Is the Inflation Reduction Act, passed nearly two years ago, doing what it set out to do? In this episode, Trevor Houser of the Rhodium Group compares the predictions of pre-IRA energy-sector models to the real-world data on clean-energy investment since its passage. 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, we go deep on industrial policy with Todd Tucker of the Roosevelt Institute. We discuss what it is, why it’s needed, what Biden’s particular version of it looks like, and how it could evolve if he wins a second term. 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, Huffington Post reporter Alexander Kaufman traces the recent history of US building codes, a surprisingly compelling and twisty tale of efforts at reform meeting stiff resistance from builders and natural gas companies. 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, Cora Wyent walks us through Rewiring America’s “ personal electrification planner ,” a step-by-step how-to for homeowners (and renters!) looking to electrify their homes. 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 speak with Jigar Shah (head of DOE’s Loan Programs Office) about all things nuclear, including its recent performance, the strategies that could revive and accelerate it, new nuclear technologies and what small modular reactors actually are, and the role that nuclear will play in a decarbonized economy. 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, Reps. Sean Casten (D-Ill.) and Mike Levin (D-Calif.) discuss their Clean Electricity and Transmission Acceleration Act, explaining where Democrats have found consensus around transmission permitting and community engagement. 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, journalist Hamilton Nolan shares about his upcoming book The Hammer, a deep dive into the current tattered state of unions in the US and the prospects for their future. 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 interview Fourth Power CTO Asegun Henry and CEO Arvin Ganesan, who bring high-profile experience in energy research, policy, and regulation to their new and promising thermal storage startup. 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
Upgrading power lines — “reconductoring,” in the biz — is a straightforward way to boost the capacity of the electrical grid by enabling it to transmit more power and leak less of it. In this episode, TS Conductor CEO Jason Huang and researcher Emilia Chojkiewicz speak to the great potential of reconductoring, if balky utilities can be convinced to deploy the new technology. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www....
Given the trajectory of the electric vehicle industry and the expected lifespan of an EV’s lithium-ion battery, the US is only a few years out from needing large-scale, cost-effective, decarbonized ways to recycle batteries. In this episode, Steve Cotton, CEO of Aqua Metals, describes regenerative electro-hydrometallurgy — the new battery recycling method that’s not only fun to say, but run on clean, cheap renewable electricity too. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with ot...
In this episode, Michigan State Senator Sam Singh details the ambitious clean energy policies that have been enacted since Democrats won a legislative trifecta in 2022, including some bold reforms of clean-energy permitting. 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 Australian state of Victoria, home to the city of Melbourne, is the country’s most densely populated state and also its most dependent on fossil gas. In this episode, Lily D’Ambrosio, Victoria’s Minister for Energy, Environment, and Climate Change, shares about the state government’s aim to shift away from fossil gas, its aptly named Gas Substitution Roadmap, and the current status of its decarbonization push. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or ...
In this episode, David Doniger of the Natural Resources Defense Council explains what the Chevron doctrine is, why the federal judiciary has traditionally been deferential to agencies’ regulatory reasoning, and the potential fallout in the very real chance that the current Supreme Court does away with the doctrine entirely. 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, Chairman Marisa Gillett of Connecticut’s Public Utilities Regulatory Authority (PURA) talks about her aim to reform the cozy regulatory environment enjoyed by the state’s big utilities, PURA’s new Equitable Modern Grid Initiative, and how ratepayers benefit from a shakeup of the status quo. 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 Chief of Energy, Sustainability, and Transportation at the Chancellor’s Office of California State University, Lindsey Rowell is charged with developing and implementing a plan to decarbonize every aspect of the school system, on all 23 campuses, with minimal use of offsets, by 2045. In this episode, she lays out what it will take to tackle this ambitious goal. ( PDF transcript ) ( Active transcript ) Text transcript: David Roberts Contemplate, if you will, the California State University sys...
In this episode, Will Toor of the Colorado Energy Office shares about the state’s ambitious climate agenda and the array of energy policies they’ve been passing under a Democratic political trifecta. ( PDF transcript ) ( Active transcript ) Washington, DC, is a slow-motion nightmare right now, but out in the states — at least the states that Democrats control — climate and clean energy policy is still happening. A few weeks ago, I covered the fantastic policies recently passed in my home state o...
The cement industry, responsible for roughly 8 percent of total global carbon emissions, is notoriously difficult to decarbonize. But a new startup, Sublime Systems, aims to manufacture zero-carbon cement that can easily be substituted for the traditional version. In this episode, Sublime CEO Leah Ellis talks through the company’s vision and process. ( PDF transcript ) ( Active transcript ) Text transcript: David Roberts: Of all the so-called “difficult to decarbonize” sectors, cement is among t...
To create a clean-energy economy, the US badly needs an advanced mining industry that can provide huge amounts of key minerals for batteries and other technologies — and it’s nowhere close to where it needs to be. In this episode, KoBold Metals CEO Kurt House describes the current state of mineral exploration, the significant changes it needs to make, and how machine learning and artificial intelligence can help it get there. ( PDF transcript ) ( Active transcript ) Text transcript: David Robert...
