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Spreading the good news about electrification Jul 15, 2026

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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

Want less sprawl and more urban infill? Try a land value tax! Jul 10, 2026

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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? 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

Forcing utilities to justify their distribution-system spending Jul 08, 2026

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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

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

A key Arizona race will test clean energy's electoral power Jul 01, 2026

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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

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.

How to keep people cool without making the planet even hotter Jun 24, 2026

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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.

America's flagship automaker enters the home energy market Jun 19, 2026

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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

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.

Can the UK stay the course with its climate plans? Jun 17, 2026

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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

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.

Why is NERC so worried about data centers? Jun 10, 2026

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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 abruptly drop hundreds of megawatts of power in the blink of an eye. We dive into the upcoming regulatory battle between hyperscalers and operators, the sudden rush for firm gas generation, and how software updates and battery storage could eventually make data centers a tool for grid stability instead of a liability.

This oil shock won't be like the others Jun 05, 2026

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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 massive global diffusion of cheap electrotech and discuss why American climate wonks need to look past domestic policy and start paying attention to international macroeconomics.

Are plug-in DERs going to spark a grid revolution? Jun 03, 2026

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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

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-in DERs — specifically, small batteries that commercial tenants can install without permits or landlord sign-offs. We explore the economics behind these micro-projects, look at how they aggregate into virtual power plants, and break down why this hyper-local approach could eventually outcompete massive utility infrastructure.

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