Question about mailbag pods: very excited about this, but curious about format. Do you plan to simply read questions and answer them? It seems like this is an ideal place to have a second person on board, so they can ask the questions and maybe light/easy follow ups (depending on question and desired depth I suppose). Not sure if this is the plan at volts, but dialogue formats for podcasts are much preferred for me, though I can’t speak for others.
But could you provide an index please? Not a wordy intro list for all the pods (which is already available), but a concise searchable table that lists guest, and three (or more) searchable keywords that identify the discussion topics so that we can pull it up, search on a keywords, and identify all the pods that include those keywords.
Or you could do it manually, go through and keyword all the pods and then just publish a table with links to every pod grouped by keywords.
I'm already a paid subscriber. Unfortunately, my brain does not work for podcasts. (Darned ADHD) However, I'm happy to support your quite reasonable annual subscription. Wishing you further success and I hope your carpal tunnel improves.
Thanks for your great work, and also for your desire to broaden and add depth to the site. I particularly appreciate the Jumpstart initiative, as there will always be newbies, and maybe it can be a primer for those of us who forget something after some time away from it.
David, the work you do on behalf of all of us in the clean energy field is absolutely indispensable. I have personally advanced substantially in my career thanks to your journalism, starting with your multi-part explainer of 24/7 CFE (which is now one of my primary efforts at work!) Looking forward to another great year of clean energy stories!
Yours is my favorite podcast. There's a thoughtfulness that most media today is missing. People do need to hear about the solutions more than ever and your podcast does that extremely well. I will definitely continue to be a paid subscriber.
Thanks for this note, David. I'm a longtime paid subscriber but was glad to see the link for one-time donations. It's a great way to support your work, and I'll gladly chip in. Hopefully others will too so that Volts can keep going. It's been my pick-me-up through the climate doomiest of days, and I'm grateful for all that you do.
Comments should be only open to paid subscribers, but Substack should have an "elevator shoes on the ground floor" low cost paid tier, for those who just want to comment, with a 1 week delay on enabling that feature.
Hi A. Reader -- thanks for the input! Volts is trying something new, the theory being that allowing all subscribers to discuss the content will provide *more value* to everyone. We'll have to revisit this decision if there's a lot of spam or "bad" comments.
I love your podcasts and find all of them fascinating. I have a long background and nearly had a Masters in Engineering but was pushed to go into Medicine. My daughter was an Engineer out of MIT in Building Energy but tragically died in an accident in Tibet while there doing service work. She was the youngest board member of Northeastern Sustainability. I am a member and would love to be more active. I have many ideas for Energy improvement and wonder if you have any ideas for someone who would like to make a late career change. In addition, it would be great to have a podcast covering any advancements in groundsource geothermal HVAC. Most people do not realize how much energy is used to heat and cool buildings. This has the potential of a coefficient of performance of 5. Keep up the great work! I assure you that many people value it and I certainly hope more pitch in.
Thanks, it's a superb idea. Many of us laypeople could use a crash course in a number of somewhat arcane or fast evolving subjects. Too easy to get side tracked despite good intentions.
David, your work is an absolute beacon of hope -- SHINE ON! And more power to you, in working to connect people... Looking forward to hearing more from everyone in this space!
Two Things:
1) It is a big jump between a $60 subscription and $300 ---- are you allowed more than three tiers on Substack? Maybe something like $150 in the middle?
2) I'll echo the desire for things to become more searchable. The Jump Start series sounds AWESOME. Tagging and making things searchable in general also come to mind as being desirable/helpful.
Hi Jess -- just want to clarify that the $60/$300 subscription tiers are the exact same in terms of what you get. The $300 tier is just for those who, out of the kindness of their hearts, want to give more :) We'll figure out a way to make this more explicit moving forward! And we hear you on searchability, it's on the roadmap
Hi! I think it's very clear, actually. Not to worry about that! I meant that might be a large jump in terms of the actual dollar amount for folks. Maybe you would catch a few more people at a higher dollar level than $60 with an intermediary option between that and $300. Thanks for the reply -- and the chance to clarify!