In this episode, wind industry analyst Samantha Woodworth speaks to the growing pains of the offshore wind industry and what its future may hold. ( PDF transcript ) ( Active transcript ) Text transcript: David Roberts Last week, for the first time ever, a commercial offshore wind farm delivered power to the US grid . It was an important milestone — and also the rare bit of good news for an otherwise beleaguered industry. Everywhere else, costs are up, contracts are being renegotiated, and projec...
In this episode, Jarra Hicks of the Australian nonprofit Community Power Agency talks about addressing rural resistance to clean energy infrastructure through effective community engagement. ( PDF transcript ) ( Active transcript ) Text transcript: David Roberts To hit its climate targets, the US must build an enormous amount of new clean energy infrastructure. Much of that infrastructure is going to be built in rural communities, and the resistance of those communities to that infrastructure is...
In this episode, Peter Lehner, head of the food and farming sustainability program at Earthjustice, gives his expert perspective on the upcoming Farm Bill and its potential impact on agricultural decarbonization in the US. ( PDF transcript ) ( Active transcript ) Text transcript: David Roberts As longtime subscribers know — indeed, as the name makes plain — Volts is primarily focused on the energy side the climate fight. I haven't paid much attention to agriculture over the years. I understand t...
The first Volts post went up on Dec. 7, 2020. Believe it or not, that was almost three years ago. I want to mark Volts’ third birthday with a few reflections, a couple of fun announcements, and a request. I hope you will indulge me. Volts is subscriber-supported There have been a lot of new subscribers since the last time I sent out one of these notes and it occurs to me that some of you more recent arrivals — or some of you who have only heard the pod through Apple or Spotify or whatever — migh...
In this episode, longtime solar industry analyst Jenny Chase, author of Solar Power Finance Without the Jargon , catches us up on the current state of the global solar industry and looks to where it’s going. ( PDF transcript ) ( Active transcript ) Text transcript: David Roberts Jenny Chase went to work for the London-based startup New Energy Finance in 2005, straight out of university in Cambridge. She founded its solar analysis team and helped establish some of the first reliable indexes of pr...
In this episode, Astrid Atkinson, co-founder of Camus Energy, talks about her company’s “grid orchestration” work of helping utilities see, track, and coordinate the distributed energy resources in their territories. ( PDF transcript ) ( Active transcript ) Text transcript: David Roberts One of my favorite things I ever wrote was a 2018 piece for Vox on grid architecture — the basic structure of the electricity transmission and distribution networks. It was about how a top-down system, with one-...
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) is poised to pass new policy that will expand regional transmission capacity, but how impactful will its new rule be? In this episode, grid policy expert Rob Gramlich gives the lay of the land. ( PDF transcript ) ( Active transcript ) Text transcript: David Roberts By now, it’s fairly well understood that the US badly needs more electricity transmission lines to keep up with the changing generation mix and growth in demand that will come with clean...
As I previewed for Volts subscribers a few weeks ago, I attended the third annual Yale Clean Energy Conference last week. It was a blast! It’s always energizing (pardon the pun) to be surrounded by so many young people doing so much cool stuff. It gives this crusty old blogger some hope. While I was there, I recorded a podcast — live on stage! — with Sonia Aggarwal. Sonia is well-known in Energy World. She co-founded (with previous Volts guest Hal Harvey ) the energy policy think tank Energy Inn...
In this episode, Ólafur Teitur Guðnason of Icelandic company Carbfix discusses his company’s approach to carbon sequestration by essentially making fizzy water and burying it deep underground. ( PDF transcript ) ( Active transcript ) Text transcript: David Roberts The idea behind the Icelandic company Carbfix is simple: pack water full of carbon dioxide (literally carbonate it, like a SodaStream) and inject it deep underground into Iceland’s porous basaltic rock. Minerals in the rock dissolve in...
Rural community pushback to new wind and solar farms has the potential to slow the US clean-energy transition, but very little research has been done on what rural Americans actually think about renewable energy. A recent survey of thousands of rural residents about their opinions on climate change and clean energy development sheds some light; in this episode, Robin Pressman of Embold Research and Mike Casey of clean-energy PR firm Tigercomm discuss the results. ( PDF transcript ) ( Active tran...
In this episode, Shayle Kann, cleantech investor and host of the podcast Catalyst, shares his educated opinion on the most overhyped and underhyped technologies and trends in clean energy. ( PDF transcript ) ( Active transcript ) Text transcript: David Roberts If you listen to Volts, you probably also listen to — or at the very least, should also be listening to — Catalyst , the Canary Media podcast hosted by veteran cleantech investor Shayle Kann. Like Volts, it features fairly nerdy deep-dive ...
In this episode, Princeton professor and energy modeler Jesse Jenkins tackles the question of how we can build a decarbonized energy system that relies on inherently variable wind and solar power. ( PDF transcript ) ( Active transcript ) Text transcript: David Roberts If you’ve spent much time discussing clean energy on the internet, you’ve probably come across a disturbing piece of information: the sun, it seems, is not always shining. What’s worse, the wind is not always blowing! It’s crazy, I...
