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Volts: Daily Summaries Delivered
by David Roberts
Volts is a podcast about leaving fossil fuels behind. I've been reporting on and explaining clean-energy topics for almost 20 years, and I love talking to politicians, analysts, innovators, and activists about the latest progress in the world's most important fight.
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- Today45 min
Silicon anodes for batteries unlock greater energy density and faster charging times
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/subscribeMaterials in lithium-ion battery cathodes have continuously evolved since the 1990s, but anodes have stubbornly remained graphite. Now, finally, there’s some innovation on that side: silicon anodes, which engineers have struggled to master for a decade, are finally coming into wide commercialization. They enable up to five times the energy density of graphite anodes, charge many times faster, and are poised to revolutionize the battery market. In this episode, I talk with Rick Costantino, co-founder and CTO of Group14, which is selling a silicon-carbon composite material for anodes. They’re already selling to dozens of large battery manufacturers and expect silicon anodes to completely take over the market by 2030.Chapters:00:00 – Introduction and the graphite anode problem01:54 – Why silicon, and why it kept failing06:26 – From pharma to batteries: Rick's path09:24 – How SCC55 works: silicon in a carbon scaffold14:38 – The payoff: energy density and charge speed18:59 – A drop-in material, and scaling in South Korea21:11 – Where the batteries go: phones, EVs, drones24:29 – Cost versus graphite26:20 – Cycle life, calendar life, and safety31:26 – Supply chain and the silane bottleneck36:26 – Pairing with LFP, DOE support, and phones40:30 – Bringing the cost down, and competitors43:27 – The five-year outlook
- 2 days ago1h 27m
Should we feel good about the trajectory of clean energy post-Trump?
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/subscribeThe Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) established substantial tax credits for wind and solar power. Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) eliminated those tax credits. How much damage did that do to the overall trajectory of clean energy in the post-Trump world? A new research commentary argues that the damage was less than many had feared and that the road forward for clean energy is less about restoring those credits than about easing the permitting and interconnection constraints inhibiting renewable energy. Today I talk with author Lily Bermel about the modeling her commentary is based on and the somewhat controversial conclusions she draws from it.Chapters:00:00 The IRA, the OBBBA, and the case for optimism03:25 OBBBA - Why Bermel ran the analysis05:50 The headline numbers: 74, 71, 6708:07 Decomposing clean: solar and batteries hold, wind takes the hit12:14 The lag analysis, and the 'glass half full' perspective15:27 2.8 gigatons, and losses you can't get back18:01 The third scenario, and Trump I versus Trump II21:49 What the model leaves out: manufacturing, LPO, loans23:07 Interior's permitting campaign against wind and solar27:22 The demand surge and behind-the-meter gas32:15 Nuclear restarts, geothermal, and clean firm35:31 Booms, busts, and the electrification wave42:22Transmission, interconnection, and the ceiling46:41 Tax credits versus permitting reform51:46 Durability, polarization, and preemptive surrender60:01 Can enough storage make renewables firm?66:48 Grid utilization versus building new grid70:52 Final reflections: 2021, and what Bermel would do with a trifecta
- 1 weeks ago1h 7m
The US is terrible at building public transit. Here's how to get 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/subscribeAmerica once led the world in building transit and now leads the world in what transit costs, roughly three times the international average per mile, measured not against authoritarian megaprojects but against Italy, Spain, and Japan. On this episode of Volts, David Roberts talks with Will Poff-Webster of the Institute for Progress, who put together the new Transit Abundance Playbook, and Stephanie Pollack, former head of the Massachusetts Department of Transportation and former acting administrator of the Federal Highway Administration. Their argument is that the costs are a policy choice: federal funding rules teach transit agencies to plan on a napkin and do the real work years later, to hire the lowest bidder over the one they know will deliver, and to defer to anyone holding a veto, while highways operate under looser versions of the same rules. As Pollack puts it, "if you hate transit, you should spend less on it." A surface transportation reauthorization bill is coming, and two of the playbook's proposals have already reached the House version.Chapters:00:00 Introduction: why cars work against cities03:25 Agency culture or federal law: where does the fix come from11:31 Planning: how federal funding enforces bad habits20:10 Overdesign: the Green Line stations and the frequency-first test23:40 Buses: why every agency orders a custom fleet26:53 Procurement: lowest bid versus best value32:56 Veto points and Italy’s conference of services39:56 Permitting: environmental review as a NIMBY tool45:28 State capacity: why consultant brain took over51:46 Labor costs, automation, and Section 13(c)56:19 Is any of this politically achievable?1:03:28 Final question: one reform each
- 1 weeks ago1h 0m
Making sense of the data center backlash
