In this episode, Dr. Ye Tao discusses his vision for combatting climate change by using fields of mirrors that reflect solar radiation. ( PDF transcript ) ( Active transcript ) Text transcript: David Roberts Geoengineering — using large-scale engineering projects to directly cool the Earth’s atmosphere — is an intensely controversial topic in climate circles. On one hand, such schemes strike many people as dangerous hubris, interfering with large-scale systems we don’t fully understand, risking ...
Jun 08, 2022•1 hr 4 min
In this episode, Chris Hayes of MSNBC discusses how American politics and society changed after the Obama years, where things might head in the future, and how his own views have shifted along the way. ( PDF transcript ) ( Active transcript ) Text transcript: David Roberts I often reflect on a particular moment in the summer of 2015. It was not long after the Supreme Court made gay marriage legal across the nation in Obergefell v. Hodges. And America was in the middle of one of its regular fight...
Jun 03, 2022•1 hr 3 min
In this episode, policy analyst Danny Cullenward of CarbonPlan talks about the disconnect between California’s ambitious climate goals and its actual practical plans for achieving them. ( PDF transcript ) ( Active transcript ) Text transcript: David Roberts California has long been known, nationally and internationally, as a leader on climate policy. The sheer scale of its economy and the stringency of its emissions targets have made it a model for other states with climate ambitions. As a role ...
Jun 01, 2022•1 hr 16 min
In this episode, Abigail Hopper of the Solar Energy Industries Association discusses the trade complaint that has cast a pall over the US solar industry, why she believes it should be dismissed, and the complexities of tariff policy. ( PDF transcript ) ( Active transcript ) Text transcript: David Roberts Back in 2012, the Obama administration levied tariffs on solar panels from China, to punish the country for unfairly subsidizing its panels in an attempt to corner the market. In the ensuing yea...
May 25, 2022•1 hr 5 min
In this episode, Lauren Melodia and Kristina Karlsson of the Roosevelt Institute explain why it’s counter-productive to increase domestic oil and gas production when energy prices rise, and how building out clean-energy infrastructure is the actual best way to address the price volatility of fossil fuels. ( PDF transcript ) ( Active transcript ) Text transcript: David Roberts Americans are struggling with two related problems: one, there’s general inflation, which means pretty much everything is...
May 23, 2022•51 min
In this episode, Jesse Morris of international nonprofit Energy Web discusses his group’s work toward building a transparent and trusted “operating system” for distributed energy resources, with an end goal of enabling a more sophisticated and resilient energy grid. ( PDF transcript ) ( Active transcript ) Text transcript: David Roberts Recent years have seen an explosive rise in distributed energy resources (DERs) — energy devices that are located “behind the meter,” on the customer side, like ...
May 18, 2022•1 hr 11 min
In this episode, Doug Thompson, associate professor of political science at the University of South Carolina, sings the praises of bureaucracy and its essential role in the fight against climate change. ( PDF transcript ) ( Active transcript ) Text transcript: David Roberts It’s well-understood that the modern US conservative movement is a mix of two primary forces, fiscal and social conservatism. (See: fusionism .) Put more crudely: it’s the oligarchs and the evangelical white nationalists. The...
May 13, 2022
In this episode, Andy Frank, president and co-founder of Sealed, discusses his company’s pay-for-performance model for home electrification. ( PDF transcript ) ( Active transcript ) Text transcript: David Roberts One of the greatest riddles of the decarbonization effort is the residential sector, responsible for about 20 percent of US energy-related carbon emissions. There are about 142 million housing units in the US, around 83 million of which are “owner-occupied.” Substantially changing them ...
May 09, 2022•1 hr
In this episode, UC Davis assistant professor Fran Moore discusses her research team’s effort to construct a climate model that includes (instead of ignores) effects from the interplay of social conditions and policy change. ( PDF transcript ) ( Active transcript ) Text transcript: David Roberts One of my long-time gripes about the climate-economic models that outfits like the IPCC produce is that they ignore politics. More broadly, they ignore social change and the way it can both drive and be ...
May 04, 2022•1 hr 2 min
In this episode, Nan Ransohoff, head of carbon at Stripe, discusses the company's new spinoff, Frontier, which will pool money from partners and make it available to early contenders in the carbon dioxide removal (CDR) market. We chat about that market, the technologies that show promise in it, in the role of private industry in accelerating 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...
