Volts

Why can Australian homeowners get rooftop solar installed in a week or less, for roughly 50 cents a watt, while Californians pay $3.30/w and wait months for interconnection? In this episode, I ask inimitable Australian...

The problem of misinformation in the current age, argues political scientist Samuel Bagg, is not that reliably truth-producing institutions and practices don’t exist, but that people have ceased to trust them. Changing...

Senator Ruben Gallego (AZ) joins me to discuss his new energy plan, which combines elements of the Inflation Reduction Act with a new focus on permitting reform and small modular nuclear reactors. We get into all of it...

In this episode, Aliya Haq unpacks how her two decades in the climate movement have reshaped her view of what works. After six years working at Bill Gates’ Breakthrough Energy initiative, she has launched the Clean...

I’m joined by Brian Turner and Kathleen Staks to unpack the details of the newly authorized Regional Organization for Western Energy (ROWE), a unique “à la carte” RTO designed to unify the western US grid without...

Why is a deregulated state like Illinois suddenly embracing central planning? In this episode, I talk with Kady McFadden and John Delurey about the state’s decision to empower its utility commission to directly procure...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.volts.wtf With load growth projections all over the map and politicians zeroing in on high electricity prices, I take a step back in this audio essay to...

Will cheap, DIY solar reach American renters? In Germany, millions of people plug solar panels directly into wall outlets like any other appliance, but in the US, red tape makes it ludicrously costly. I chat with Cora...

Energy strategist Kingsmill Bond joins me to explain why the transition to “electrotech” is unstoppable, whether or not politicians care about climate change. It’s not the reduced emissions, it’s physics (electrotech is...

Environmentalism has typically focused on outdoor air quality, but climate change is pushing more people indoors more of the time, even as airborne pathogens and wildfire smoke challenge indoor air quality. I discuss...

Distributed energy resources are everywhere, but connecting buyers and sellers is a coordination nightmare; I talk with James Johnston, whose company Piclo is tackling that problem head-on. He explains how they’ve built...

In this episode, I welcome back Caroline Spears from Climate Cabinet for a post-election debrief that, unlike last year’s, is full of good news. We explore how a slate of pro-climate candidates defied expectations in...

In this episode, I chat with Nick Chaset, CEO of Octopus Energy US, about bringing the company’s customer-focused, tech-forward model to America. We get into the details of how Octopus simplifies home energy management...

With the White House actively dismantling clean transportation policy, what can states do to salvage progress? I talk with former DOT policy advisor Liya Rechtman about a little-known authority that lets states transfer...

Lately, everyone from Tony Blair to Daniel Yergin is calling for a “climate reset,” so I brought on clean-energy analyst Michael Liebreich to discuss his own, very different version. While others push expensive...

In this episode I’m joined by Wilson Ricks and Killian Daly, who are involved in the process of updating the Greenhouse Gas Protocol that governs (among other things) corporate clean-energy procurement. We explore the...

Redwood Materials has long dominated EV battery recycling, but what if they could drain every last drop of energy from those batteries before recycling them? I talk with the company’s CTO, Colin Campbell, about Redwood...

I chat with Sarah Goodyear and Doug Gordon, the hosts behind the unapologetic podcast “The War on Cars,” about their new book and the fight to reveal our car-dominated world as a political choice, not an inevitability...

New York passed one of the most ambitious climate laws in the country, but is now struggling to meet its goals. I’m joined by Doreen Harris, president of NYSERDA, the agency on the front lines of implementing the law...

In this episode, I talk with Seattle mayoral candidate Katie Wilson, a longtime transit and housing organizer who scored a surprise primary victory against the city’s establishment-friendly incumbent. Wilson makes the...

In this episode, I chat with Quaise CEO Carlos Araque about unlocking geothermal energy on a planetary scale by drilling miles into the Earth’s crust. He explains how his company’s technology vaporizes rock with...

Why should you care about a utility commission race in Georgia? Because it’s a national bellwether, a sign of how voters are going to react to skyrocketing power prices and a test of whether Democrats can get their act...

In this episode, I chat with investor Clay Dumas of Lowercarbon Capital about the growing use of “advance market commitments” (AMCs). We discuss how this simple idea — a group of buyers commits to purchasing a set...

Data centers are creating a grid crunch, so what if they paid to solve it by upgrading our homes? I chat with Rewiring America’s Ari Matusiak and PG&E’s Carla Peterman about a new report proposing that hyperscalers fund...

High-temperature industrial heat for things like steel gets a lot of attention in clean energy world, but its somewhat less sexy cousin low -temperature industrial heat could use a little more. In this episode, I talk...