I think y'all both missed something! (It's very easy to miss.) That $300 is just a suggestion. If you look closely you'll notice that you can put whatever figure you want into that High Voltage box -- anything between $60 and $300, or higher.
Ah! Yes, that is how it was when I initially signed up, and it was very clear there. When I just went to up my subscription (via "manage your subscription"), it was not clear and I thought that option was gone. I just tested it --- you can click into the $300, but there's nothing there saying that you can. You probably catch the vast majority of people with your initial sign up. But perhaps there would be some way to make that more clear via "manage subscription"... I don't know how much Substack lets you tool around with that...
Hi Dave, Thankyou for Volts, It's great and I listen to you and Micheal Liebreight (Cleaning Up) and Christiana Figures ( Outrage and Optimism) from the UK. you're the best three podcasts . I'm baby boomer with five grandchildren and live in country with good ambition and no plans ( Conservative Government, a bit too much like the Republicans). With a good friend we run a Climate Change group locally (Farnham Surrey) . A good books list and a good podcasts list ( some of which you have included already but with less US centric view would be really helpful. Happy to contribute books.....Keep up the good work!!! Philip O
I'm just starting out with a pre-production wind turbine as the base for a small hybrid power system that is simple, designed for grid-independent homesteads and grid-challenged areas (including the Global South). My vision for Seraph Power is not just to think Green, but to "Do Green"(TM). I'm putting together a crowdfunding campaign to get to the next steps. I'll do my best to keep you updated, since I think we share many of the same goals.
I love you too.
Question about mailbag pods: very excited about this, but curious about format. Do you plan to simply read questions and answer them? It seems like this is an ideal place to have a second person on board, so they can ask the questions and maybe light/easy follow ups (depending on question and desired depth I suppose). Not sure if this is the plan at volts, but dialogue formats for podcasts are much preferred for me, though I can’t speak for others.
Tom -- still refining the format, your input is noted!
I should say: thanks for these three years! Excellent podcast that I get excited about listening to every episode!
But could you provide an index please? Not a wordy intro list for all the pods (which is already available), but a concise searchable table that lists guest, and three (or more) searchable keywords that identify the discussion topics so that we can pull it up, search on a keywords, and identify all the pods that include those keywords.
Or you could do it manually, go through and keyword all the pods and then just publish a table with links to every pod grouped by keywords.
Noted! Lots of improvements like this incoming
I'm already a paid subscriber. Unfortunately, my brain does not work for podcasts. (Darned ADHD) However, I'm happy to support your quite reasonable annual subscription. Wishing you further success and I hope your carpal tunnel improves.
Thanks for your great work, and also for your desire to broaden and add depth to the site. I particularly appreciate the Jumpstart initiative, as there will always be newbies, and maybe it can be a primer for those of us who forget something after some time away from it.
David, the work you do on behalf of all of us in the clean energy field is absolutely indispensable. I have personally advanced substantially in my career thanks to your journalism, starting with your multi-part explainer of 24/7 CFE (which is now one of my primary efforts at work!) Looking forward to another great year of clean energy stories!
Yours is my favorite podcast. There's a thoughtfulness that most media today is missing. People do need to hear about the solutions more than ever and your podcast does that extremely well. I will definitely continue to be a paid subscriber.
Thanks for this note, David. I'm a longtime paid subscriber but was glad to see the link for one-time donations. It's a great way to support your work, and I'll gladly chip in. Hopefully others will too so that Volts can keep going. It's been my pick-me-up through the climate doomiest of days, and I'm grateful for all that you do.
Comments should be only open to paid subscribers, but Substack should have an "elevator shoes on the ground floor" low cost paid tier, for those who just want to comment, with a 1 week delay on enabling that feature.
