse Labs, is betting the US can still claim a piece of that stack. He’s starting with a battery-powered induction cooktop. We talk about why domestic manufacturing matters, what America would actually have to build to compete, and how Silicon Valley’s founder world really thinks about climate change, geoengineering included. Chapters: 00:00 – Introduction 02:52 – From VR headsets to kitchen appliances 07:07 – How a pizza oven inspired a battery stove 10:07 – Peak demand, at home and on the grid 13:25 – Which appliances could use a built-in battery 16:46 – Electric stack 1: the four technologies 20:28 – Electric stack 2: power electronics and motors 25:21 – China bets on hardware, the US bets on AI 30:08 – Why not just buy it all from China? 33:51 – Why engineers need to be near the factory 38:39 – How much does the US need to make at home? 45:19 – US EV policy and letting Chinese cars in 47:49 – Batteries in appliances vs. one home battery 52:04 – Impulse’s plan: its tech in other brands’ stoves 55:17 – What’s next after the stove 57:14 – Has Silicon Valley stopped caring about climate?

Can distributed energy work around American utilities?

Oct 21, 2026 1 hr 2 min

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 American homes are filling up with batteries, EVs, and smart thermostats that could be coordinated to make the grid cheaper and more reliable — but almost none of them are. To understand why, it helps to watch what happens when the company best in the world at this tries to do it here. In Britain, Octopus Energy has built a giant virtual power plant out of its customers' devices. In the US, it has spent six years running into walls. Now it’s bought Uplight, which runs customer programs for 85 utilities. I talked with Nick Chaset, who runs both, about what's in the way and whether distributed energy can ever scale with US utilities … the way they are. Chapters: 00:00 – Introduction 02:02 – Octopus’s past year and the Uplight investment 05:18 – What makes the UK market work for Octopus 11:12 – Texas: fast growth, flattened volatility 14:57 – Will flexibility put itself out of business? 19:16 – Why Octopus stays out of Pennsylvania and New York 22:17 – Does residential retail competition have a future? 24:41 – Why utility programs trail Octopus on participation 32:17 – The demand stack and what planners can count on 39:11 – Kraken, Uplight and the overlap 46:04 – Consumer protection and the aggregator model 51:17 – Data centers and the social license to operate 55:11 – Do we need dynamic pricing? 58:30 – Five years out

What’s up with Denmark?

Oct 16, 2026 1 hr 3 min

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 Denmark gets a large share of its power from wind and other renewables and has cut its emissions roughly in half since 1990, but independent analysts doubt it will hit its 70 percent target for 2030. Kristian Jensen, CEO of Green Power Denmark and a former Danish minister of taxation, foreign affairs, and finance, argues the next stage is electrifying how Denmark uses energy: heat, transport, and industry. I talk with him about district heating and heat pumps, EVs and vehicle-to-grid, municipally owned grid companies and hourly power prices, biomass, carbon capture, power-to-X, solar’s “fields of iron” backlash, a grid oversubscribed with data center requests (an October 1 agreement has since put most data centers at the back of the queue), and whether the country’s political consensus will hold. Chapters 00:00 – Introduction: Denmark and industrial symbiosis 02:44 – Is the 70% target for 2030 out of reach? 06:24 – Carbon capture and storage, and the peatlands lag 09:57 – Why electrification has lagged: biomass and wood pellets 14:45 – Few batteries, many interconnectors 16:48 – Data centers and the grid-connection prioritization bill 21:34 – Municipally owned grid companies 24:32 – Smart meters, hourly prices, and thermal batteries 28:40 – The solar backlash and local ownership 35:04 – Agrivoltaics and biodiversity 37:24 – District heating: heat pumps, geothermal, and finance 43:24 – The EV transition and vehicle-to-grid 47:45 – Road pricing and fiscal room 50:07 – Power-to-X and eSAF 54:21 – Can Denmark build enough clean power? 57:12 – Will the political consensus hold?

