Volts

David Roberts
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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. (Volts is entirely subscriber-supported. Sign up!) www.volts.wtf

  1. 16시간 전

    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/subscribe Data 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 crossover 01:25 Has the AI case been made? Energy vs. AI as the real revolution 04:23 The backlash by the numbers, and hyperscalers' botched PR 08:20 Animal spirits, low social trust, and the information environment 12:46 Enshittification, lost jobs, and why governors still want data centers 15:50 The local playbook: schools, bioswales, batteries in basements 17:18 Bespoke industrial rates without setting a bad precedent 22:33 How utilities earn: spend-to-earn, the distribution black box, efficiency 30:11 Gendering the grid: gas as firm, renewables as soft 37:57 NERC's level-three alert and the case for more batteries 39:29 Both/and: distributed capacity as serious supply 45:33 Abundance's missing half: state capacity, staffing, NEPA 48:55 The midterms: 36 governors and the politics of affordability 53:33 Hope vs. fear: the Mamdani lesson and the information environment

  2. 5일 전

    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/subscribe Most 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 Introduction 03:39 How electrification clicked: the 2008 iPhone moment 06:10 The education gap: why the initiative exists 11:35 Proxy staff and cross-state validation 15:44 What lands on the tours: eVTOL to the data-center win-win 20:51 Plain 'electrification': the bipartisan framing bet 26:28 Climate hushing and Hawaii's two-track proof 30:17 Policy that spreads: e-buses, heat pumps, RFPs 37:37 Utility business-model reform: Hawaii's PBR law 42:03 Affordability after the federal subsidies 45:22 Hawaii under pressure: LNG and the Lahaina grid 51:53 State power against federal hostility 55:19 The ten-year vision and the closing advice

  3. 7월 10일

    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/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? 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 Introduction 03:22 Henry George and the case for taxing land 08:12 How property taxes work now, and what a split rate changes 11:26 Land value taxes and upzoning as complements 15:18 The Pennsylvania record and the reassessment problem 18:51 Vancouver, and why homeowners outlast the policy 24:03 Estonia, Singapore, and the Scottish Islands 26:53 Washington's uniformity clause and the building exemption 33:18 Kitty Klitzke on twenty years of Spokane infill 43:27 What Spokane needs from the state legislature 45:25 Single family homeowners and the Division corridor 48:34 The assessor objection 52:45 What the Spokane modeling shows 59:31 The plan for next session 1:01:44 Virginia, Kentucky, and cross-partisan momentum

  4. 7월 8일

    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/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 - How distribution is regulated differently than generation and transmission 09:25 - Why distribution matters now: an aging system and the build-more incentive 14:00 - Contestable “mandatory” spending: undergrounding, DERMS software, capitalization 22:19 - Reliability standards and the cost of chasing 100 percent 28:42 - The MISO comparison: valuing a lost hour, and the scale of the numbers 35:12 - Non-wires alternatives: batteries, the Xcel project, and modeling gaps 40:31 - What regulators should require: AMI forecasts and beyond the prudence test 47:22 - The speed objection: does more analysis slow things down? 50:10 - Why spending caps and rate freezes are the wrong fix 52:40 - Spending more anyway, and recent Minnesota PUC disappointments 55:09 - Restructured markets: does the same logic apply? 58:38 - The vision of a well-functioning process and scaling it nationally

  5. 7월 1일

    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/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 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.

  6. 6월 24일

    How to keep people cool without making the planet even hotter

    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 by RMI’s Ankit Kalanki to unpack the hidden world of AC refrigerants and testing standards, the crucial distinction between lowering temperatures and dehumidifying, new AC technologies on the horizon, and the building and urban design changes that can take some of the pressure off.

  7. 6월 19일

    America's flagship automaker enters the home energy market

    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 navigate a patchwork of 4,000 different utilities, and what it takes to get everyday consumers to see their cars as grid assets.

  8. 6월 17일

    Can the UK stay the course with its climate plans?

    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 under control, even amidst a newly hostile political landscape? In this episode, I talk with the UK’s new climate minister, Katie White, about those challenges and more.

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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. (Volts is entirely subscriber-supported. Sign up!) www.volts.wtf

정보

  • 제작진
    David Roberts
  • 방송 연도
    2021년 - 2026년
  • 에피소드
    434
  • 등급
    무삭제판
  • 저작권
    © David Roberts
  • 웹사이트 보기
    Volts

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