Castuner

Volts

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

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Episodes

465 episodes

  1. Best of October 2026 14:12
  2. The transformative potential of solid-state transformers 1:31:50
  3. The (climate) case against (AI) data centers 13:30
  4. The PAC taking out clean energy opponents 1:08:09
  5. Building our piece of the electric stack 1:06:27
  6. Can distributed energy work around American utilities? 1:02:38
  7. What’s up with Denmark? 1:03:29
  8. Checking back in with Greenlight America 1:07:02
  9. What’s up with the new federal permitting reform bill? 2:21:06
  10. The grueling fight to pass the Inflation Reduction Act 1:04:34
  11. Best of September 2026 42:38
  12. What’s up with heat-pump water heaters? 1:04:53
  13. Do small residential batteries make sense? 1:05:43
  14. How energy politics work inside DC 14:41
  15. How to build a more flexible, quieter, less obnoxious data center 1:14:47
  16. Building a big, abundant, clean grid 2:00:45
  17. Is there way more conventional geothermal than we thought? 1:04:30
  18. Best of August 2026 45:12
  19. How to respond to disinformation about clean energy, at scale 1:11:49
  20. Could we use Trump's tricks to make good green policy? 1:08:44
  21. Making data centers flexible so they can serve the grid rather than stress it out 53:24
  22. Why can't utilities innovate? 1:11:59
  23. He helped Uruguay decarbonize. Can he help other countries do the same? 1:02:13
  24. Can public EV chargers be as reliable as gas stations? 1:01:56
  25. Another bipartisan housing miracle, this time in Idaho 1:01:48
  26. Grid cybersecurity: how big is the threat & what should we do about it? 1:12:23
  27. What should state policymakers do about data centers? 1:03:26
  28. Best of July 2026 45:46
  29. Silicon anodes for batteries unlock greater energy density and faster charging times 45:50
  30. Should we feel good about the trajectory of clean energy post-Trump? 1:27:50
  31. The US is terrible at building public transit. Here's how to get better. 1:07:41
  32. Making sense of the data center backlash 1:00:38
  33. Spreading the good news about electrification 1:03:05
  34. Want less sprawl and more urban infill? Try a land value tax! 1:09:56
  35. Forcing utilities to justify their distribution-system spending 1:08:14
  36. A key Arizona race will test clean energy's electoral power 55:04
  37. How to keep people cool without making the planet even hotter 1:05:51
  38. America's flagship automaker enters the home energy market 55:55
  39. Can the UK stay the course with its climate plans? 1:01:36
  40. Why is NERC so worried about data centers? 1:13:39
  41. This oil shock won't be like the others 25:40
  42. Are plug-in DERs going to spark a grid revolution? 1:13:47
  43. Giving clean electricity a political voice of its own 1:41:15
  44. A limited defense of Biden's everything-bagel industrial policy 1:08:02
  45. How to phase out residential gas equitably 1:07:45
  46. Sooner than you think, electricity is going to be cheap, abundant, and boring 1:45:39
  47. Telling the story of the grid 33:30
  48. Electrifying industrial steam with heat pumps 1:04:26
  49. The case for using prices rather than VPPs to coordinate distributed energy 1:30:12
  50. Streamlining the difficult work of whole-home retrofits 1:04:02