David Roberts

@volts.wtf

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I run a newsletter/podcast called Volts about clean energy & politics. Subscribe & join the community at http://volts.wtf!

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David Roberts

I think it might be time to revisit this 2016 @vox.com classic from @volts.wtf to remind ourselves why this freakout is happening: The entire US political system is premised, at the atomic & subatomic level, upon 2 equally choiceworthy sides. It can't allow a clear choice, & so will *make* it even

I forget who posted it (maybe it was you, even, lol, and I paraphrase) but I can't get past the "Biden has one bad debate and no other missteps since, Trump the felon says something batshit crazy every day and the media is still on the bad debate guy"

Why the media will lift Trump up and tear Clinton downwww.vox.com Vox is a general interest news site for the 21st century. Its mission: to help everyone understand our complicated world, so that we can all help shape it. In text, video and audio, our reporters expl...

Today on Volts: you've probably heard some of the hype around "solid-state" batteries. What are they? What are their advantages, in terms of energy density & safety? When will they come to market? I get into all of it with a SSB CEO. www.volts.wtf/p/whats-up-w...

What's up with solid-state batteries?www.volts.wtf CEO Siyu Huang of Factorial Energy talks through recent advancements in solid-state batteries, which promise significant improvements in energy density and safety and are paving the way for electric v...

Today on Volts: A new startup, Base Power, is effectively giving its Texas customers oversized home batteries for the cost of installation. Homeowners get reliable backup power; Base uses the extra storage capacity to trade in the market. Intriguing! www.volts.wtf/p/a-clever-n...

A clever new way to distribute storage on the gridwww.volts.wtf A new startup called Base Power aims to bring more stability to the volatile Texas grid by selling customers oversized home batteries at minimal costs and then using the excess capacity to trade on th...

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New pod: Under Project 2025, an army of Trump loyalists would deeply corrupt information gathering by the government and turn it into little more than pro-Trump propaganda. We dig deep into this with @volts.wtf, who is highly illuminating on the dangers here: newrepublic.com/article/1832...

MAGA’s Eruptions of Rage at CNN Reveal Why Project 2025 Is So Ominousnewrepublic.com With MAGA enraged at the very idea of fact-checking Trump, a leading critic of our discourse explains how Project 2025 would help MAGA transform the government into a weapon against truth.

Today on Volts: the IRA contains substantial, easily accessible direct-pay tax credits for climate-friendly infrastructure upgrades at public schools -- but most public schools don't know about them. I talk with some folks trying to spread the word.

Hey schools, go get your IRA tax credits!www.volts.wtf Sara Ross and Jonathan Klein of UndauntedK12 discuss their efforts to spread the word about the IRA's easily accessible financial assistance to schools, in the form of direct-pay tax credits for clima...

Today on Volts: more heat pumps! I talk with the founder of Harvest about the advantages of coupling a heat pump with a giant thermal battery (a big water tank) so that electricity consumption can be time-shifted, lowering costs & emissions. www.volts.wtf/p/heat-pumps...

Heat pumps with thermal batterieswww.volts.wtf Jane Melia, co-founder and CEO of Harvest, discusses the advantages of teaming a high-end eat pump with a large thermal battery, to coordinate the timing of electricity consumption. Shifting the heat ...

Today on Volts: Have you heard about Kathy Hochul's catastrophically stupid decision to suspend NYC congestion pricing? Well it's even stupider than you've heard. I dig in to the details & ramifications with state senator Liz Krueger & transpo wonk Justin Balik. www.volts.wtf/p/new-yorks-...

New York's congestion pricing fiascowww.volts.wtf New York City was on the cusp of (finally) implementing a congestion pricing program when Governor Kathy Hochul announced earlier this month that it would be “indefinitely delayed.” NY State Sen. Liz ...

Today on Volts: I talk with someone who is building electric aircraft, both a small plane & an EVTOL. This is one of my all-time favorite conversations, absolutely packed with interesting details & hope. www.volts.wtf/p/whats-up-w...

What's up with electric aviation?www.volts.wtf CEO Kyle Clark of BETA Technologies walks us through the details of how to design, build, and operate electric planes — first for relatively short light-cargo flights, but eventually, he says, for all...

Today on Volts: Last week I interviewed Washington's governor, Jay Inslee, on stage at a live event in Seattle. We talked about Washington's fantastic climate policy, what remains to be done in the state, and the new threat to his greatest accomplishment. www.volts.wtf/p/washington...

Washington Governor Jay Inslee on his last big climate fightwww.volts.wtf In this episode, recorded at a live event, Inslee discusses his multiple decades of climate advocacy, his political successes, and the upcoming threat to one of his crowning achievements.

