Volts David Roberts

In this episode, 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 vehicles with substantially increased range to hit the market within the next few years.


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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 the market. In this episode, co-founders Zach Dell and Justin Lopas discuss their innovative business model and its potential impact in Texas and beyond.


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US public education infrastructure faces significant challenges due to years of deferred maintenance and the growing impacts of climate change. Luckily, the Inflation Reduction Act offers substantial, easily accessible financial assistance to schools in the form of direct-pay tax credits for climate-friendly upgrades. Many schools don’t even know about them. In this episode, Sara Ross and Jonathan Klein of UndauntedK12 discuss their efforts to spread the word.


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In this episode: more heat pumps! 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 pump load can help reduce both costs and emissions.


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

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.” In this episode, NY State Sen. Liz Krueger and Evergreen Action’s Justin Balik, both with deep history in New York’s congestion pricing drama, discuss Hochul’s mysterious and possibly illegal move, the apocalyptic budget implications, and what might happen next.


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In this episode, 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 of aviation. I loved this conversation so much.


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