Checking back in with Greenlight America

Oct 14, 2026 1 hr 7 min

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 On this episode, recorded live at Climate Week NYC, I talk with Matt Traldi. He’s the founder and CEO of Greenlight America, which finds the local meetings where clean energy’s fate is being decided and recruits supporters to attend. Traldi argues that siting and permitting approvals turn on who shows up, and that local partners, conservative groups included, outperform outside advocates. We discuss how to measure impact, recent wins and losses, blue-state resistance, data center backlash, and Greenlight’s growth. Chapters: 00:00 – Introduction 02:09 – What Greenlight does and why Matt started it 04:41 – How Greenlight finds the decisions that matter 07:27 – Growth, and the tax credit deadline sprint 13:38 – Who shows up to local hearings 19:39 – Winning in conservative communities 22:35 – Bodies in the room, measuring impact, and win rates 27:46 – Losses, wins, and “there is no bag” 32:44 – Blue-state obstacles and organized opposition 36:31 – When data center backlash spills over onto clean energy 42:31 – Which projects Greenlight won’t back 45:38 – Lessons from housing and growing an organization 50:17 – Audience Q&A: disinformation and state permitting reform 54:39 – Audience Q&A: developers and elections 59:30 – Audience Q&A: funding local groups and designing community input

What’s up with the new federal permitting reform bill?

Oct 9, 2026 2 hr 21 min

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 proposed bipartisan federal permitting bill is 417 pages filled with extremely consequential provisions that have left the climate community some mix of excited, infuriated, and confused. In an attempt to bring some clarity, I asked Daniel Palken of Arnold Ventures, a veteran of Senate permitting fights, to walk through what’s in it. We cover the blockbuster transmission reforms, the rule making data centers pay more than their share of grid costs, the wins for geothermal, and the fossil carve-outs. Then we get into NEPA reforms that render the act toothless, limits on state water permits, and the permit-certainty sections that have lawyers worried about “forever permits.” And finally: whether it restrains Trump, why Democrats shouldn’t wait for a better deal, what the modeling says about emissions impacts, and Daniel’s odds of passage. This is a long one, folks. Buckle up. Chapters: 00:00 – Intro: the bipartisan permitting bill 04:15 – Why permitting reform matters 12:23 – Agency staffing and capacity 16:59 – Past permitting attempts 20:26 – Transmission 1: planning and federal backstop 28:28 – Transmission 2: who pays and grid upgrades 38:17 – Data centers 1: paying more for grid access 43:20 – Distributed energy and geothermal 49:06 – Oil, gas, and mining provisions 57:06 – Data centers 2: will they go off-grid? 1:00:19 – NEPA 1: courts can’t halt projects 1:08:57 – NEPA 2: the main objections 1:17:10 – State water permits 1:23:35 – Endangered species 1:27:37 – Permit certainty 1: limits on revoking permits 1:36:43 – Permit certainty 2: lawsuits and damages 1:48:12 – Politics 1: Trump’s wind blockades 1:52:57 – Politics 2: why not wait for a better deal? 1:58:33 – Politics 3: elections, courts, and modeling 2:10:57 – Politics 4: next steps and odds of passage

The grueling fight to pass the Inflation Reduction Act

Oct 7, 2026 1 hr 4 min

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 On September 14, I sat down with Leah Stokes in front of a live audience at Seattle’s Town Hall to talk about her new book, The Carbon Wave. It’s an insider account of how the Inflation Reduction Act got made, braided with the story of the high-risk twin pregnancy she went through while helping to make it. We get into why electrification is the heart of decarbonization, the enduring mystery of what’s going on in Joe Manchin’s head, what it means to trade your carbon footprint for a carbon wave, and how much of the IRA survives. It was followed by questions from the audience. Chapters: 00:00 – Welcome and housekeeping 03:05 – The twins, the NICU, and writing the book 08:51 – Carbon footprint vs. carbon wave 13:39 – Sam Ricketts and 100% clean electricity 18:13 – Why electricity is the core of the solution 23:28 – Utilities and the politics of change 26:18 – Tech companies and data centers 29:11 – Inside the Manchin negotiations 33:57 – Why Manchin got to yes 38:46 – Trump, setbacks, and where things stand 42:55 – Clean energy politics and the global shift 46:25 – Audience Q&A: the transmission gridlock 48:59 – Institutions, speed, and structural reform 53:27 – If Democrats win the House, what next 55:43 – Permitting reform 59:06 – State utilities, coal, and getting involved

Best of September 2026

Oct 2, 2026 42 min

Volts published seven conversations in September, which is a lot for anyone to listen to. We’ve rounded up the highlights into less than an hour. Enjoy! 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

What’s up with heat-pump water heaters?