Apr 29, 2022•43 min
In this episode, Google’s director of energy, Michael Terrell, explains the company's new goal of supplying all of its facilities with clean energy 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. We discuss how its going, what kinds of new technologies will be needed, and what new policies could help move things along. 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...
Apr 27, 2022•52 min
In this episode, I discussed swappable, rechargeable batteries in two-wheeled electric scooters with Horace Luke, the CEO of Gogoro. Luke’s company is selling subscriptions to batteries in bustling emerging-market cities like Taiwan. We talked about consumer requirements for swappable batteries, the other kinds of technologies that might use them, and his plans for expansion. Full transcript of Volts podcast featuring Horace Luke, April 22, 2022 ( PDF version ) David Roberts: Electric vehicles a...
Apr 22, 2022•1 hr 5 min
For years now, I’ve been dithering about getting an electric vehicle (EV). Much of that dithering has been done in public, on Twitter and for various sites I’ve worked for — just a few weeks ago I subjected you to my handwringing about an EV test drive — so I figured I might as well document how the journey finally ended. Long story short, we bought a used 2017 Chevy Bolt. That is about the least sexy sentence one can write about EVs in the year of our lord 2022, but there you have it. We though...
Apr 18, 2022•6 min
In this episode, sociologist Elizabeth Popp Berman discusses her new book, Thinking Like an Economist , about the “economic style of thinking” and how it took over in US policy circles in the post-war period. It remains embedded there to this day, but alternatives are beginning to emerge. 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...
Apr 15, 2022•1 hr 3 min
In this episode, Carnegie Mellon professor Paulina Jaramillo discusses the IPCC's working group 3 report, “mitigation of climate change,” of which she was a co-author. It's the most comprehensive look to date at the economic sectors that emit greenhouse gases, the strategies and technologies that can reduce emissions, and the state of play in climate policy around the world. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, ...
Apr 13, 2022
Earlier this year, I stumbled on the news videos from the team at Some More News . They are like The Daily Show , but longer, smarter, more in-depth, more profane, and free of Jon Stewart’s unfortunate navel-gazing centrism. But still funny as hell! In other words: they might as well be targeted directly at me. I’ve been gorging on them for months. (You could start with this one on critical race theory .) Anyway, imagine my delight when I discovered that Some More News also has a podcast, Even M...
Apr 11, 2022•57 min
Economist Noah Smith runs the excellent substack Noahpinion , where he writes and podcasts about … pretty much everything. Economics. Politics. The war. Housing. Technology. On and on. The guy is ludicrously productive. This week, he interviewed me! We talked about the new IPCC reports, the state of technology, some dumb tweets of mine, and NIMBYs, among other things. It was a fun and wide-ranging conversation. Check it out! (And subscribe to Noahpinion .) The video is below. The audio is posted...
Apr 08, 2022•1 hr 17 min
In this episode, activists Matthew Metz and Janelle London discuss their new report on gasoline “superusers” — the subset of drivers who drive long distances each year — and the policy recommendations around EV subsidies that it contains. It's a clever idea I haven't been able to stop thinking about. 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...
Apr 04, 2022•33 min
In this episode, activists and entrepreneurs Audrey Schulman and Zeyneb Magavi discuss their audacious plan to replace the nation's natural gas distribution infrastructure with a series of networked geothermal heat pumps. Basically, neighborhoods would be heated by warm water rather than natural gas. It would be the most efficient collective heating option available in the world. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, ...
Apr 01, 2022•1 hr 6 min
In this episode, entrepreneur Rob Harmon discusses his new method for tracking and monetizing energy efficiency in commercial buildings. Traditionally, efficiency policy has consisted in subsidizing equipment up front. Harmon explains how to get reliable numbers about actual performance and begin to build a market around them. Surprisingly fascinating. 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...
Mar 28, 2022•1 hr 15 min
(Hey y’all — I’m attempting to dictate this post rather than type it , so please forgive any sins of grammar or structure.) My family and I own two extremely old cars, a 2001 Honda Odyssey minivan and a 2009 Toyota Prius hybrid. The van is literally falling apart, so we have been looking around lately for a new vehicle. Obviously, we would prefer an EV. A representative from Ford saw me musing about it on Twitter, contacted me, and offered to loan me a Ford Mustang Mach-E electric vehicle for a ...