Today on Volts: Brett Christophers stirred up a lot of controversy & discussion with his book The Price Is Wrong, which argues that renewables aren't profitable enough to scale with private money. He & I go deep on the details. Extremely deep.

Are markets the right tool for decarbonizing electricity?www.volts.wtf In his book The Price Is Wrong, Brett Christophers argues that, contrary to recent economic triumphalism among renewables advocates, wind and solar are not profitable enough to attract the private cap...

Today on Volts: I talk with an AI scholar & practitioner about the ways that machine learning & AI can help the fight against climate change. What exactly can AI do to reduce emissions? What *can't* it do? And what about all those data centers?

Wrapping our heads around AI and climatewww.volts.wtf Alp Kucukelbir, co-author of a recent “Artificial Intelligence for Climate Change Mitigation Roadmap,” discusses the strengths and limits of AI in relation to climate, where it all might be headed, an...

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New in PN: @volts.wtf sounds off on the 2024 campaign "We have this lying, abusive, obviously nutbag figure, and we can’t acknowledge to ourselves what’s happening. The political commentariat is trying so hard to process this into a normal thing that they’re familiar with."

David Roberts on why this campaign is driving him crazywww.publicnotice.co "We’re in a situation where we have this lying, abusive, obviously nutbag figure, and we can’t acknowledge to ourselves what’s happening."

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"These are awful people who like imposing cruelty on out groups and blaming them for all their problems. You can process that into a political 'position,' but really these are just shitty people, even if you can't say that out loud." -- @volts.wtf

Today on Volts: a half-billion people in Africa lack access to electricity, and that number is growing, not shrinking. Today I talk with someone trying to work out a business model that can unlock rapid growth in minigrids for bottom-up electrification.

Making mini-grids work in sub-Saharan Africawww.volts.wtf Mini-grids are the fastest way to get electricity to the half billion people on the African continent who still lack access. But deployment has been moving too slowly, mainly because current business ...

Today on Volts: a mailbag episode for paid subscribers, in which I discuss e-bikes, fossil fuel subsidies, the follies of environmental funders, utility regulatory structures, and more. www.volts.wtf/p/mailbag-ep...

Mailbag episode - May 2024www.volts.wtf I answer subscriber questions about e-bikes, fossil fuel subsidies, utility regulation options, and being wrong.

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Any podcast episode featuring @chrislhayes.bsky.social plus @volts.wtf is basically an automatic share. It's wild to be reminded that the US is producing more oil than ever, more than any other country in the world (nearly 2x as much as Saudi Arabia) podcastindex.org/podcast/6770...

Why Is This Happening? The Chris Hayes Podcast | The Stakes for Climate and Energy with David Roberts | Podcastindex.orgpodcastindex.org We’re back with another episode of our WITHpod 2024: The Stakes series, in which we choose specific areas of policy and talk to an expert about Trump and Biden’s records on the topic. This week, we’re discussing what’s at stake for an area of top salience: climate and energy. There’s a lot to unpack. David Roberts is the founder of the Volts podcast, newsletter and community. He joins WITHpod to discuss the Biden administration’s record action on climate, rollbacks that would be likely during a second Trump term, why this moment is such an inflection point and mo

Today on Volts: making steel generates ~10% of global carbon emissions. Now a new startup, Boston Metal, promises steel with no combustion, no emissions, & no waste. The process, "molten oxide electrolysis," runs on clean electricity! Love it.

Making carbon-free steel with clean electricitywww.volts.wtf Steel production generates almost 10% of global carbon emissions and has long been considered “hard to abate.” Enter Boston Metal, a startup that aims to make carbon-free steel using only (sing it wit...

Today on Volts: I talk with transmission guru @robgramlichdc.bsky.social about the new transmission-planning rule from FERC, the recent transmission announcements from the Biden admin., and what still remains to be done by Congress. Lots of hot transmission action!

FERC's new rule and other exciting transmission newswww.volts.wtf Rob Gramlich of Grid Strategies comes back on the pod to discuss the suddenly sizzling transmission world, where both President Biden and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission have recently announc...

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Appreciate that @chrislhayes.bsky.social made climate impacts simple: > more heat, hotter ocean > hotter ocean, stronger hurricanes > stronger hurricanes, worse impacts Also appreciate him featuring @volts.wtf talking about Biden’s climate policies. We need an IRA2: www.volts.wtf/p/getting-re...

Getting ready for IRA 2www.volts.wtf In his recent role as Chief Advisor for the Clean Energy Transition in the White House Office of Science and Technology, Costa Samaras helped roadmap the cleantech future laid out by Democrats’ legisl...