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/subscribeData center opposition has gone from nonexistent to organized in about two years, roughly 120 moratoriums across 38 states, and it does not track proximity: Gallup finds 70% of Americans oppose a data center near them, while only 8% of opponents live near one. On this episode of Volts, David Roberts joins Energy Empire hosts Jigar Shah and Jamie Nolan, along with Arnab Pal of Deploy Action, for a crossover conversation, and his argument is that everyone is solving the wrong problem. The hyperscalers could buy their way to consent for a rounding error, batteries in basements, solar on roofs, funded schools, lower bills, and they refuse, which David reads as a symptom of low social trust that no amount of better modeling touches. “This is not a technocratic problem that you can just solve with a few switches,” he says. Thirty-six governors go to the ballot this fall having to answer for it.Chapters:00:00 Intro: a Volts and Energy Empire crossover01:25 Has the AI case been made? Energy vs. AI as the real revolution04:23 The backlash by the numbers, and hyperscalers' botched PR08:20 Animal spirits, low social trust, and the information environment12:46 Enshittification, lost jobs, and why governors still want data centers15:50 The local playbook: schools, bioswales, batteries in basements17:18 Bespoke industrial rates without setting a bad precedent22:33 How utilities earn: spend-to-earn, the distribution black box, efficiency30:11 Gendering the grid: gas as firm, renewables as soft37:57 NERC's level-three alert and the case for more batteries39:29 Both/and: distributed capacity as serious supply45:33 Abundance's missing half: state capacity, staffing, NEPA48:55 The midterms: 36 governors and the politics of affordability53:33 Hope vs. fear: the Mamdani lesson and the information environment
- 2 weeks ago1h 3m
Spreading the good news about electrification
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/subscribeMost of the energy decisions that touch daily life in America get made in state legislatures, and the people making them are increasingly new to the job. In smaller states, a freshly elected lawmaker gets a pad of paper, no staff, and about 150 lobbyists at the door, then votes on billion-dollar energy budgets in a landscape where the technology changes faster than anyone can track. On this episode of Volts, David Roberts talks with Hawaii state Senator Chris Lee, co-founder of the Electric Innovation Initiative, a bipartisan network betting that education moves electrification faster than mandates: put lawmakers in front of working technology, connect them across state lines, and let affordability carry the argument where climate framing will not. As Lee puts it, "nine times out of ten, people just don't know what they don't know."Chapters:00:00 Introduction03:39 How electrification clicked: the 2008 iPhone moment06:10 The education gap: why the initiative exists11:35 Proxy staff and cross-state validation15:44 What lands on the tours: eVTOL to the data-center win-win20:51 Plain 'electrification': the bipartisan framing bet26:28 Climate hushing and Hawaii's two-track proof30:17 Policy that spreads: e-buses, heat pumps, RFPs37:37 Utility business-model reform: Hawaii's PBR law42:03 Affordability after the federal subsidies45:22 Hawaii under pressure: LNG and the Lahaina grid51:53 State power against federal hostility55:19 The ten-year vision and the closing advice
- 3 weeks ago1h 9m
Want less sprawl and more urban infill? Try a land value tax!
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/subscribeProperty 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? Tax the buildings less and the land more. The idea of a “land value tax” goes back 150 years, but implementing it today involves navigating tricky constitutional issues. In this episode, I talk with Greg Miller of the Center for Land economics about the rationale for such taxes, and with Kitty Klitzke, a Spokane, Washington council member, about the difficulties of putting it in practice in a real city. Chapters:00:00 Introduction03:22 Henry George and the case for taxing land08:12 How property taxes work now, and what a split rate changes11:26 Land value taxes and upzoning as complements15:18 The Pennsylvania record and the reassessment problem18:51 Vancouver, and why homeowners outlast the policy24:03 Estonia, Singapore, and the Scottish Islands26:53 Washington's uniformity clause and the building exemption33:18 Kitty Klitzke on twenty years of Spokane infill43:27 What Spokane needs from the state legislature45:25 Single family homeowners and the Division corridor48:34 The assessor objection52:45 What the Spokane modeling shows59:31 The plan for next session1:01:44 Virginia, Kentucky, and cross-partisan momentum
- 3 weeks ago1h 8m
Forcing utilities to justify their distribution-system spending
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/subscribeMinnesota 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 - Intro: distribution spending as an unscrutinized black box04:27 - How distribution is regulated differently than generation and transmission09:18 - Why distribution matters now: an aging system and the build-more incentive14:22 - Contestable “mandatory” spending: undergrounding, DERMS software, capitalization22:12 - Reliability standards and the cost of chasing 100 percent28:56 - The MISO comparison: valuing a lost hour, and the scale of the numbers35:02 - Non-wires alternatives: batteries, the Xcel project, and modeling gaps40:25 - What regulators should require: AMI forecasts and beyond the prudence test47:16 - The speed objection: does more analysis slow things down?50:04 - Why spending caps and rate freezes are the wrong fix52:33 - Spending more anyway, and recent Minnesota PUC disappointments55:00 - Restructured markets: does the same logic apply?58:32 - The vision of a well-functioning process and scaling it nationally
- Jul 1, 202655 min
A key Arizona race will test clean energy's electoral power
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/subscribeFollowing 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 about how they used disciplined messaging to overcome massive opposition spending and historically abysmal voter turnout. We discuss whether this localized ground game can scale to a massive statewide electorate and help build a durable, nationwide clean energy political machine.
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About Volts
Volts is a podcast about leaving fossil fuels behind. I've been reporting on and explaining clean-energy topics for almost 20 years, and I love talking to politicians, analysts, innovators, and activists about the latest progress in the world's most important fight.
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