Sep 30, 2026 1 hr 4 min

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 Heat pump water heaters use a fraction of the energy of conventional electric resistance heaters — which use more electricity in a year than an EV — but they're only 2 percent of the market, mainly because they tend to cost more, be slow and loud, and require a plumber and an electrician. Reservoir is a Boston company trying to fix all that, with a smarter, quieter machine and its own plumbers. I talk with CEO Luke Winston-Almanzar about how it works, what it costs, and its potential role in demand response programs. Chapters: 00:00 – Introduction 03:06 – Why water heaters 06:34 – How gas, resistance, and heat pump water heaters work 09:33 – Size and slow recovery: predictive heating and party mode 15:31 – Installation and vertical integration 22:19 – Cutting electric resistance backup 20:31 – What Reservoir builds and what it sources 23:41 – Tankless gas, virtual capacity, and the booster heater 27:11 – Recirculation, freeze protection, leak detection, and Legionella 32:03 – What it costs and what it saves 36:01 – Placement: small rooms, basements, and cold climates 42:37 – Noise and durability 48:19 – Demand response and virtual power plants 53:22 – A. O. Smith’s CO2 split system and Reservoir’s moat 55:54 – Policy headwinds after the IRA 59:29 – What’s next for Reservoir

Do small residential batteries make sense?

Sep 23, 2026 1 hr 5 min

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 Home batteries like the Tesla Powerwall are nice, but what about people who can’t afford them, or renters who aren’t allowed to install them, or people who just don’t want the hassle of dealing with a permit and an electrician? A company called Pila is selling small (1.6 kWh) batteries that simply plug into a normal electrical socket. They can serve as backup for a refrigerator or other appliance in the event of a blackout, but they can also “mesh” with one another to form a network, pair with rooftop solar, or participate in VPP programs. CEO Cole Ashman explains the value proposition. Chapters: 00:00 Introduction 02:26 Lessons from Powerwall and Span 05:33 What Pila is and how it works 07:14 How long a fridge runs on one battery 09:28 Fire risk, LFP chemistry, and New York City 16:02 Why the price went up, and cost per kilowatt hour 19:55 Who is actually buying Pila 23:00 Financing models and free batteries 27:04 Do the bill savings add up? 32:05 Why utilities want small batteries in VPPs 36:58 Pilots with Holy Cross Energy and Brooklyn SolarWorks 41:09 Solar pairing and the Pila mesh network 47:14 Camping batteries and built-in storage 54:19 Utilities and visibility at the grid edge 55:58 Bidirectional outlets and the next five years 1:00:10 Clean energy as invisible infrastructure

How energy politics work inside DC

Sep 18, 2026 14 min

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.volts.wtf Back in 2011, I wrote that fossil fuel interests had a much better media game than clean energy. My example was Frank Maisano, a media relations guy for coal utilities and the natural gas industry. Thirty years on, he’s still at it — still writing his newsletter, still connecting reporters to sources, still better at it than anyone on the clean side (sigh). So I’m finally talking to him about it: clean energy trade groups nobody in Washington fears, Trump’s daft efforts to kill renewables, the PAC picking off dirty-energy Republicans, permitting and data center fights, and the climate denial shop he worked for in the ‘90s. Spoiler: he regrets nothing. Chapters: 00:00 – Introduction 03:46 – What a DC media strategist actually does 09:50 – Republicans, Trump, and a narrow House majority 15:29 – Why tax cuts beat energy in the OBBBA fight 18:54 – Competing with China on AI without the electric stack 21:15 – Paying $4 billion to hand back offshore wind leases 28:07 – Red-state wind and the orders keeping coal plants open 32:52 – Clean energy trade groups and the building trades 38:41 – Gas as a bridge, and what longer term means 44:55 – Whether a half-gas trade group can serve clean energy 48:43 – A coherent clean vision against an incoherent coalition 51:14 – Do the green groups still scare anyone 55:18 – Permitting reform and the Whitehouse-Capito path 59:46 – Data centers, animal spirits, and the midterms 1:06:48 – The revenge PAC, and whether it is working 1:12:31 – Congress, the courts, and what Democrats could do 1:18:53 – COP, climate change, and the client he would turn down