Today on Volts: heat pumps are great! But sometimes, let's be real, they can be a hassle to buy & install & their design is utilitarian at best. A new startup called Quilt is trying to sex them up a bit. I talk w/ CEO Paul Lambert.

Making heat pumps better, easier, and a little sexierwww.volts.wtf In this episode, I talk with CEO Paul Lambert of startup Quilt, which came out of stealth this week with heat pumps that are not ugly. They perform well too, and are easy to buy and install, but mostl...

Today on Volts: I talk to Lorenzo Kristov about his vision of a bottom-up energy system built around local distributed energy. Kristov is on my personal energy Mt. Rushmore -- few people have influenced my thinking more -- so I really treasured this one.

Envisioning a more democratic, bottom-up energy systemwww.volts.wtf California electricity guru Lorenzo Kristov shares his vision of a just, democratic, “bottom-up” grid based in distributed local energy.

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Enna Kros

Screen capture of A Happy Mother's Day thread from David Roberts aka Dr. Volts @volts.wtf

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David Roberts

Super interesting; have you ever thought how weird it is that Climate Change is rarely mentioned at all in movies and on TV? David Roberts talks to Anna Jane Joyner who's organisation, Good Energy, is working to make climate a part of the cultural conversation.

Today on Volts: climate awareness & anxiety are rising, especially among young people, but climate change remains relatively invisible in TV & film. I talk with Anna Jane Joyner, who is tracking this -- and trying to change it.

How climate change is portrayed in popular culturewww.volts.wtf Climate awareness is growing in the real world, but it remains rare in popular entertainment, as illustrated by some new research on climate in film. In this episode, Anna Jane Joyner discusses the ef...

Today on Volts: last week, EPA finalized new carbon pollution standards for power plants. (At last!) What's in them? How have they changed since the initial proposal? What effect will they have on the market? I dig in with a couple of scholars.

What you need to know about the new EPA power plant standardswww.volts.wtf Grace Van Horn and Jonas Monast of the Center for Applied Environmental Law and Policy do a deep analysis on the EPA’s recently finalized carbon pollution standards for power plants.

Today on Volts: a mailbag episode! I discuss Vox and its alum, peak oil demand, the Aptera, the difficulty of rapid social change, and more. Mailbag episodes are a perk for paid subscribers. Join us!

Mailbag episode - April 2024www.volts.wtf I answer subscriber questions about flow batteries, peak oil demand, my beloved EV, and why it’s so difficult to change society for the better.

Today on Volts: clean energy OG Michael Liebreich joins me to discuss his recent essays on 5 reasons for pessimism about net-zero ... and 5 reasons for optimism. An excellent high-level overview of the state of the energy transition.

The energy transition's 5 supervillains and 5 superheroeswww.volts.wtf At long last, one of clean energy's OGs, Michael Liebreich, has come to Volts. He and I discuss his recent essays on five causes for pessimism about the net-zero transition, alongside five causes for ...

Today on Volts: ground-source (or "geothermal") heat pumps are incredibly efficient, but quite bulky & expensive. I talk with Joselyn Lai of Bedrock Energy about efforts to improve the hardware & software involved to make GHPs work everywhere, even in tight urban spaces.

Making geothermal heat pumps work for big buildingswww.volts.wtf Hardware and software improvements may enable geothermal heat pumps to be installed more quickly and less expensively, even in large commercial and industrial buildings in tight urban spaces. I talk i...

Today on Volts: US electricity demand is on the rise again, after a 20-year plateau. Does that mean utilities need to build new gas plants? No! I discuss better alternatives with Michelle Solomon & Eric Gimon of @energyinnovation.bsky.social.

Rising electricity demand requires new gas plants? Not so fast.www.volts.wtf What’s the best way to handle rising US electricity demand? Contrary to what some large utilities and regulators think, it’s not building new fossil gas plants. In this episode, Eric Gimon and Michell...

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David Roberts

Another thing @volts.wtf and I discuss on this pod is the idea of fossil fuel *militance,* which is different from mere climate change denial. It's the through line connecting Trump's bizarre hatred of wind power, fearmongering about EVs making us vulnerable to China, etc:

We don't talk about this enough, but if Trump wins, he will do everything possible to repeal Biden's climate policies. On the pod, @volts.wtf volts is incredibly informative on how disastrous this would be. He also explains a concept called "petro-masculinity": newrepublic.com/article/1808...

Trump’s Bizarre Rants Over Wind Power Are More Ominous Than You Thinknewrepublic.com If Donald Trump wins the White House again, his love of fossil fuels and hatred of renewable energy could translate into an absolute catastrophe.