Mar 14, 2022•9 min
Hey, y’all, just a short note to catch you up on my current situation and my plans for the coming weeks. Long story short: I have tendonitis in both arms. I’ve had problems with pain in my forearms for years, but it always faded or went away after a while and was manageable. A few months after quarantine started, in 2020, it started getting worse, to the point I had to give up playing bass guitar — my one non-computer hobby. Then, a few months ago, it started getting a lot worse, quickly. I have...
Feb 18, 2022
In this episode, Gerald Butts and Catherine McKenna discuss their experiences passing a carbon tax in Canada, as advisor to prime minister Justin Trudeau and minister of the environment respectively. In particular, we focus on a key feature of the Canadian tax: all the revenue collected goes back to the province from which it was collected, mostly as per-capita dividends. Butts and McKenna believe that feature was central to selling the public on the policy. Full transcript of Volts podcast feat...
Feb 16, 2022•1 hr 5 min
In this episode, Rebecca Dell, who runs the industry program at the ClimateWorks Foundation, offers a comprehensive overview of the problems of industrial decarbonization, the most promising technological solutions in steel, cement, and chemicals, and the kinds of policies that could accelerate progress. Incredibly informative. Full transcript of Volts podcast featuring Rebecca Dell, February 11, 2022 ( PDF version ) David Roberts: For most of the carbon-intensive sectors of the economy — electr...
Feb 11, 2022•1 hr 32 min
In a previous post , I offered a broad overview of the problems related to minerals needed for the clean-energy transition. To recap: * clean-energy technologies are more minerals-intensive to build than their fossil-fuel counterparts; * the growth of clean energy will rapidly raise demand for a set of key minerals; * mining and processing of those minerals is geographically concentrated, often in countries with weak labor and environmental protections; * mineral mines and processing facilities ...
Feb 07, 2022•19 min
In this episode, Jigar Shah, the recently appointed head of the Department of Energy’s Loan Programs Office (LPO), discusses how he and his team have reformed the office and pulled into into the modern age, the kinds of help LPO is offering entrepreneurs, and the frontier technologies that have him most excited. Full transcript of Volts podcast featuring Jigar Shah, February 2, 2022 ( PDF version ) David Roberts: Back in 2010, the Department of Energy’s Loan Programs Office (LPO) briefly became ...
Feb 02, 2022•50 min
In this episode, Panama Bartholomy, head of the Building Decarbonization Coalition, discusses the need to decarbonize buildings, the many challenges facing the effort, and the cities and states that are making progress. You better believe we get way into heat pumps and induction stoves. Full transcript of Volts podcast featuring Panama Bartholomy, January 28, 2022 ( PDF version ) David Roberts: Fossil-fuel combustion in buildings — mostly natural gas for space and water heating — is responsible ...
Jan 28, 2022•1 hr 22 min
Arguments over carbon taxes go back as far as discussions of climate change itself. Economists have long insisted that pricing carbon is the most efficient way to reduce greenhouse gases. For years, they hijacked the climate discourse, with untold money and effort put behind proposals for various increasingly baroque pricing schemes, to very little effect. Over time, political experience with carbon taxes has highlighted a truth that should have been obvious long ago: carbon taxes are taxes, and...
Jan 24, 2022•16 min
Recently, there’s been a lot of talk in the energy world about the minerals needed by clean-energy technologies and whether mineral supply problems might pose a threat to the clean-energy transition. To hold warming beneath 1.5°C over pre-industrial levels, the world must cut greenhouse gas emissions in half by 2030 and reach net zero by 2050. To do that, it must radically ramp up production of solar panels, wind turbines, batteries, electric vehicles (EVs), electrolyzers for hydrogen, and power...
Jan 21, 2022•20 min
Hey Volties! As you know, last week I interviewed Don’t Look Up director Adam McKay for the podcast. Then the talented folks at Canary Media’s Carbon Copy podcast (which you should subscribe to) interviewed me — about the movie, climate change in art, and McKay — and interweaved bits of that interview with bits of my interview with McKay. The result is the first-ever Volts/Carbon Copy crossover episode! They did an amazing job. Even if you’ve already listened to my interview with McKay, I think ...
Jan 20, 2022•33 min