How to build a more flexible, quieter, less obnoxious data center

Sep 16, 2026 1 hr 14 min

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 Verrus is building data centers designed to address every objection the public has raised: they use batteries instead of diesel generators, which makes them grid assets that help hold down power prices; they use closed-loop cooling, which uses a tiny fraction of the water; their equipment is quieter; and as a bonus, they squeeze more servers into the same grid connection. Yet both of Verrus’s proposed sites, in Michigan and Oregon, are mired in fierce local opposition. In this episode, CEO Nelson Abramson walks through the engineering — and the politics that the engineering hasn’t quite solved. Chapters: 00:00 – Introduction 02:43 – Three decades in data centers 05:05 – What a Verrus data center looks like 07:39 – The medium voltage power plane 12:13 – UPS batteries vs. the big LFP battery 17:27 – Priority aware capping and provisioned utility capacity 22:31 – Why not buy the pieces off the shelf? 25:42 – Duration: what happens when four hours runs out 34:28 – Diesel backup and what customers ask for 37:15 – How flexible is compute, really? 42:37 – Noise, fans, and the sound studies 48:42 – Water use and the 12 million gallon question 52:19 – Industrial land and by-right zoning 56:07 – Public opposition, recall petitions, and community benefits 1:00:07 – Oregon, Salem, and the moratorium 1:03:56 – Ride-through, NERC, and losing the moat 1:07:11 – What V2 looks like

Building a big, abundant, clean grid

Sep 11, 2026 2 hr 0 min

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 Jane Flegal has worked inside philanthropy at the Hewlett Foundation, industrial emissions policy at the Biden White House, and carbon-removal market development at Frontier; she's now a senior fellow at the Searchlight Institute, writing some of the smartest climate policy analysis around. We cover a lot of ground: industrial policy versus market approaches, what the IRA got right and wrong, philanthropy's proper role, data centers and the case for an infrastructure fund, and behind-the-meter gas, among other things. This is a long one, and spicy! Chapters: 00:00 – Introduction 03:11 – Flegal's thesis: building a clean grid fast enough to power growth 06:29 – Why she rejects degrowth 09:27 – The Roosevelt essay: climate as more than a market failure 13:30 – Why clean energy underuses its political muscle 15:24 – Industrial policy and the green spiral theory of change 20:40 – Was IRA the right approach? 22:12 – Lily Bermel's paper and the fight over what survived 23:21 – What she would have done differently under IRA 30:11 – Philanthropy, Silicon Valley, and what government is for 33:29 – The epistemic crisis inside environmental NGOs 39:09 – The abundance movement and what each faction misses 44:16 – What establishment Democrats get wrong on climate 46:06 – Why issue polling misleads 50:34 – Republicans and the Cold War analogy 52:47 – Data centers and the American Grid Infrastructure Fund 59:13 – Affordability politics and who pays for the grid 1:08:14 – Emissions, behind-the-meter gas, and flexible load 1:13:57 – The clean firm debate: storage plus transmission? 1:20:14 – Capacity markets, ERCOT, and the case for planning 1:24:32 – Utility incentives, public power, and affordability fixes 1:35:55 – Permitting reform and the land footprint asymmetry 1:41:05 – NEPA reform and the political window 1:48:21 – Where fresh policy...