Hi A. Reader -- thanks for the input! Volts is trying something new, the theory being that allowing all subscribers to discuss the content will provide *more value* to everyone. We'll have to revisit this decision if there's a lot of spam or "bad" comments.
Or, maybe this is silly and low ROI. Probably only a thing that matters if tons of people are commenting.
I made a donation outside Substack as mentioned in point 2, above. Do I need to send a receipt to Sam or something?
You'll be added to the paid subs list in the next few days!
I love your podcasts and find all of them fascinating. I have a long background and nearly had a Masters in Engineering but was pushed to go into Medicine. My daughter was an Engineer out of MIT in Building Energy but tragically died in an accident in Tibet while there doing service work. She was the youngest board member of Northeastern Sustainability. I am a member and would love to be more active. I have many ideas for Energy improvement and wonder if you have any ideas for someone who would like to make a late career change. In addition, it would be great to have a podcast covering any advancements in groundsource geothermal HVAC. Most people do not realize how much energy is used to heat and cool buildings. This has the potential of a coefficient of performance of 5. Keep up the great work! I assure you that many people value it and I certainly hope more pitch in.
Thanks, it's a superb idea. Many of us laypeople could use a crash course in a number of somewhat arcane or fast evolving subjects. Too easy to get side tracked despite good intentions.
David, your work is an absolute beacon of hope -- SHINE ON! And more power to you, in working to connect people... Looking forward to hearing more from everyone in this space!
Two Things:
1) It is a big jump between a $60 subscription and $300 ---- are you allowed more than three tiers on Substack? Maybe something like $150 in the middle?
2) I'll echo the desire for things to become more searchable. The Jump Start series sounds AWESOME. Tagging and making things searchable in general also come to mind as being desirable/helpful.
And also -----
3) YOU'RE THE BEST!!!
4) WELCOME SAM!!! :)
Hi Jess -- just want to clarify that the $60/$300 subscription tiers are the exact same in terms of what you get. The $300 tier is just for those who, out of the kindness of their hearts, want to give more :) We'll figure out a way to make this more explicit moving forward! And we hear you on searchability, it's on the roadmap
Hi! I think it's very clear, actually. Not to worry about that! I meant that might be a large jump in terms of the actual dollar amount for folks. Maybe you would catch a few more people at a higher dollar level than $60 with an intermediary option between that and $300. Thanks for the reply -- and the chance to clarify!
I think y'all both missed something! (It's very easy to miss.) That $300 is just a suggestion. If you look closely you'll notice that you can put whatever figure you want into that High Voltage box -- anything between $60 and $300, or higher.
I should probably make that more clear somehow!
Ah! Yes, that is how it was when I initially signed up, and it was very clear there. When I just went to up my subscription (via "manage your subscription"), it was not clear and I thought that option was gone. I just tested it --- you can click into the $300, but there's nothing there saying that you can. You probably catch the vast majority of people with your initial sign up. But perhaps there would be some way to make that more clear via "manage subscription"... I don't know how much Substack lets you tool around with that...
Hi Dave, Thankyou for Volts, It's great and I listen to you and Micheal Liebreight (Cleaning Up) and Christiana Figures ( Outrage and Optimism) from the UK. you're the best three podcasts . I'm baby boomer with five grandchildren and live in country with good ambition and no plans ( Conservative Government, a bit too much like the Republicans). With a good friend we run a Climate Change group locally (Farnham Surrey) . A good books list and a good podcasts list ( some of which you have included already but with less US centric view would be really helpful. Happy to contribute books.....Keep up the good work!!! Philip O
I'm just starting out with a pre-production wind turbine as the base for a small hybrid power system that is simple, designed for grid-independent homesteads and grid-challenged areas (including the Global South). My vision for Seraph Power is not just to think Green, but to "Do Green"(TM). I'm putting together a crowdfunding campaign to get to the next steps. I'll do my best to keep you updated, since I think we share many of the same goals.
How much in Canadian dollars?