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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?...

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...

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 abou...

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 b...

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 na...

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...

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 abrupt...

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 m...

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...

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 indu...

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...

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 t...

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 di...

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...

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 foss...

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 people think that coordinating the behavior of thousands of distributed energy resources requires some kind of third-party middleman, like an aggregator managing a VPP. My guest today, veteran research scientist Bruce Nordman, believes there’s a better...

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.volts.wtf/subscribe Today, coordinating a whole-home retrofit — or even just getting a heat pump — involves confusing research, a parade of contractors, and wildly varying quotes. It’s a broken system that practically pushes people to just buy another gas furnace. In this episo...

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 Historically, investing in energy infrastructure has been the exclusive province of wealthy individuals and large institutions. But that’s changing, and my guest today is part of it. I’m joined by Energea co-founder Mike Silvestrini to discuss how his platfo...

In this episode, I sit down with financier Tom Steyer to discuss his 2026 run for governor of California. We dig into his pledge to cut the state’s notoriously high electricity bills by 25 percent, how he plans to break the stranglehold of investor-owned utilities through local competition and smarter grid utilization, and the delicate politics of pushing a climate-forward agenda when voters are p...

The think tank Ember just released its yearly Global Electricity Review. In this episode, I chat with co-authors Nicolas Fulghum & Kostantsa Rangelova about the biggest stories in the global power sector in 2025. We geek out over the record-breaking scale of solar deployment, the game-changing role of batteries in shifting midday power to the evening, and the tantalizing possibility that India wil...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.volts.wtf Heatmap’s Robinson Meyer joins me to unpack the sheer madness of the current news landscape. We discuss the energy implications of the Iran war, the vexed politics of permitting reform, Microsoft’s retreat from carbon dioxide removal, the lessons of the IRA, the lingering pastoralism of the environmental movement, and much...

Beth Bafford spent years designing Climate United, a revolving fund meant to push out $7 billion of Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund money to underserved communities. She had barely begun sending out grants when Trump shut the program down and rescinded all the money. In this episode, I talk with her about that experience, the ongoing legal fight to reclaim some of the money, and the central importan...

In this episode, I welcome back my old friend Jigar Shah to discuss the current hullabaloo around explosive electricity demand from new data centers. We dig into why its stupid for tech companies to build their own behind-the-meter natural gas plants, how this approach is wrecking equipment and destabilizing the grid, and a better, smarter, faster path forward. This is a public episode. If you'd l...

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 There are some circumstances — think disaster recovery zones or forward military bases — that cry out for portable, reliable, resilient power. I talk with Lauren Flanagan about Sesame Solar’s self-contained nanogrids, which use solar PV, batteries, and hydro...

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 do climate funders prefer cutting checks for electric vehicles over fighting for dense, transit-oriented housing? I talk to Ben Holland, who recently interviewed major climate foundations about their anti-urbanism bias, and returning guest Caroline Spear...