Is there way more conventional geothermal than we thought?

Sep 9, 2026 1 hr 4 min

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 Zanskar argues that the US is badly underestimating its conventional geothermal resources — that there are far more undiscovered hydrothermal systems, and that each one can produce far more power, than people think. They think AI can help find those resources, and they have drilled three sites to back it up, including a “blind” discovery in Nevada with no surface signs and no prior exploratory wells. If they're right, terawatts of firm, carbon-free power are reachable with off-the-shelf drilling technology. Co-founders Carl Hoiland and Joel Edwards make the case. Chapters: 00:00 – Introduction 03:29 – Heat, permeability, and how resources have been found 04:49 – Why conventional geothermal stalled, and why the estimate is stale 09:22 – Applying AI to old exploration data 11:10 – The data Zanskar works with 13:09 – Models, field testing, and the feedback loop 15:02 – How much more resource is really out there 20:22 – Lightning Dock: reviving a written-off field 22:14 – What has changed in drilling technology 28:37 – Pumpernickel and the permeability question 31:08 – Natural permeability vs. enhanced geothermal 34:21 – Big Blind, the first blind discovery in 30 years 37:09 – Improving the models to keep getting better 40:51 – Financing exploration: the development capital facility 44:38 – The NV Energy PPA and data center demand 47:42 – The skeptical case and geographic limits 54:20 – Policy dependence and public lands 58:11 – What's next for Zanskar

Best of August 2026

Sep 4, 2026 45 min

Volts published eight conversations in August — with two Idaho state legislators, a grid cybersecurity expert, the architect of Uruguay's energy transition, an EV charging exec, and more — which is a lot for anyone to listen to. We've rounded up the highlights into a single hour. Enjoy! Chapters: 00:00 – Introduction and how the best-of series works 01:59 – Saleem Chapman on why every market design fails ratepayers the same way 07:51 – Patrick Miller on Chinese inverters and commodity boards 12:22 – Ben Toews and Megan Egbert on how Idaho's housing bills happened 18:34 – Seth Cutler on why an IONNA site is technically a bakery 22:52 – Ramón Méndez Galain on getting every Uruguayan party to sign one plan 28:00 – Quinn Nakayama on why a utility would adopt something that saves money 34:16 – Varun Sivaram on workload tiers and who pays when flexing goes wrong 38:44 – Todd Tucker on the Defense Production Act precedent 44:20 – Closing note and what to send in 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

How to respond to disinformation about clean energy, at scale

Sep 2, 2026 1 hr 11 min

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

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

Aug 28, 2026 1 hr 8 min

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

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

Aug 26, 2026 53 min

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

Why can't utilities innovate?

Aug 21, 2026 1 hr 11 min

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

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

Aug 19, 2026 1 hr 2 min

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

Can public EV chargers be as reliable as gas stations?

Aug 14, 2026 1 hr 1 min

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

Another bipartisan housing miracle, this time in Idaho

Aug 12, 2026 1 hr 1 min

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

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

Aug 7, 2026 1 hr 12 min

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

What should state policymakers do about data centers?

Aug 5, 2026 1 hr 3 min

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

Best of July 2026

Aug 2, 2026 45 min

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

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

Jul 31, 2026 45 min

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

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

Jul 29, 2026 1 hr 27 min

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

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

Jul 22, 2026 1 hr 7 min

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

Making sense of the data center backlash

Jul 20, 2026 1 hr 0 min

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

Spreading the good news about electrification

Jul 15, 2026 1 hr 3 min

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

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

Jul 10, 2026 1 hr 9 min

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

Forcing utilities to justify their distribution-system spending

Jul 8, 2026 1 hr 8 min

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

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

Jul 1, 2026 55 min

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.

How to keep people cool without making the planet even hotter

Jun 24, 2026 1 hr 5 min

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.

America's flagship automaker enters the home energy market

Jun 19, 2026 55 min

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.

Can the UK stay the course with its climate plans?

Jun 17, 2026 1 hr 1 min

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.

Why is NERC so worried about data centers?

Jun 10, 2026 1 hr 13 min

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.

This oil shock won't be like the others

Jun 5, 2026 25 min

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.

Are plug-in DERs going to spark a grid revolution?

Jun 3, 2026 1 hr 13 min

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 the US, clean energy tends to get bogged down in red tape, but there’s one category that you can install immediately, with no one’s permission, because it plugs right into your wall outlet. This week, I chat with James McGinniss of David Energy about plug-in DERs — specifically, small batteries that commercial tenants can install without permits or landlord sign-offs. We explore the economics behind these micro-projects, look at how they aggregate into virtual power plants, and break down why this hyper-local approach could eventually outcompete massive utility infrastructure.

Giving clean electricity a political voice of its own

May 29, 2026 1 hr 41 min

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 Why is clean electrification, the most exciting, dynamic, hopeful sector of the US economy, still such a 98-pound weakling in DC backroom fights? In this episode, I talk with investor and entrepreneur Steve McBee about Amped, his new effort to boost the industry’s political influence and give it a little swagger — by telling a more compelling story, getting better information to lawmakers, and pulling hundreds of billions of dollars in stranded capital off the sidelines.

A limited defense of Biden's everything-bagel industrial policy

May 27, 2026 1 hr 8 min

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 Conventional punditry loves the narrative that woolly-headed progressive standards over-burdened federal climate spending and slowed everything to a crawl. In this episode, I talk with Betony Jones about her time designing labor policies at the DOE and what she learned from interviewing dozens of companies that received federal funding. We explore the difference between bad rules and weak administrative capacity, how the DOE successfully streamlined century-old Davis-Bacon compliance, and why creating high-quality jobs is essential for global competitiveness.

How to phase out residential gas equitably

May 22, 2026 1 hr 7 min

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 affluent homeowners defect to heat pumps, the massive costs of maintaining America’s aging gas pipelines are being concentrated onto a shrinking base of customers who can afford it least. To understand how to prevent an impending utility death spiral, I talk with the Building Decarbonization Coalition’s Kristin George Bagdanov and Panama Bartholomy. We discuss the legal limits of a utility’s “obligation to serve,” the potential for gas companies to transition into geothermal thermal energy networks, and why the US has suddenly become the global leader in heat pump sales.

Sooner than you think, electricity is going to be cheap, abundant, and boring

May 20, 2026 1 hr 45 min

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 Are data centers and electrification going to break the US power grid, or are they the secret to making it cheaper for everyone? In this episode, I talk with Pier LaFarge of Sparkfund about Minnesota’s landmark decision to let Xcel Energy deploy batteries directly into local distribution networks. We look past the politics and map out how a battery-saturated system can socialize the benefits of load growth, ushering in an era of boringly reliable, low-cost energy by 2030.

Telling the story of the grid

May 15, 2026 33 min

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.volts.wtf Ben Eidelson and Anay Shah run the Stepchange podcast, which recently put out a magisterial four-hour (!) episode on the history of the US electricity grid. I talk with them about some of the colorful characters and stories involved, the big fights and broad lessons learned, and how the history echoes in today’s political and technological struggles.

Electrifying industrial steam with heat pumps

May 13, 2026 1 hr 4 min

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 Boiling water to make steam for industrial processes consumes an enormous amount energy around the globe, yet it has proven remarkably resistant to electrification. In this episode, I talk with Addison Stark of AtmosZero about why replacing the standard fossil-gas boiler requires an entirely new approach to industrial heat pumps. We discuss the engineering behind his high-temperature system, the challenges of scaling up, and the growing imperative to get free of global LNG markets.

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The federal permitting bill has been updated. What changed?

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🇮🇳 Politics Best #36

🇺🇸 Politics Best #86

Podcast details

Created by: David Roberts
Status: Active
Latest episode: Nov 11, 2026
Episodes: 467
Release period: Several times a week
Avg. episode length: 1 hr 4 min
Explicit: No
Language: English

Links

Official website ↗ Apple Podcasts ↗ RSS feed ↗

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